University of California Berkeley --* WESTERN WILDS, AND AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE, EMBRACING AN ACCOUNT OP SEVEN YEARS TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE IN THE FAR WEST ; WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA ; PERILS OF THE PLAINS ; LIFE IN THE CANON AND DEATH ON THE DESERT; THRILLING SCENES AND ROMANTIC INCI- DENTS IN THE LIVES OF WESTERN PIONEERS; ADVENTURES AMONG THE RED AND WHITE SAVAGES OF THE WEST; A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE ; THE CUSTER DEFEAT ; LIFE AND DEATH OF BRIGHAM YOUNG, ETC. INCLUDING, ALSO, AN ELABORATE HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE MINING DISTRICTS ; AN EXPERT DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT OF MODERN MINING J A FULL RESUME OF MINING MATTERS AT THE OPENING OF 1882. BY J. H. BEADLE, Author of Life in Utah; Western Correspondent Cincinnati Commercial, etc. ILLUSTRATED. THE JONES BROTHERS PUBLISHING COMPANY, CINCI N N ATI, O. COPYRIGHT, 1879, BY JOHN T. JONE& IN writing this work the author had two objects in view: to interest the reader ; and to tell the exact truth about the country west of the Mississippi. As to the first, there is neither argument nor assertion; the reader can only judge for himself after perusal. But, as to the second, the author firmly believes he has accomplished it. The Far West is an immense region, and no one man ever visited all sections of it. The most to be expected is that each traveler shall seize upon the salient features of certain portions, and describe them in popular style. I have labored earnestly to give facts in regard to the lands still open to settlement; and I have been especially care- ful to correct certain errors as to soil and climate which I find very common in the East. We often hear it confidently asserted, and by those who ought to know, that "the American Desert is a myth there is no desert in the West." I am sorry this statement is not true; but if there are not at least 300,000 square miles of utterly barren land, then "mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses," for I have lived and traveled many a week where not one acre in a hundred is fertile. I have aimed to avoid personalities, but I can not altogether refrain from harsh expressions as to the misstatements made in many land circulars ; or the colored falsehoods of many maps, made "to invite immigration." Some critics will object that the work contains rather more about Utah and the Mormons than the subject warrants; and it is, perhaps, but natural that one should write at length on that which most interests him. But I apprehend this Utah question is one on which Americans generally need information ; it is liable to call for prompt action by government at any time, and the people should be prepared to sustain their Kepresentatives in all constitutional means to relieve the Nation of this disgrace. The author has been accused of undue prejudice against Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders; more space is therefore given to the legal evidence of their crimes than is usual in a popular work. Eight years ago I hunted up, from a score of sources, the facts of the Mountain Meadow Massacre; and, when published, there was a loud outcry that I had overdrawn the picture "made it a newspaper sensation." I here present the testimony of witnesses in court, (iii) iv PREFACE. sworn and cross-examined, to show that my narrative of eight years ago was by far too mild; that in every charge then made against the Mormon Church I was within the truth. Nor do I admit that all the black details are yet known. Evidence is yet to be developed which will convince the most skeptical that Brigham Young was the accomplice and shield of murderers This is a hard saying, but rest