Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, etc., part 1, May 21-October 16, 1839

by Thomas Jefferson Farnham

It was prepared for packing as follows: the fleece was cut across the grain into slices an eighth of an inch in thickness, and spread upon a scaffolding of poles, and dried and smoked over a slow fire. While we were engaged in this process, information came that three of Mr. Bent's mules had escaped. The probability was that they had gone to the guardianship of our neighbours, the Caws. This was a misfortune to our honourable intention of restoring them to their lawful owners. Search was immediately ordered in the Indian camp and elsewhere for them. It was {71} fruitless. The men returned with no very favourable account of their reception by the Caws, and were of opinion that farther search would be in vain. Being disposed to try my influence with the principal chief, I gave orders to raise the camp and follow the Santa Féans, without reference to my return, and mounting my horse, in company with three men, sought his lodge. The wigwams were deserted, save by a few old women and squalid children, who were wallowing in dirt and grease, and regaling themselves upon the roasted intestines of the buffalo. I inquired for the chiefs, for the mules, whether they themselves were human or bestial; for, on this point, there was room for doubt: to all which inquiries, they gave an appropriate grunt. But no chief or other person could be found, on whom any responsibility could be thrown in regard to the lost mules. And after climbing the heights to view the plains, and riding from band to band of His Darkness's quadrupeds for three hours in vain, we returned to our camp sufficiently vexed for all purposes of comfort.

Yet this was only the beginning of the misfortunes of the day. During my absence, one of those petty bickerings, so common {72} among men released from the restraints of society and law, had arisen between two of the most quarrelsome of the company, terminating in the accidental wounding of one of them. It occurred, as I learned in the following manner: a dispute arose between the parties as to their relative moral honesty in some matter, thing, or act in the past. And as this was a question of great perplexity in their own minds, and doubt in those of others, words ran high and abusive, till some of the men, more regardful of their duty than these warriors, began preparations to strike the tent. The redoubtable combatants were within it; and as the cords were loosed, and its folds began to swing upon the centre pole, the younger of the braves, filled with wrath at his opponent, attempted to show how terrible his ire would be if once let loose among his muscles. For this purpose, it would seem he seized the muzzle of his rifle with every demonstration of might, &c., and attempted to drag it from among the baggage. The hammer of the lock caught, and sent the contents of the barrel into his side. Every thing was done for the wounded man that his condition required, and our circumstances permitted. Doctor Walworth, {73} of the Santa Fé caravan, then eight miles in advance, returned, examined, and dressed the wound, and furnished a carriage for the invalid. During the afternoon the high chief of the Caws also visited us; and by introducing discoloured water into the upper orifice, and watching its progress through, ascertained that the ball had not entered the cavity. But notwithstanding that our anxieties about the life of Smith[45] were much lessened by the assurances of Dr. Walworth, and our friend the Chief, yet we had others of no less urgent nature, on which we were called to act. We were on the hunting-ground of the Caws. They were thieves; and after the Santa Fé traders should have left the neighbourhood, they would without scruple use their superior force in appropriating to themselves our animals, and other means of continuing our journey. The Pawnees, too, were daily expected. The Cumanches were prowling about the neighbourhood. To remain, therefore, in our present encampment, until Smith could travel without pain and danger, was deemed certain death to all. To travel on in a manner as comfortable to the invalid, as our {74} condition would permit—painful to him and tedious to us though it should be—appeared therefore the only means of safety to all, or any of us. We accordingly covered the bottom of the carriole with grass and blankets, laid Smith upon them, and with other blankets bolstered him in such manner that the jolting of the carriage would not roll him. Other arrangements necessary to raising camp being made, I gave the company in charge of my lieutenant; and ordering him to lead on after me as fast as possible, took the reins of the carriage and drove slowly along the trail of the Santa Féäns.

The trail was continually crossed by deep paths made by the buffalo, as a thousand generations of them had in single file followed their leaders from point to point through the plains. These, and other obstructions, jolted the carriage at every step, and caused the wounded man to groan pitiably. I drove on till the stars indicated the hour of midnight; and had hoped by this time to have overtaken the traders, but was disappointed. In vain I looked through the darkness for the white embankment of their waggons. The soil over which they had passed was {75} now so hard, that the man in advance of the carriage could no longer find the trail; and another storm was crowding its dark pall up the western sky. The thunder aroused and enraged the buffalo bulls. They pawed the earth and bellowed, and gathered around the carriage madly, as if they considered it a huge animal of their own species, uttering thunder in defiance of them. It became dangerous to move. It was useless also; for the darkness thickened so rapidly that we could not keep the track. My men, too, had not come up; they had doubtless lost the trail—or, if not, might join me if I waited there till the morning. I therefore halted in a deep ravine, which would partially protect me from the maddened buffalo and the storm, tied down my animals head to foot, and sought rest. Smith was in great pain. His groans were sufficient to prevent sleep. But had he been comfortable and silent, the storm poured such torrents of rain and hail, with terrible wind and lightning, around us, that life instead of repose became the object of our solicitude. The horseman who had accompanied me, had spread his blankets on the ground under the carriage, and, {76} with his head upon his saddle, attempted to disregard the tempest as an old-fashioned stoic would the toothache. But it beat too heavy for his philosophy. His Mackinaw blankets and slouched hat, for a time protected his ungainly body from the effects of the tumbling flood. But when the water began to stream through the bottom of the carriage upon him, the ire of the animal burst from his lank cheeks like the coming of a rival tempest. He cursed his stars, and the stars behind the storm, his garters, and the garters of some female progenitor, consigned to purgatory the thunder, lightning, and rain, and waggon, alias poor Smith; and gathering up the shambling timbers of his mortal frame, raised them bolt upright in the storm, and thus stood, quoted Shakspeare, and ground his teeth till daylight.

