[II-41] To a point on the river, in Pueblo Co., between Nepesta and the Huerfano, short of which river Pike's camp-mark is set. Pike charts the Huerfano as his "2nd Fork." We also notice that he marks two Spanish camps, o o, for the day's march, as called for by the text, though they are by no means set down "within three miles of each other." Nepesta is only a hamlet and station, but serves to mark a well-known crossing of the Arkansaw. The A., T., and S. F. R. R. now crosses here, meeting the Mo. Pac. R. R., and the two tracks run together into Pueblo. The Huerfano is a great river, which heads in the Sangre de Cristo range, among the mountains of the Sierra Blanca range, and by various other affluents, as Muddy cr. and others, heading in the very passes of the Sangre range which we shall have to discuss when Pike's forlorn and frostbitten party reaches them. Some other tributaries drain from the W. side of the Wet mts. The union of these in Huerfano Park starts the river out of the mountains by Huerfano pass; in the plains it receives Cucharas r., a tributary of nearly equal size, from further S., and their united stream seeks the Arkansaw on a N. E. course. A place called Jackson is on the river near its mouth; opposite, across the Arkansaw, is Booneville.
The place above mentioned by the name Nepesta reminds me to say that Rio Napeste was a Spanish name of the Arkansaw r. itself, at least in its upper or Colorado reaches. One of Pike's own maps letters "Rio de Napesi," a phrase reappearing as "Rio de Nanesi" on Lewis and Clark's map of 1814; and yet other forms of the name occur. The phrase is obviously Spanish, but the word itself I do not recognize as such—very likely it is derived from the Ute Indian language. Humboldt's map letters "Rio de Napestle."
[II-42] The "front only," a phrase italicized in the original, means that only the vanguard of the army met the insolent Pawnees. This probably consisted of Pike, Robinson, and Vasquez; the rest of the invading forces, being 13 rank and file, main column and rearguard combined, having not yet come up to engage the enemy.
[II-43] The Huerfano (Orphan) r., marked "2nd Fork" on Pike's map, is passed to-day without remark—no doubt Pike was thinking more of Pawnees than of geography. In consequence of the fracas, little progress was made; probably less than 17 m., as we see by the mileage assigned to the 23d. Camp can be set little if any beyond the site of old Fort Reynolds, which stood on the S. bank of the river, about opposite the mouth of Black Squirrel or Chico cr. This falls in from the N., on a course parallel with that of Fountain r.; it arises by several heads in the Arkansaw divide, N. E. of Colorado Springs, opposite heads of Kiowa and Bijou creeks (branches of the South Platte); at its mouth is Chico sta. (Nyburg), on the N. side of the Arkansaw, 12 m. E. of Pueblo. Nearly opposite the mouth of the Huerfano is Booneville; this locality used to be a regular camping-ground on the old Cherokee trail, and here was a ford across the Arkansaw, opposite Charles Audebee's (or Autobee's) house.