assured it will be proved. If I have assumed too much in making myself an advocate for the political and civil rights of the Gentile minority in Utah, that minority can easily signify the same to their friends in the East who care to inquire. The Americans in Utah went there from the States, and did not change their natures when they changed their residence; they love liberty, and desire a share in the local government for the same reasons they did in the East. They have fought a good fight; they have accomplished much, and will do more. If my criticisms upon Gen. Thomas L. Kane and other apologists for Brigham appear severe, the record is presented to show their errors. Tht record condemns them not I. Of course there has been a great deal of twaddle and romance on the part of the opponents of Mormonism there always is in matters of popular discussion; but the nearer we keep tc admitted facts, the more clearly we see that, on the main question, they ar( radically right, and Brigham's apologists radically wrong. Polygamy anc incest are admitted and defended in Utah; and it is a fair assumption that men who violate law in two such important particulars, will violate it in others, if their interest seems to require it. But, as mere inference is not enough in such matters, I have, as aforesaid, given more evidence than the aim and style of the work would have made desirable. Five million Americans expect to go West. There should be a new work on that section, written by some careful observer, at least once a year; for the changes there are many and rapid. Doubtless so plain a presentation of the discouraging features, as is here given, will have a depressing effect upon the ardent; but it is best to know the truth. There is not as much room for us to grow in that direction as is popularly supposed, and Americans can not find it out too soon. So much for the main object of this work truth. As to the interest in the narrative kind reader, excuse me; I touch your hand, and without further apology introduce you to MY BOOK. J. H. B. COLUMBUS, OHIO, October 1, 1877. CONTENTS- CHAPTER I. THE HAWKEYES. I make a start. Fair Iowa. Yankee, Hoosier, Buckeye, and Scandinavian. The Aryan wave. Hoosier grammar. Sorrows of the non-resident land-owner. "The walled lakes." Greatness of the Border States. "Hoss high, bull strong, and pig tight." The 'hoppers. "Omahawgs" and " Omahens." " Milkville " and " Bilkville."- Kural Nebraska. Agricultural wealth. Pawnees, Otoes, Omahaws. The Bedouin in- stinct. Go West." .... 17-24 CHAPTER II. A WESTERN CHARACTER. Unsung heroes. Scenes in Southern Kansas. "Shuck up." " Fevernager." My host's story. He leaves Tennessee for New Orleans. "Chawin' rags for a paper- mill." Up into the Cherokee country. Another run to New Orleans. Walk home through the " Injun " country. Murder of Mclntosh and others. War between the Rossites and Ridgeites. Exposure and fever. Delirium. Rescued by the "little Cherokee girl." Home again. Joe and Myra. More trouble with the Cherokees. Journey to Iowa. In danger from the " Danites." Mrs. Joe's " tantrums." Captured by the Hawkeyes. Interview with Judge Lynch. Horrible murder of Miller and Liecy. Hanging of the Hodges. Terrible times on the Half-breed Tract. The Califor- nia excitement. Start from Independence. Troubles on the way. Danger and death on the great desert. Among the gold hunters. More murders. Return to Tennessee. The great war. Death of the boys. Removal to Indian Territory. "Won't there be peace while I live?" Rest at last 25-44 CHAPTER III. THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. Flush times in Omaha. Some characters. Will Wylie's escape. "Seen the Elephant." "A neck-tie sociable." "Coppered on the jack." Apostate Mormons' caravan. Up the slope to Cheyenne. " Dirty Jule's." The Plains. " Magic