"Why, good heavens, it must be the infernal Injuns, shure as you live! The d—d Red Skins, I reckon, hev jest stampeded that Government-train down the road thar; and they'll all be yer, licketty split, quicker than lightnin', you bet!"
I was wide awake in a second, now. They pushed the horses quickly back into the stable, and shouted to me to seize all the arms and hurry to the station-house. I was not certain, that it was not better to stand by the coach, and "fight it out on that line," come what might; but concluded the stage-men knew more about such encounters than I did, and so followed their directions. Out I tumbled, gathered up all the rifles and revolvers I could lay my hands on, and rushed to the station-house, shouting "Indians! Indians!" Soon the driver and stock-tenders came running in from the stable, as fast as their legs could carry them; and for a few minutes we thought we had the Indians upon us at last, sure enough. The pluck of the party, I must say, was admirable. L. and M. stood to their guns. Nobody thought of flight or surrender. But all quickly resolved, as we grasped our rifles and revolvers, to make the best stand we could, and to fight it out in that shanty, if it took all summer. But presently, as the mules thundered up the road and past us, just as we were about to fire on one of their pursuers, we saw him tumble from his horse all sprawling, as it stumbled across a chuck-hole, and as he gathered himself up heard him break out swearing in good vigorous English, that stamped him as a Pale Face beyond a question. The swearing probably saved his life, however objectionable otherwise, and we were soon at his side. We found him more stunned, than hurt, and presently his comrades succeeded in stopping the herd. They were unable to say what had caused the stampede; but as no Indians appeared, we were soon off on the road again.
These "stampedes" of animals are not uncommon on the Plains, and sometimes prove very embarrassing. A herd of mules, well stampeded, will run for miles, over every thing that opposes them, until they tire themselves thoroughly out. Had we been on the road, they would probably have stampeded our stage-horses—thundering up so behind us—and then there would have been a break-neck race by night, among the Rocky Mountains, that would have been rather exciting, not to say more. It is a favorite trick of the Indians, when they want to steal stock, to stampede them thus at night, and then run off the scattered animals. A large freight-train, that we subsequently heard of, had lost all its mules a few nights before by such a stampede, and been compelled to send back to the nearest settlement for others.
Thence on to the North Platte, our route wound over and between foot-hills and ridges, where the general ascent was indeed perceptible, but never difficult. One by one we flanked the main ranges, and at old Fort Halleck, 8,000 feet above the sea, found a natural depression or cañon through the Mountains, in the absence of which a wagon-road there would be seemingly impossible. It really appeared, as if nature had cleft the range there expressly to accommodate the oncoming future; and we swung through it, and so down to the North Platte, at a steady trot. Here and there, in crossing the ridges, we caught exquisite glimpses of snowy peaks off to the west, and of the far-stretching Laramie Plains off to the east; but the country, as a whole, was barren and desolate. We reached the North Platte just at dusk, having made 104 miles in the last 24 hours. This seemed a good day's drive, considering we were crossing the Rocky Mountains; but it was not quite up to the regular schedule. We had hoped to get down into the Platte valley before dark, but daylight left us before we reached the station. We had caught long stretches of the valley, as we came over the ridges and down the bluffs; but darkness fell so suddenly, we saw little of it close at hand. Parts of it, we were told, are well adapted to farming, and nearly all of it could be made cultivable by proper irrigation; but it seemed too cold for anything but grass, and the more hardy cereals. No doubt it could be made available for grazing purposes, and the cañons of the neighboring Mountains would afford shelter and grass for winter. Antelope and elk were reported quite abundant still in the valley. We saw a herd of antelope feeding quietly, a mile away, soon after we struck the valley, and at the station they gave us elk-steaks for dinner—"fried," of course, as usual. Gold was reported in the Mountains beyond, but little had been done there yet in the way of mining. No doubt the Rocky Mountains are penetrated nearly everywhere by gold-bearing veins, and where these crop out, and water runs, "placer mines"—more or less lucrative—will be found. We found the North Platte a very considerable stream, though readily fordable then and there. It had already come a long distance through and out of the Mountains, and now struck eastward by Fort Laramie, for its long journey through the Plains to the Missouri. What a delightfully lazy, dreamy, lotus-eating voyage it would be, to embark upon its waters in an Indian canoe, far up among the Mountains, and float thence day by day, and week after week, adown the Missouri, via the Mississippi, to the sea!