[II-44] Pike's Third Fork, charted "3d Fork," is the San Carlos or St. Charles r. His Grand Forks is the confluence of Fountain r. with the Arkansaw, at present city of Pueblo—perhaps the best known place where we have found him since the Expedition started. The Charles arises in the Wet mts., where also heads its main branch, called Greenhorn r., as in fact the Charles itself often used to be. Their streams unite in the prairie 8 m. S. of Pueblo, and fall into the Arkansaw 7 m. E. of that city, or about halfway to Fort Reynolds. It was in this vicinity that the old Cherokee trail forked, the right-hand road taking up toward the gold diggings, while the other kept on to Pueblo. The Greenhorn mt., about which the San Carlos heads, has an ascertained altitude of 12,230 feet. Fountain r. is still called Fontaine r. by those who prefer French to English, and used to be more elaborately styled La Rivière de la Fontaine qui Bouille, River of the Boiling Spring—not that the water is hot, but that it bubbles as it wells out of the rocks, as if it were boiling. "This spring," says Marcy, Pra. Trav. 1859, p. 300, "or, rather, springs, as there are two, both of which boil up out of solid rock, are among the greatest natural curiosities that I have ever seen. The water is strongly impregnated with salts, but is delightful to the taste, and somewhat similar to the Congress water." But before General Marcy's time the springs had become noted. On the 17th of July, 1843, they were visited by Frémont, who describes them at length in his Rep., orig. ed. 1845, p. 117; Mr. Charles Preuss, of his party, thought the water resembled that of the Seltzer Springs in the Grand Duchy of Nassau. About nine-tenths of the solid matters in solution is chalk. When I was at Manitou Springs, a few years ago, it was a common sight to see people in the electric cars with bottles of the water, which had already become an extensively advertised commercial article. Fountain r. has also its Spanish name of Rio Almagre or Almagra, meaning red ocher or other reddish earth. It is formed of two main courses which head about Pike's Peak and other elevations of the same outlying (Front) range of the Rockies, called respectively Fountain and Monument cr.; these unite at Colorado Springs. Monument cr., coming southward in the foothills, is composed of various others, called Beaver, Dead Man's, West Monument, Crystal, etc. Fountain cr., which comes eastward from Pike's Peak itself and that vicinity, seeks the plains by the villages of Manitou Springs and Colorado City, and the city of Colorado Springs (seat of El Paso Co.)—for such are the respective designations of these places, now well known to tourists and especially valetudinarians. At Manitou Springs it receives Ruxton cr., through Ingleman cañon, now traversed by the cogwheel Manitou and Pike's Peak R. R.; item, it receives Glen "Erie" (Eyrie) cr., which runs through the little mountain park called Garden of the Gods—a spot not favorable to agriculture and one whose alleged proprietors maintain their wonted alibi. Visitors who now inspect the natural curiosities hereabouts, including a cave of very respectable dimensions and disagreeable atmosphere, go up a carriage road which follows for some distance what was an old Indian trail between South Park and the plains. Fountain r., thus composed, runs S. along the E. base of the R. mts., receiving small affluents all along on either hand, as Bear, N. Cheyenne, S. Cheyenne, Sand, Jimmy's Camp, and Little Fountain creeks, and falls into the Arkansaw at Pueblo, as already said. It is Pike's "North Fork" of the Arkansaw, and this is the stream nearly parallel with which he proceeds via Turkey cr. toward the "high point of the blue mountain," i. e., Pike's Peak. His breastwork was built on the S. side of the Arkansaw, slightly above the confluence of Fountain r., and thus within present city limits of Pueblo—though the built-up portions of South Pueblo are mostly a mile or so from the confluence. A suburb of South Pueblo is called Bessemer, where stand the great smelters and other evidences of that commercial energy which has caused Pueblo to be sometimes styled "the Pittsburg of the West," though the pure air is not to be compared with the smutty gas one breathes at the old site of Fort Duquesne. A mile from Bessemer is Lake Minnequa, a resort of the Pueblonians for boating, beer, and music. Pueblo has retained for more than half a century a name that was originally not a proper but a common noun. Thus we read in Frémont, Rep. 1845, p. 116: "Continuing down the [Fountain] river, we encamped at noon on the 14th [of July, 1843] at its mouth, on the Arkansas river. A short distance above our encampment, on the left bank of the Arkansas, is a pueblo, (as the Mexicans call their civilized Indian villages,) where a number of mountaineers, who had married Spanish women in the vicinity of Taos, had collected together, and occupied themselves in farming, carrying on at the same time a desultory Indian trade. They were principally Americans, and treated us with all the rude hospitality their situation admitted." Frémont calls the river "Fontaine-qui-bouit" (not Bouille). I understand that Pueblo was known at one time, during the '40's, as Hardscrabble—a name now given to another place, for which see a note beyond. I am told by Mr. Maguire that "Jimmy's Camp"—now the name of a creek above said—was a traditionally well-known place where one "Jimmy" had a small trading outfit, mainly for the Utes; he was killed by the Plains Indians. Present Jimmy Camp is a hamlet about Corral Bluffs, 9 m. due E. of Colorado Springs.