City." Passage of the Black Hills. Virginia Dale. Laramie Plains. Benton. Alkali Desert. Evanescent "cities." Bear River City. Battle with the roughs. More Mormons. "Catfish with legs." Horrors of Bitter Creek. Green River. Bridger Plains. The author a mule-whacker. Grandeur of Echo Canon. Weber Valley. Up to Parley's Park. Down Parley's Canon. First view of the Salt Lake. " City of the Saints." I become a Gentile sinner 45-55 (v) vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. GEFFROY'S TRIALS. On Griffith Mountain, Colorado. "Are we the authors of our own destiny?" Geffrey's narrative answers. Beautiful Geneva. Frenchy fancies vs. German phlegm. A young enthusiast. Hunting the Brotherhood of Man. At New Harmony, Indiana. Failure of Communism. At Nauvoo. At Communia. On the plains. Enlist with the Texan patriots of '43. Bright pictures. Stern realities. " The Eiver of Souls." The tierras templadas. In the Wild Canon. Posted on the Taos Trail. Another frightful march. Down to the Cimarron. Another trial of the desert. Night attack on the Mexican camp. Victory, followed in turn by flight. Loss of the horses. Geffrey and friend go after them. Surrounded by Mexicans. A dash for life. Headlong leap into the chasm. Oblivion, or death? 56-71 CHAPTER V. DOLORES. Return to consciousness. Laid up in the cabin. Love and convalescence. The captured Americans.- -Dolores' plan. The parting. Gomez and the Pueblos. Halt at Jemez. Meeting the Navajoes. A land of wonders. Among the Moquis.- A simple, civil, and unwarlike race. A race without envy or covetousness. Joyful meeting with Dolores. Los Diabolos Gringos. Flight for the north.- Lost on the desert. The horrors of thirst. Another day of anguish. Life in the rock. " With our lips pressed to the rock we drew new life." Hope revived. Pursuit by the Mexicans. Wounding and death of Dolores. Agony of GefFroy. Enlists as a soldier. The war in Mexico. Revisits Switzerland. 1848: the year of Revolutions. In the army of Baden. Capture and long imprisonment. Liberty, when hope was dead. Return to the Far West. " The Brotherhood of Man comes not by spasmodic struggles, but by steady toil." 72-89 CHAPTER VI. POLYGAMIA. I meet Brigham & Co. Topography of his kingdom. I reside there a year. And become a hated Gentile. Mormon notabilities: Brigham, Orson Pratt, Hooper, Geo. A. Smith. "The One-eyed Pirate of the Wasatch." Polygamy, Bigamy, Brighamy, Mo- nogamy, and other gamies. Utah politics. Noted Gentiles. Liberal Mormons. Credu- lous skeptics. " No trade with non-Mormons." Consequent troubles. Persecution of dissenters. Journey to Sevier. Beauties of Pine Gulch. Return to " Zion." " There's a better day coming." Religious lying. Perjury " for Christ's sake." . . 90-102 CHAPTER VII. THE PACIFIC SLOPE. "Westward again. Corinne. Promontory. Dead Fall, Murder Gulch, Last Chance, and Painted Post. "Do me a favor: shoot me through the head!" Fine morality of the gamblers. The Great Nevada Desert. " Sinks." Up the Truckee. State Line. Down the Sierras. Wonders of Cape Horn. Sacramento. " San Jocykwinn." Or San Wahkeen?-~In Yolo County. Davisville. Chinese and silk culture. Tulcs. Fruits CONTENTS. vii and wine. Does it supersede whisky? The California seasons. "Frisco." Chinese Theater. The tragedy of Eip Sah. Buddhist ceremonies. A gloomy sort of religion.-. " Top-side Josh." The devil-drive." Chinaman like Melica man." . . 