As soon as day dawned I found the trail again, and at seven o'clock overtook the Santa Féäns. Having changed Smith's bedding, I drove on in the somewhat beaten track that forty odd waggons made. Still every small jolt caused the unfortunate man to scream with pain. The face of the country around Pawnee Fork was, when we saw it, {77} a picture of beauty. The stream winds silently among bluffs covered with woods, while from an occasional ravine, long groves stretch out at right angles with its main course into the bosom of the plains. The thousand hills that swelled on the horizon, were covered with dark masses of buffalo peacefully grazing, or quenching their thirst at the sweet streams among them. But the scene had now changed. No timber, not a shrub was seen to-day. The soft rich soil had given place to one of flint and sand, as hard as M'Adam's pavements; the green, tall prairie grass, to a dry, wiry species, two inches in height. The water, too, disgusting remembrance! There was none, save what we scooped from the puddles, thick and yellow with buffalo offal.

We travelled fifteen miles, and halted for the night. Smith was extremely unwell. His wound was much inflamed and painful. Dr. Walworth dressed it, and encouraged me to suppose that no danger of life was to be apprehended. My company joined me at twelve o'clock, on the 22nd, and we followed in the rear of the cavalcade. After supper was over, and Smith made comfortable, {78} I sought from some of them a relation of their fortunes during the past night. It appeared they had found the buffalo troublesome as soon as night came on; that the bands of bulls not unfrequently advanced in great numbers within a few feet of them, pawing and bellowing in the most threatening manner; that they also lost the trail after midnight, and spent the remainder of the night in firing upon the buffalo, to keep them from running over them. Their situation was dangerous in the extreme; for when buffalo become enraged, or frightened in any considerable number, and commence running, the whole herd start simultaneously, and pursue nearly a right-line course, regardless of obstacles. So that, had they been frightened by the Santa Féäns, or myself, or any other cause, in the direction of my companions, they must have trampled them to death. The danger to be apprehended from such an event, was rendered certain in the morning, when we perceived that the whole circle of vision was one black mass of these animals. What a sea of life—of muscular power—of animal appetite—of bestial enjoyment! And if lashed to rage by some pervading cause, how fearful {79} the ebbing and flowing of its mighty wrath!

On the 23rd the buffalo were more numerous than ever. They were arranged in long lines from the eastern to the western horizon. The bulls were forty or fifty yards in advance of the bands of cows to which they severally intended to give protection. And as the moving embankment of waggons, led by the advanced guard, and flanked by horsemen riding slowly from front to rear, and guarded in the rear by my men, made its majestic way along, these fiery cavaliers would march each to his own band of dames and misses, with an air that seemed to say "we are here;" and then back again to their lines, with great apparent satisfaction, that they were able to do battle for their sweet ones and their native plains. We travelled fifteen or sixteen miles; distance usually made in a day by the traders. Smith's wound was more inflamed and painful; the wash and salve of the Indian chief, however, kept it soft, and prevented to a great extent the natural inflammation of the case.

The face of the country was still an arid plain—the water as on the 22nd—fuel, dried {80} buffalo offal—not a shrub of any kind in sight. Another storm occurred to-night. Its movements were more rapid than that of any preceding one which we had experienced. In a few moments after it showed its dark outline above the earth, it rolled its pall over the whole sky, as if to build a wall of wrath between us and the mercies of heaven. The flash of the lightning, as it bounded upon the firmament, and mingled its thunder with the blast, that came groaning down from the mountains; the masses of inky darkness crowding in wild tumult along, as if anxious to lead the leaping bolt upon us—the wild world of buffalo, bellowing and starting in myriads, as the drapery of this funeral scene of nature, a vast cavern of fire was lighted up; the rain roaring and foaming like a cataract—all this, a reeling world tottering under the great arm of its Maker, no eye could see and be unblenched; no mind conceive, and keep its clayey tenement erect.

I drew the carriole in which Smith and myself were attempting to sleep, close to the Santa Fé waggons, secured the curtains as firmly as I was able to do, spread blankets over the top and around the sides, and {81} lashed them firmly with ropes passing over, under, and around the carriage in every direction; but to little use. The penetrating powers of that storm were not resisted by such means. Again we were thoroughly drenched. The men in the tent fared still worse than ourselves. It was blown down with the first blast; and the poor fellows were obliged to lie closely and hold on strongly to prevent it and themselves from a flight less safe than parachuting.

On the morning of the 24th, having given Smith in charge of my excellent Lieutenant, with assurance that I would join him at the "Crossings," I left them with the traders, and started with the remainder of my company for the Arkansas.