[II-45] This was a slight structure, occupied only for a few days, and soon disappeared. But it is notable as the first wooden building of an American in present Colorado, and very probably our flag first flew in that State over these logs. There was no trace of it to be found in 1819, according to Long. It was built on the S. side of the Arkansaw, a little above the then confluence of Fountain r., within the present city of Pueblo (South Pueblo). The precise spot has never been recovered, and probably never will be. Changes in the river may have soon washed it away, or left it at some unrecognizable point on the prairie. The Arkansaw here has suffered great changes in details of its course, and is liable to inundation: witness the disastrous flood this year (1894), which almost drowned the city itself. In this connection I may cite part of an interesting letter with which I am favored by Mr. C. H. Small of the Board of Trade of Pueblo, whose knowledge of real estate in that city is probably unsurpassed. It refers to the discovery by excavation of an old fort which cannot by any possibility be Pike's, yet in the course of human nature is liable to become so considered by some, and in due time to enter history as such. Mr. Small says: "A fort was once built on the south side of the Arkansas just north of the Farris Hotel—between this hotel and the Santa Fé R. R. tracks at Union Avenue. The channel of the river changed in the seventies to a more southerly and straighter course. The occupants of the fort were all massacred by Indians on one occasion. In laying a pipe on Union Avenue two years ago [1892], one or more skeletons were exhumed, doubtless the remains of those massacred. This was at the depth of ten feet below the present level of the street, and directly in front of the Farris Hotel; the logs of the old fort were come upon at the same time. The grade of the street had been raised five feet, about 1885." Mr. Small's letter is dated Feb. 23d, 1894. In further correspondence on this subject I am given to understand that this fort was an adobe structure built by the American Fur Co., on what is now Union Avenue. On Christmas Day, 1854, a drunken spree ended in a free fight, in which all the whites were killed by the Indians but one, who fled to a smaller post on the Arkansaw at the mouth of the St. Charles, 7 or 8 m. off, whence a burying-party came next day. For a long time there was also an adobe tower or lookout on top of the hill, about present intersection of Second and Summit streets; but it has entirely disappeared.
[II-46] Pike starts up the W. bank of Fountain r., but soon bears N. W., directly through the present city, in the direction of Turkey cr. This is a stream which runs (when it runs anywhere) parallel with Fountain r., 10 to 15 m. further W.; it heads about Cheyenne Peak, the foremost though not the highest of the Front range in the vicinity of Pike's Peak. The air-line distance of Pike's Peak from Pueblo is about 50 m.; the distance over any ground by which the summit could be reached would be as far again. In making this side-trip our hero proceeds with the determination expressed in the modern slang phrase, "Pike's Peak or bust!" We must remember that he knew nothing of mountains, so to speak, from personal experience, and had never in his life been higher than some pass in the Alleghanies, perhaps about the elevation of the ground on which he built his breastwork (say 4,700 feet). In the prairie close by Colorado Springs there stands a little knob, up which a man could run in a few minutes, and which has been dubbed in derision, "Mt. Washington," because it is exactly as high as that celebrated peak in the White mts. of New Hampshire—6,288 feet. Though Pike never surmounted his eternal monument, he overcame all those dangers, difficulties, and hardships which did "bust" many a later, less hardy, and less resolute adventurer who "bucked against the Rockies." Tourists and invalids have now the option of ascending to the summit of his peak from Colorado Springs by stage, or from Manitou Springs by the cogwheel railroad, which has been in operation since July, 1891. By the latter mode of conveyance I have ascended the Rigi in Switzerland, as well as Mt. Washington in my native State; but neither of these afforded the sensation I experienced upon the summit of Pike's Peak, looking far down upon the greatest elevation he attained on the present excursion. His 12 m. N. W. to-day sets him on the prairie between Fountain r. and Turkey cr., nearer the latter. The present road from Pueblo to Turkey cr. strikes the usually dry bed of the latter at about 17 miles' distance, follows up the E. bank to the foot of the mountain, crosses there, keeps on past East Turkey cr. through Dead Man's cañon, crosses the heads of Little Fountain cr., and continues to skirt the E. base of the range, past Cheyenne Peak to Colorado Springs. Up to the cañon, at least, this is exactly the route Pike took to reach Mt. Cheyenne.