103-116 CHAPTER VIII. TWO YEAKS OF CHANGE. Utah and trouble. "Mormon hospitality." The author mohbed and badly hurt, but recovers rapidly. Healing air of the mountains. Eich mineral discoveries in Utah. The Gentiles take heart. The Emma Mine. I go to Washington as a lobbyist. And don't like it. Further travels in Utah. Polygamy again. Eev. J. P. Newman shows that there are but thirteen polygamists mentioned in the Bible. And hundreds of good monogamists. Orson Pratt comes back at him. High times in the Taber- nacle. Some of the nasty features of polygamy. Such as incest and indecency. A vil- lage composed of Taylors. And one made up of Winns. General view of the Terri- toryAnd of the Far West 117-128 CHAPTER IX. THE MISSOURI VALLEY. Kansas City: a modern Rome. We look at it, but do not invest. The "Land of Zion." Lawrence. " The Wakarusa War." The Massacre of 1863. The Athens of the West. Our journey southward: The Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Road. Ottawa. Western Yankees. " Brother K 's blooded mare.'' " Buffalo stamps." A progressive country. Fertility of Allen and Neosho counties. An incorrigible old man. Cherryvale. The beautiful mounds. The social Kansian. " Sna-a-a-kes!" Northward to Leavenworth. Quindaro Chindowan. "A second Babylon." Wyandotte. Atchison. Troy. St. Joe. Up the Missouri Valley. Council Bluffs. Omaha. On northward. Sioux City. Onawa. Woodbury. Staging to Yankton. Dakotians: French, Scandinavians, and Bohemians. "Woman's Rights:" to do as much work as she can. The gentle savage. lapi Oahye! " Portable talk." Northern Dakota. Western Dakota. We leave suddenly for California 129-139 CHAPTER X. THE WONDERS OP CALIFORNIA. All aboard for Yosemite! From chilly "Frisco" to melting Stockton. By rail to Milton. Hot drive among the foot-hills. Copperopolis. The broiling stage; air dead calm; thermometer 100. In the cool grove at last. The vegetable wonders of the world. A tree thirty-two feet thick. " Father and Mother." " Husband and Wife," 250 feet high. "Uncle Tom's Cabin." How came they here? California names. Over Table Mountain. " Truthful James." Old mining towns. Sonora. Chinese Camp. Garrote. The Tuolumne Grove. Tamarack Flat. Reminiscences of the "strong-minded." First view of Yosemite. Prospect Peak. The terrible descent. A fall of 2,667 feet. El Capitan: Tu-toch-ah-nu-la. A reverie on Cosmos. Mirror Lake. Reflected glories. The climb to Nevada Falls. Down by Vernal Falls. The sublime and beautiful. J. M. Hutchings, the pioneer. " Spirit of the Evil Wind." " Great Chief of the Valley." Down hill to San Francisco. Climate of the Coast. A day at the Cliff House. Poluphlaisbow Thalasses. Regretful good-bye to the Pacific Coast. . . 140-163 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XL UTAH ARGENTIFERA. Gentiles after silver: Mormons after the Gentiles. " Revelations" and prospecting. Up Little Cottonwood. The silver lodes Snow-slides. 12,000 feet above the sea. Bald Peak, and a view of 20,000 square miles. Big Cottonwood Canon. The great fire. American Fork Canon: the Yosemite of Utah. Mormon farmers vs. Gentile mountain- eers. " The Republic of Tooele." East Canon and horn silver. Chloride Cave. Dry Canon. Wild times in the West Mountains. A Goshoot feast. I start to Dugway. And get lost on the desert. A lonesome night. Danger and weariness. Ninety miles travel in twenty-seven hours. Independence Day on Great Salt Lake. "No gulls in Utah before the Mormons came." Sailing on the Lake. Mines in southern Utah. 'Beaver City. Mineral wealth of the Territory. Shall we annex Utah to Ne- vada? 164-181 CHAPTER XII. A CHAPTER OF BETWEENS. Joe Allkire talks. Valley tan whisky calls up reminiscences. " A bad streak o' luck." " Sod-corn barefooted." Millerites. '' Misses Chew splits the choir." The grand dog-fight. Which broke up a town. " That yaller and spotted dog." Abraham and the preacher clinch. " No Morgan-killers need apply." " The head abolishinists." Si Duvall's luck. Union Flats becomes very flat. Other reminiscences. Men who had tried many fields. Story of the mountaineer. Will and Bob McAfee. Camp in Arkansas Canon. The storm, and falling timber. Dreadful alternative of the un- wounded brother. He "relieves" the other's torture. And dies of grief and re- morse 182-193 CHAPTER XIII. OKLAHOMA. A new route to the Pacific. I enter the Indian Territory. Vinita. " White Chero- kees." Cabin Creek. Mixed bloods. "It comes back on 'em." Christian Indians. Muscogee. Also Muskokee. The Creeks at home. Ala-bah-ma: "Here we rest." Natchees and Hitchitees. An Aboriginal Democracy. House of Kings and House of Warriors. Pahly hohkohlen. Tallahassee Mission. The Muskokee in love. " Beautiful River." Brad Collins and his gang. Oklahoma vs. Okmulkee. Red hot on temper- ance. In the Choctaw country. Tandy Walker. Among the Cherokees. The Big Rattling Gourd and other politicians. Cherokee history. Civilized Indians of the Territory. What shall we do with them? .... . 194-211 CHAPTER XIV. JOURNEY TO THE RIO GRANDE. Northward again. Out on the Kansas Pacific. A beautiful country. Ellsworth. Carnival of crime in 1867. "Wild Bill." J. H. Runkle. "Rake Jake." "Dad Smith." " Shall we have a man for breakfast? " Heroic, but murderous. Bisons and business. Arrival at Denver. Rest and enjoyment. Southward by the narrow-guage railway, The Divide. Timbered region. Colorado City Take stage-coach. Pueblo. Night in the stage. Cocharas. The sefloritas. Another day of staging. Trinidad. The Raton Mountains. Down upon the New Mexican side. Wild scenes. Maxwell's Ranche. Passage of the Rocky Ridge. A snow storm and a grizzly. Down to Santa CONTENTS. ix Fe. Disappointed with the city. A queer old town. High-sounding names. Indian troubles. Starting for Fort Wingate. La Bajada. Quien Sabef Pueblos Indians. Valley of the Kio Grande. Albuquerque The gente fina. The " Greasers." Will they ever amount to any thing ? 212-229 CHAPTEE XV. TOLTECCAN. The oldest inhabitant. Alvar Nunez, etc., traverses New Mexico. What he saw and how he lied about it. " The Seven Cities of Cibola." Conquest of New Mexico. Revolt of the Pueblos. Second Conquest. High-toned grandees. Caste. Sad (?) oc- currence. Should the Territory be made a State? Citizen Indians. Queer old cus- toms. Parental authority. Enterprise. The universal burro. We cross the Kio Grande. And enter on the desert. The awful, the unutterable desert. Sufferings from thirst. Reach " Hog River." Dead Man's Canon. Another desert. Oasis of El Rito. Degenerate Spaniards. Pueblo de Laguna. An Aztec relic. El Cubero. "Women's Rights." Mala Pais. Agua Azul. The extinct volcano. Drive to Fort Wingate. My companion comes to grief. Ojo del oso. Zuni. Stinking Springs. The Puerco of the West. Down to Fort Defiance. 230-248 CHAPTER XVI. WILD LIFE IN ARIZONA. The gathering. Canon Benito. Handsome Indian girls. Navajo patience. A mixed tongue. " Slim-man-with-a-white-eye." El-soo-see En-now-lo-kyh. "Big Quill." Murder of Agent Miller. Sorrow of the Navajoes. Their kindness and courtesy. Off for a trip. My Navajo guide. " Tohh klohh no mas." Descent into Canon de Chelley. Wonders on wonders. The " cliff cities." Moonlight in the canon. Out again on the desert. An awful passage. The hot alkali plains. Thirst and suffering. " Hah-koh, Melicano.'" Approach to the Moqui towns. Amazement of the inhabitants. The city set on a rock. The strangest people in the world. Chino and Misiamtewah. The Mo- quis welcome me gladly. 