Being together once more we hid our animals among the cedars, and selected our camp with care, as it was night. Our hunters had been successful, after a chase of ten miles, in getting the buffalo; they had a hard and hazardous fight with the wounded animal, and it took them till after dark before they could get what buffalo meat they could carry on their horses. They also had a very severe night of it; but the lost were found, and with plenty of buffalo meat in camp we were thankful.
We broiled and ate, boiled and ate and ate raw liver, and marrow out of the bones; for be known that men in the condition we were, with severe hunger, do not always realize how much they have eaten until they eat too much. So it was with us. When we were through with the meal, we prepared to "jerk" the remainder of the beef, but before that was done my three companions were attacked with vomiting and purging; then followed chills and cramps, and for about four or five hours it seemed they might all die. I could not say which would go first, and the previous night's experience was reiterated. I confess that I had been guilty of as much folly and unreason as they, but being more robust than the others, I could endure more than they; but I had the very same kind of an attack as they did, before the journey was over.
When morning came, a sicker and a harder looking lot of men seldom is seen in the mountains. Yet we must travel, so passed through that canyon out onto an open plain, leaving the creek to the south of us. In the afternoon we came to a smooth clay grade, on which were fresh horse and moccasin tracks, and four large capital letters, in English; I think they were N, W, H and E. We concluded they had been marked out with a sharp stick, but not in a manner intelligible to us, so we were suspicious and cautiously pushed on to a place of shelter and rest.
It was on the 1st day of June that we reached the Middle Ferry on Green River, Green River County, Utah. There we met with W. I. Appleby, probate judge, Hosea Stout, prosecuting attorney, William Hickman, sheriff, Captain Hawley, the ferryman, and his family and some others. They did not have to be told what we most needed, but supplied with liberal hand our necessities, for all were aware that the object of our mission had been to protect just such as they, and the innocent immigrants, and their property, from not only the raids of the red men, but also from the more wicked and baser white brigands.
We rested at Green River until the 4th of June, when my fellow missionaries left for Fort Supply. I remained as interpreter, and to fill our appointment with Chief Washakie, who was to be at the ferry by July 15.
CHAPTER XLIII.
ENGAGED AS INTERPRETER—CLASS OF PEOPLE AT GREEN RIVER—APPOINTED DEPUTY SHERIFF—DROVER THREATENS TO KILL BOATMEN—ARREST ORDERED—RIDE INTO THE OUTLAWS' CAMP—BLUFFING THE CAPTAIN—A PERILOUS SITUATION—PARLEY WITH DROVERS—COMPROMISE EFFECTED—DEALING WITH LAW-BREAKERS—"BILL" HICKMAN AS SHERIFF—SWIMMING CATTLE OVER GREEN RIVER—A DROVER'S FAILURE—WRITER EMPLOYED TO GET CATTLE OVER—HOW IT IS DONE—SECRET OF SUCCESS—ARRIVAL OF WASHAKIE—THE FERRYMAN OFFENDS HIM—THE ANGRY INDIAN SWEARS VENGEANCE ON THE WHITE MAN—HIS PARTING THREAT—IN PERIL OF AN INDIAN MASSACRE.
AS I had become a fairly good interpreter, the ferry company proposed to pay my board at Green River while I stayed, as there was no one else there who could converse with the Indians. The country was new and wild, and while there were some very good people, the road was lined with California immigrants and drovers, many of them of a very rough class, to say the best of them. They would camp a day or two on the river, and drink, gamble and fight; then the traders and rough mountain men, half-caste Indians, French and Spaniards, were numerous; there were also blacksmith and repair shops, whisky saloons, gambling tables, and sometimes there would be a perfect jam of wagons and cattle, and two or three hundred men. There were quarrels and fights, and often men would be shot or stabbed. As the court had been organized only about two months, it was almost impossible for the sheriff or any other officer to serve a writ or order of court, unless he had a posse to back him. Sometimes the ferryman at the Upper Ferry would be run off his post, and a company of mountain men would run the ferry and take the money, and it would require every man that was on the side of law and order to back the officer. In this situation I, though a missionary, was summoned to take charge of a posse of men to assist the sheriff in making arrests.
One time there came a man with four thousand head of cattle. He crossed the river, passed down about four miles and camped under a steep sand bluff. He had missed a calf, and sent a man back for it. A small party of Indians, passing along that way, had picked up the animal and carried it off, supposing that the drovers had abandoned it. The man who had been sent for the calf, not finding it, rode up to the ferry and demanded the animal of the boatmen. These told him they did not have his calf, whereupon he swore at them, called them liars and thieves, and threatened to kill them, at the same time leveling his double-barreled shotgun at them.
Judge Appleby happened to be standing within a few feet of the boatmen, and heard the whole conversation. He ordered the sheriff to take the man, dead or alive. The sheriff summoned me to his aid, and we started at once for the culprit. When we got to within four rods of him he called out, "Do you want anything of me, gentlemen?" The sheriff said, "Yes; I am the sheriff, and you are my prisoner." The man being on horseback, defied the sheriff and fled. We fired two shots in the air, thinking he would surrender, but he did not, and the sheriff pressed into service the horses of two immigrants near by, and he and I pursued the fugitive, following him about four miles, where we suddenly came upon his camp of twenty-four men, armed with double-barrelled shotguns.