To bind it all together with a thread
Of its own weaving, as a poet would.
Lucy C. Bull.
THE RIFLE IN THE SACRAMENTOS.
BY WILLIAM H. JOHNSTON, JR., U. S. A.
THERE has been so much said and written of hunts phenomenally successful and so little of those phenomenally unsuccessful, that it occurs to me to record a few memories of a recent hunt of the latter class, a hunt which could by no charitable figure of speech be termed successful. It has, however, left recollections to be cherished with pleasure, as the sailor looks fondly back to a storm outridden, or the soldier to an engagement won.
From our little fort on the Rio Grande, but a few yards from sunny Mexico and its tropical climate, the distant mountains to the northeast, crowned with snow, were until this hunt a fairyland. Beyond their confines all the wonders and delights of a Northern winter might be found—and perhaps more, for snow and ice and frost, glaciers perhaps, and slides, almost within the tropics, were indeed loadstones to the adventurous and curious. All these “delights” of a Yankee Christmastide we found, and this is the way it happened.
Late in November Mr. X. and I were granted leave of absence for twenty days for the purpose of hunting. Several days were devoted to preparations for the expedition, which promised as much success and glory, content and happiness, as the average candidate for office and solicitor of votes. Sufficient guns, knives, ammunition and general hardware were procured to establish ourselves in business, as my cook expressed it, “on an expensive scale,” while our provisions, clothing, bedding, tents and equipage would have kept a polar expedition in comfort for years. We had to travel more than one hundred miles over sand-flats before reaching the first water—the Sacramento River—so we deemed it wise to go prepared to live on our mess-chest rather than “on the country.”
The first wagon, called through courtesy and time-worn custom an ambulance, carried us, with two soldiers, a driver and a cook, and “Grover Cleveland.” The last mentioned name refers, by the by, not to the Commander-in-chief of our Army and Navy, but to a dog of the setter type and lazy variety, who, though of good blood, from want of training was only valuable as a watch-dog. If he should not prove of much use in hunting deer or retrieving a few elk, it was thought he might scare away wolves, “lions” and wildcats, or do noble service with the lizards and field mice scented on the way. In the hope that he might not care for all the interior of the wagon, we threw into it a general stock of rifles, shot-guns, ammunition, canteens, belts, field glasses, overcoats, etc. Our hope was vain. Grover could cover more territory than a litter of less distinguished dogs. Changing base frequently from our shoulders to the doorstep, and from the front seat to the lunch-basket, he was very largely an element of the party. Two men rode on the heavy wagon, loaded down as it was with grain for eight mules, two barrels of water, tents, bedding, rations and camp implements.