249-267 CHAPTER XVII. AMONG THE AZTECS. Topography of Arizona. A region of hot sands and barren mountains, of fierce savages and gentle Indians, of rich mines and wild, forbidding wastes. The Mesa Ca- labasa. Zunis, Teguas, Moquis, Oraybes, Papagoes, Pimos, and Coco-Maricopas. Rapid decay of the wild tribes. Noble Navajoes. Their native shrewdness, industry and bravery. Who are they? Aztecs? Barboncito. Ganado Mucho. Their handi- work. Their temperance and endurance. Life at Moqui. "Ho, Melicano, messay vo!" Jesus Papa. Moqui theology. The "white Indians" of Arizona. Ruins. Aztec or Toltec? Comparison with mound-builders' remains. And South American Ruins. Only a theory. Which no one is bound to accept 268-286 CHAPTER XVIII. FROM MOQUI TO THE COLORADO. Two hundred miles of desert. Aboriginal mail service. A new guide. His nd- soass. Good-bye. Chino! -Journey to the new Navajo camp. "Damn Espanol, shteal mooch." On the sandstone mesa. A pleasant party of four. " Todos muerlos, pero mas x CONTENTS. Apaches.'" Another sandstone waste. First view of the river, 5,000 feet below us. Getting down the cliff. Water and salts. At the river at last. No boats. Perilous passage. The white woman: "My God, stranger, did you risk your life to swim that river? " The Mormon convert's story. Three days at the ferry. Parting from my Na- vajo friends. ... 287-300 CHAPTER XIX. A STARTLING INTERVIEW. I meet with a surprise. " Major Doyle " proves to be John D. Lee. And tells me the story of his crime. He describes the events leading to the Mountain Meadow Massacre. Character of the murdered emigrants. They are charged with being ene- mies of the Mormon people. The latter incensed. And determined on revenge. Did they poison the spring? Or murder friendly Indians? Outrage on Mrs. Evans. The Mormon Council. Death of the emigrants determined upon. The closing tragedy. Lee's excuses and subterfuges. His further history. A story horrible enough for the most inveterate sensationalist. I bid the Lees good-bye. And with no regrets. ; Grand canon of the Colorado. Bide to Jacob's Pool. Thence to Spring-in-Rock. Lonely camping out. My solitary journey to Kanab. The Pi-Ede band of savages. " Toh, agua, water!" Rest at Kanab. Jacob Hamlin. The Powell party. On the desert again. Pipe Springs. Our bishop landlord. Another ride over rock and sand. Gould's Ranche. Virgin City. Toquerville. " Mormon Dixie." At Isaac Haight's. Kanarra. Another misfortune. Ride to Parowan. Little Salt Lake. Arrive at Beaver. Staging thence to Salt Lake City. . . 301-316 CHAPTER XX. THE FAIR APOSTATE. English homes. Radical and Conservative ; Chartist and Monarchist. Coming of the Mormon missionary. Simple lives changed. Voyage to America. The hand-cart emigration. Frightful sufferings on the plains. Death on all sides. Starved, frozen, torn by the wolves. The Old Radical finds the Brotherhood of Man. A young hero. Willie Manson concludes to go West. Journeys thro' Illinois and Iowa. Meets a queer party. The year 1857. His sufferings. At Camp Floyd. Goes to the city. Sickness and fever. A familiar face by his pillow 317-331 CHAPTER XXI. THE FAIR APOSTATE CONTINUED. Hot times in "Zion." "The Reformation." Arrival of the hand-cart emigrants. An epidemic madness. Horrible reign of lust and fanaticism. United States officials driven out. Mormon war begun. Skill and daring of Mormon guerrillas. But the Gentile army enters the Valley. 30,000 Mormons move south. But return and submit peaceably. Willie Manson's new friends. More apostates. John Banks and Thomas James. Little Marian becomes Miss Marian. And Manson does not understand the change. In his perplexity he hears doctrine. And reproof. But hardens his heart. A new prophet. Joseph Morris. Morrisite Camp on the Weber. Attacked and broken up by the Brighamites. Murder of the women. Barbarous killing of Morris and Banks. Flight of Thomas James. Exhausted, he lies down to die. Beatty and Man- son off for Montana. Relieve James. War with the Bannocks. Desperate encounters. Four years amid the gold fields. Manson becomes a man! The friends hear that all is peace in Utah. And together return to " Zion." 332-347 CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER XXII. THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION. Bright days in Cache Valley. A brother and a sister restored to fellowship* Thomas James is again