At North Platte, we changed our mountain mud-wagon, for a coach lighter and less top-heavy still, and pushed on continuing to ascend. We left Colorado near Fort Halleck, and were now in Wyoming. At Bridger's Pass, we were at last fairly across the Rocky Mountains—had left the east and the Atlantic slope behind us—and turned our faces fully Pacificwards. The North Platte was the last stream flowing east, and about 3 a. m., after leaving it we struck the headwaters of Bitter Creek, a tributary of Green River, that flows thence via the great Rio Colorado and the Gulf of California two thousand miles away to the Pacific. The Rocky Mountains, the great water-shed of the continent, were thus over and past; but we had crossed the summit so easily we were not aware of it, until our driver informed us. Our first introduction to the Pacific slope was hardly an agreeable one. At our great elevation the night was bitterly cold, and we had shivered through its long hours, in spite of our blankets and buffalo-robes. Routed out at 3 a. m., for breakfast, we straggled into the stage-station at Sulphur Springs, cold and cross, to find only dirty alkali water to wash in, and the roughest breakfast on the table we had seen yet, since leaving the States. Coffee plain, saleratus-biscuit hot, and salt pork fried—only this and nothing more—made up the charming variety, and we bolted it all, I fear, as surlily as bears. A confused recollection of cold, and discomfort, and misery, is all that remains in my memory now of that wretched station at Sulphur Springs, and may I never see the like again!
Long before daylight we were off on the road again, and now had fairly entered the Desert of the Mountains, the famous or infamous "Bitter Creek Country," accursed of all who cross the continent. Here, when the sun got fairly up, the sharp keen winds of the night hours changed to hot sirocco breezes, that laden with the alkali dust there became absolutely stifling. Alkali or soda—the basis of common soap—abounds throughout all this region for two or three hundred miles, and literally curses all nature everywhere. It destroys all vegetation, except sage-brush and grease-wood, and exterminates all animals, except cayotes and Indians. The Indians even mostly desert the country, and how the cayotes manage to "get on" is a wonder and astonishment. The wheels of our coach whirled the alkali into our faces by day and by night, in a fine impalpable dust, that penetrated everywhere—eyes, ears, nose, mouth—and made all efforts at personal cleanliness a dismal failure. The only results of our frequent ablutions were chapped hands and tender faces—our noses, indeed, quite peeling off. In many places the alkali effloresced from the soil, and at a little distance looked like hoar-frost. It polluted the streams, giving the water a dirty milky hue and disgusting taste, and in very dry seasons makes such streams rank poison to man and beast. The plains of Sodom and Gomorrah, after the vengeance of Jehovah smote them, could not have been much worse than this Desert of the Mountains; and good John Pierpont must certainly have had some such region in his mind's eye, when he wrote so felicitously:
"There the gaunt wolf sits on his rock and howls,
And there in painted pomp the savage Indian prowls."
One wretched day, while traversing this region, one of our passengers, from whom we expected better things, unable to "stand the pressure" longer, indulged too freely in Colorado whiskey; and that night we had to fight the delirium tremens, as well. He tried several times to jump out of the coach, and made the night hideous with his screams; but we succeeded finally in getting him down under one of the seats, and thus carried him safely along. As if to add to our misfortunes, soon after midnight one of our thorough-braces broke, and then we had to go humping along on the axle-tree for ten or twelve miles, until we reached the next station. This no doubt was a good antidote to John Barleycorn; but it scarcely improved our impressions of "Bitter Creek."
At Laclede, in the heart of the Bitter Creek Country, we halted one day for dinner, and were agreeably surprised by getting a very good one. This station had once been famed for the poorness of its fare, and so great were the complaints of passengers, that Mr. Holliday resolved to take charge of this and several others himself. He imported flour and vegetables from Denver or Salt Lake, and employed hunters on the Platte to shoot antelope and elk, and deliver them along at these stations as required. The groceries, of course, had all to come from the Missouri or the Pacific. We found a tidy, middle-aged, Danish woman in charge at Laclede—a Mormon imported from Salt Lake—and she gave us the best meal we had eaten since leaving Laporte or Denver. We complimented her on the table, and on the general cleanliness and neatness of the station; and she seemed much gratified, as she had a right to be.
Our ride through the Bitter Creek region, as a whole, however, was thoroughly detestable, and how the slow-moving emigrant and freight trains ever managed to traverse it was surprising. The bleaching bones of horses, mules, and oxen whitened every mile of it, and the very genius of desolation seemed to brood over the landscape. Nevertheless, the station-keepers averred, there were cañons back of the bluffs, where grass grew freely; and they pointed to their winter's supply of hay in stack, as proof of this. So, too, at Black Buttes station, we found good bituminous coal burning in a rude grate, and were shown a bluff a hundred yards away where it was mined. Elsewhere we heard of petroleum "showing" well, and one day I suggested to our driver, that as the Creator never made anything uselessly, there must be some compensation here after all.