Tumbleton's Park is a beautiful savannah, stretching north-westerly from our camp in an irregular manner among groves of pine, spruce, fir, and oak.[147] Three hundred yards from us rose Tumbleton's Rock, one of those singular spires found in the valley of the mountains, called Butes. It was about eighty feet in height, twenty feet in diameter at the base, and terminated at the top in a point. Soon after our new acquaintances had left us, we "caught up" and struck across the hills in a north-easterly course toward the north fork of Little Bear River. The travelling was very rough, now among {278} fields of loose stones and bushes, and now among dense forests; no trail to aid us in finding our way; new ground even to our guide. But he was infallible.
Two hours' riding had brought us upon an Indian trail that he had heard of ten years before; and on we rushed among the fallen pines, two feet, three feet in diameter, raised, as you see, one foot, two feet from the ground. The horses and mules are testing their leaping powers. Over they go, and tip off riders and packs, &c., &c. A merry time this. There goes my Puebla mare, head, heels, and neck, into an acre of crazy logs. Ho, halt! Puebla's down, mortally wounded with want of strength! She's unpacked, and out in a trice; we move on again. Ho! whistle that mule into the track! he'll be off that ledge there. Move them on! move! cut down that sapling by the low part of that fallen tree! drive over Puebla! There she goes! long legs a benefit in bestriding forests. Hold! hold! hold! that pack-horse yonder has anchored upon a pine! Dismount! back her out! she has hung one side of herself and pack upon that knot! away! ho! But silence! a deer springs up in yonder thicket! Kelly creeps forward—halt! hush! {279} hu! Ah! the varlet! he is gone; a murrain on his fat loins! a poor supper we'll have to-night! no meat left, not a particle; nor coffee, tea, nor salt! custom of society here to starve! suppose you will conform! Stay, here's trouble! but they move! one goes down well! another, another, and another! My Puebla mare, reader, that six foot frame standing there, hesitating to descend that narrow track around the precipice! she goes over it! bravely done! A ten feet leap! and pack and all stuck in the mud. That mule, also, is down in the quagmire! a lift at the pack there, man! the active, tireless creature! he's up and off. Guide, this forest is endless! shan't get out to-night. But here we go merrily onward! It is dark enough for the frogs of Egypt! Halt! halt! ho! Puebla down again—laid out among the logs! Pull away upon that pack there, man! help the sinner to her feet again for another attempt to kill herself. Beautiful pines, firs, and hemlocks, these, reader; but a sack of hurricanes has been let loose among them not long since. The prostrate shingle timber, eh? 'twould cover a roof over the city of London; and make a railroad to run the Thames into Holland. Halt! halt! unpack! we camp here to-night.
{280} A little prairie this, embosomed, nestled, &c., among the sweet evergreen woodlands. Wait a little now, reader, till we turn these animals loose to feed, and we'll strike up a fire wherewithal to dry our wet garments, and disperse a portion of this darkness. It is difficult kindling this wet bark. Joseph, sing a song; find a hollow tree; get some dry leaves. That horse is making into the forest! better tie him to a bough! That's it; Joseph, that's a youthful blaze! give it strength! feed it oxygen! it grows. Now for our guest. Seat yourself, sir, on that log; rather damp comfort—the best we have—homespun fare—the ton of the country! We're in the primeval state, sir. We regret our inability to furnish you food, sir. But as we have not, for the last few days indulged much in that merely animal gratification, we beg you to accommodate yourself with a dish of Transcendentalism; and with us await patiently a broiled steak a few days along the track of time to come.
It was ten o'clock at night when we arrived at this encampment. It had been raining in torrents ever since nightfall. The rippling of a small stream had guided us after the darkness shut in. Drenched with rain, {281} shivering with cold, destitute of food, and with the appetite of wolves, we availed ourselves of the only comforts within our reach—a cheering pine-knot fire, and such sleep as we could get under the open heavens in a pelting storm.