[II-47] In the hilly country along the E. side of Turkey cr., and then on that creek, heading straight for Cheyenne Peak; camp on the creek when he came to water, probably about where West Turkey cr. falls in; altitude perhaps 6,000 feet. The situation is now in the ravine of the creek, with elevations of 6,500 feet on the right, and others 7,000 to 8,000 feet on the left and ahead. The creek receives small tributaries from the left all along, each gulch having its little stream, or bed of one. One of the largest of these is West Turkey cr., running S. E. from altitudes of about 9,500 feet. Further along comes down the parallel stream of East Turkey cr., heading S. from Mt. Rosa from altitudes of about 10,500 feet, and falling in by Dead Man's cañon. The summit of the Cheyenne mt. is due N. of Pike's present position, at an air-line distance of 10 or 12 m.; Mt. Rosa bears N. by W., somewhat further off. The situation is such that, if Pike should keep straight ahead, through Dead Man's cañon, he would run across Little Fountain cr., and proceed to climb Cheyenne mt. from the S.; but if he should bear to the left, up some one of the Turkey Creek affluents I have mentioned or alluded to, he would much sooner reach what he would be likely to call "the summit of the chain" (see [text of the 27th])—that is, an altitude of about 9,000 feet, with Mt. Rosa bearing N. and the summit of Cheyenne mt. N. N. E., each at an air-line distance of 6 or 8 m. I think this was most probably his route; but do not see that we have the data to establish the fact.
[II-48] Pike's expectation of climbing his peak and getting back to his camp on Turkey cr. in one day may serve to console some who have thought they would like to take a stroll before breakfast to the same peak from the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs. Though Pike's actual footsteps in these mountains be not recoverable with exactitude, there is no uncertainty as to about where he was on the 26th and 27th, when he climbed S. of Mts. Cheyenne and Rosa to an altitude of about 9,000 feet, and then returned. Mt. Cheyenne is the foremost of the group of peaks in this part of the Front range; it stands out in such bold relief that uninformed visitors to Colorado Springs often mistake it for Pike's Peak. But its altitude is only 9,407 or 9,948 feet, as estimated by different authorities, and thus considerably less than that of various other peaks in the vicinity. Some of these are: Cameron Cone, 10,685 or 11,560 feet; Mt. Rosa, 11,427 or 11,572 feet; Mt. Pisgah, given as 10,487 feet; Pilate Peak, given as 12,420 feet. The two last named are further W. and S.; Cheyenne, Cameron, and Rosa form angles of a triangle, E. of Pike's Peak, that "grim sentinel of the Rockies," as it is styled by some, or the "Grand Peak," as Pike calls it, which towers over all the rest to the generally accepted altitude of 14,147 feet. These figures can easily be recalled to mind if one remembers that twice seven is 14. This peak is due W. of Colorado Springs, at an air-line distance of 12 m. Visitors are driven to the summit by way of the Cascade carriage road, running up Cascade cañon from a point in the Ute Pass 11 m. from Colorado Springs. This stage route is a trifle over 17 m. from Cascade, or a total of about 28 m. from the Antlers Hotel, Colorado Springs. During the season when the crop of pink-toed tender-foots is harvested, wagons make the round trip in one day, 9 a. m.-6 p. m., spending an hour at the Halfway House and another at the Peak. This is said to be the highest stage-line in the United States. There is also a road up Bear Creek cañon to the Seven Lakes, but not to the Peak, and no line of stages is regularly run on it. The Cheyenne Mountain road also goes to these lakes, and has been run through to the mining camp on Cripple cr., which lately made such a noise in Colorado. This is S. W. of the peak, about 18 air-line miles from Colorado Springs. The Pike's Peak Cog Railway takes a much shorter, steeper, and straighter course than the stage road, by way of Ingleman cañon and Ruxton cr. The cog line starts from Manitou, 6¼ m. from Colorado Springs, and is 8¾ m. long. The round trip is made in about five hours, two hours each way, with one hour between, on the summit. This is ample time; for tourists find Pike's Peak a convenient place to leave as soon as they have paid twenty-five cents for a cup of the worst coffee in the world, and tried in vain to stand up against a wind of 50 or 60 m. an hour. Those who may be more interested in Pike's Peak at a distance are referred to a dainty booklet entitled Legends