The general face of the country through which the afternoon's travel had carried us, was much broken; but the inequalities, or hills and valleys, to a very considerable extent, were covered with a rich vegetable loam, supporting a heavy growth of pine, spruce, quaking-asp, &c. The glades that intervened were more beautiful than I had seen. Many were covered with a heavy growth of timothy or herds grass, and red top in blossom. Large tracts in the skirts of the timber were thickly set with Sweet-Sicily. The mountain flax was very abundant. I had previously seen it in small patches only; but here it covered acres as densely as it usually stands in fields, and presented the beautiful sheet of blue blossoms so graceful to the lords of the plough.
I had noticed some days previously, a few blades of the grasses just named, standing in a clump of bushes; but we were riding rapidly, and could not stop to examine {282} them, and I was disposed to think that my sight had deceived me. What! the tame grasses of Europe, all that are valuable for stock, the best and most sought by every intelligent farmer in Christendom; these indigenous to the vales of the Rocky mountains? It was even so.
August 1st. As our horses had found little to eat during the past night, and seemed much worn by the exceeding fatigues of the previous day, we at early dawn drew them around our camp, loaded the strongest of them with our packs, and led and drove the poor animals through three miles more of standing and fallen timber, to the opening on Little Bear River, and turned them loose to feed upon the first good grass that we found.[148] It chanced to be in one of Kelly's old encampments; where he had, some years before, fortified himself with logs, and remained seven days with a sick fellow trapper. At that time the valley was alive with hostile Indians; but the good man valued the holy principles of humanity more than his life, and readily put it at hazard to save that of his companion. "A fearful time that," said he; "the redskins saw every turn of our heads during those seven days and nights. But I baited our horses within {283} reach of my rifle during the day, and put them in that pen at night; so that they could not rush off with them, without losing their brains. The buffalo were plenty here then. The mountains were then rich. The bulls were so bold that they would come close to the fence there at night, and bellow and roar till I eased them of their blood by a pill of lead in the liver. So you see I did not go far for meat. Now, the mountains are so poor that one would stand a right good chance of starving, if he were obliged to hang up here for seven days. The game is all driven out. No place here for a white man now. Too poor, too poor. What little we get, you see, is bull beef. Formerly, we ate nothing but cows, fat and young. More danger then, to be sure; but more beaver too; and plenty of grease about the buffalo ribs. Ah! those were good times; but a white man has no more business here."
Our general course since entering the mountains at the Arkansas, had been north-west by west. It now changed to north-west by north. Our horses and mules, having eaten to their satisfaction the rich grass about our guide's old encampment, we moved on down Little Bear River. The {284} country, as we descended, became more and more barren.
The hills were destitute of timber and grasses; the plains bore nothing but prickly pear and wild wormwood. The latter is a shrub growing from two to six feet in height. It branches in all directions from the root. The main stem is from two to four inches in diameter at the ground, the bark rough, of a light greyish colour and very thin. The wood is firm, fine grained, and difficult to break. The leaves are larger, but resemble in form and colour those of the common wormwood of the gardens. The flavour is that of a compound of garden wormwood and sage: hence it has received the names of "wild wormwood" and "wild sage." Its stiff and knotty branches are peculiarly unpleasant to the traveller among them. It stands so thickly over thousands of acres of the mountain valleys, that it is well nigh impossible to urge a horse through it; and the individual who is rash enough to attempt it, will himself be likely to be deprived of his moccasins, and his horse of his natural covering of his legs. There are two species of the prickly pear (cactus) here. The one is the plant of low growth, thick elliptical leaves armed with thorns, {285} the same as is found in the gardens of certain curious people in the States; the other is of higher growth, often reaching three feet; the colour is a deep green. It is a columnar plant without a leaf; the surface of the stalk is checked into diamonds of the most perfect proportions, swelling regularly from the sides to the centre. At the corners of these figures grow strong thorns, from an inch to an inch and a half in length. Six inches from the ground, branches shoot from the parent stalk in all directions, making an angle with it of about forty-five degrees, and growing shorter as the point of union with the central stalk increases in height. The consistency of the whole plant is alternately pulpy and fibrous. We were making our tedious way among these thorny companions, musing upon our empty stomachs, when we were overtaken by two men, a squaw and child, from Craig's party. They made their camp with us at night. Nothing to eat, starving and weak; we followed the example of the squaw, in eating the inner portion of large thistle-stalks.