of the Pike's Peak Region, 8vo, Denver, 1892; it is full of quaint local lore, especially of the traditions of the only mountain Pike climbed part way up. Among all the myths that cling to the Peak, obscuring the facts in the case like the clouds that mantle the mountain, the very basic one—that one on which the mountain rests, so to speak—is the universal tradition that the brave young officer discovered and ascended the Peak which upholds his name. One wishes that such laurels as he earned and well deserved had been plucked from an eminence unknown and unattained before. But Pike's Peak had been long and well known to the Spaniards; it was the Ultima Thule of their possessions; and for that matter, was not Pike at the very time in pursuit of the Spanish troops under Malgares, who had gone along just before him? It is true that Pike, Robinson, Brown, and Miller—the four whose names are thus linked should be upheld together—are the first white men known to have come within "the distance of 15 or 16 miles" of the peak, as it seemed to them, when the "Grand Peak" appeared "as high again as what we ascended and would have taken a whole day's march to arrive at its base." This is the testimony of the hero of the occasion; his evidence is alike incisive and decisive. So far as we are informed by authentic history, Pike's Peak was first surmounted by Dr. Edwin James, Mr. Wilson, and two other men, July 13th and 14th, 1820, during Major S. H. Long's expedition to the Rocky mts., when it was named James' Peak. When, where, and by whom the mountain was first called Pike's Peak is unknown, to me at least; but its earliest appearance in print should be discoverable. The date is probably somewhere in the '40's, or still earlier. The name was certainly in verbal use in the '30's. Mr. Oliver P. Wiggins, now of Denver, who was on the plains in 1838, heard only "Pike's Peak," as a phrase already in common speech. Gregg's map of 1844 legends "Pikes Peak (or James')." Beckwith's Report of 1853, pub. 1855, p. 30, has only "James'." The alternative names ran parallel for some years. G. K. Warren states, Pac. R. R. Rep. XI., 1855, p. 24: "Captain Frémont, in his report and map of explorations in 1843 and 1844, calls it Pike's Peak, probably because it was so called by the white people in the country at the time": see also George Frederick Ruxton's Adventures, etc., London, Murray, 1861, but written much earlier. Governor Alva Adams, in the address already cited, p. 13, discusses the point as "one of the historical mysteries," and adds: "The name of Pike's Peak begins to appear in the literature of the prairies and mountains about the middle of the century, but it was not irrevocably christened until the Pike's Peak gold excitement, when the name was fixed to remain as long as men love to listen to stories of valor." Whether it originated spontaneously or was formally introduced, it will probably never die; the alliteration of the words would be enough to keep the phrase in the mouths of the people, let alone its justice and propriety. As for any Spanish claim which may hereafter be established respecting prior discovery or ascent of the peak, the following extract from the Legends already cited is pertinent: "From Pike's Peak to Popocatepetl the land is a palimpsest, dotted with ruins of remotest antiquity, the relics of a people whose records are replete with poetry and strange romance. Their manuscripts enrich the archives of Mexico and Madrid, and yet we learn but little of them. They moulder in the missions of the suspicious Spanish priests, or among the mystic treasures of the Pueblos, and are decaying unread."
[II-49] The trail of this excursus, as dotted on Pike's map, would be enough to show how far he was from reaching the summit of the "Highest Peak" there delineated, in the absence of any other data. Such an affair as this would never have been understated or underdrawn intentionally. Yet the dot-line leaves him further from the peak than I am inclined to think he actually was; but it is obviously incorrect in detail, and thus no offset to the explicit text. The wide looping of the trail merely indicates a "round trip" from Pueblo and return. The only considerable difference in Pike's going and coming was, that in the latter case he "kept straight down the creek to avoid the hills," over which he had before trudged. The map exaggerates the size of Turkey cr., as well as of Fountain r. It is possible that someone thoroughly familiar with the topography of the mountains at the heads of Turkey and Little Fountain creeks may yet work out Pike's trail in exact detail.