happy with Christina. But he is a bishop's rival, and that means danger. "Blood atonement." A nameless horror. The man becomes a creature. Manson perplexed. "Keep your eye peeled; this is a queer country." Red-hot dis- cussion of polygamy. News from James; which is no news. Anti-Gentile Philippics. Manson meets Marian. A good outcome at last. Astonishing conduct of Elder Bri- arly. Mystery added to mystery. Another Gentile panic. Murder of Brassfield. Out- rages on Gentile settlers. Murder of Dr. Robinson. Flight of the Gentile pre-emptors. Sad fate of Thomas James. Bishop Warren has his reward. But heaven is kinder to Christina than her own people. She finds release in death. Briarly flies from the Territory. Marian and Manson. Their Iowa home. But Utah is the home of the soul. And President Grant has given us hope. Hank Beatty's crime. Death of his wife. The Mansons return to Utah. As their troubles ended with a marriage, their future state is left to faith 348-370 CHAPTER XXIII. SWINGING 'ROUND THE CIRCLE. Off for Soda Springs. A land of wonders. A chemical laboratory ten miles square. Soda by the ton: to be had for the taking. The "Morrisites" again. A lit- tle run eastward. Denver. Lawrence. St. Louis. A day in Nauvoo: "Destined cap- ital of a religious empire." To the new North-west. Yankton. Assassination of Secretary McCook. Steamboating on the Missouri. Sioux City again. Enterprising, but sensational. Off for Minnesota. We enter the Garden State. . . 371-378 CHAPTER XXIV. MINNESOTA. Reminiscences of 1859. The Bois Brules. Full-blood Chippeways. Minnesota pineries. The Red Napoleon of the North-west. " Hard times " in 1859. I live on corn-bread, hoe corn, and cultivate muscle. Better times. Sioux war of 1862. Blue- earth County. Mankato. Journey to St. Paul. Topography. St. Anthony's Fall* Minnehaha. Journey to Sauk Rapids. Staging thence northward. Belle Prairia Catholic outposts. Crow Wing. Black Pine Forest. Brainard. Breaking up the Sab- bath. A Chippeway dance. Out on the North Pacific R. R. The barren region. Down to Red River. Moorehead. Navigation to British America. Fargo. Westward by construction train. Dakota's Salt Lake. Jimtown. Eastward again. The lake region. Scenery on the St. Louis River. Among the Scandinavians. " Postoff." Jay Cooke's Banana Zone 379-389 CHAPTER XXV. THE WAY TO OREGON. " Let us try the web-feet." Through Iowa. Westward from Omaha, Changes of four years. My fourteenth trip over the Union Pacific. More trouble in Utah. Across the Sierras again. Up the Sacramento. Gen. John Bidwell's ranche. Grapes, figs, apples, and lemons in November. Reading. Walk-in Miller's squaw. His life in jail. Great forests of the upper Sacramento. Six Cailloux. "Sleeping Dictionary." Yreka. Over the mountains. Klamath River. Cow Creek. South Umpqua. Rose- xn CONTENTS. burgh. Oregon and California Railroad. Down the Willamette. " Beaver Lands." In Portland. "Such a fog!" "John Chinaman." First-class funerals needed. "Web- feet" maidens. Shall we go home by sea? Down the Columbia by steamer. "High sea running." "Oh, my head, my stomach! O-o-o! " The boat goes on end. The land-lubbers fall on all sides. Better weather. " On an even keel." Beauties of the Pacific. Cape Mendocino. The Golden Gate. Once more on terra firma. 390-405 CHAPTER XXVI. LAS TEXAS Y LOS TEJANOS. " G. T. T." Bad reputation." You may go to hell, and I'll go to Texas." The author finds things improved. Through the Indian Territory. Red River. Deni- son. "Nohth Fohk." Healthy region. "The spiral maginnis" or " De menin- jeesus." At Sherman. Down Main Trinity. Travels in Collin County. The Cotton Belt. In Ellis County. Navarro and Corsicana. Insects and other sects. "A thou- sand and forty-four legs." Through Central Texas to Houston. Buffalo Bayou. De- lightful ride to Galveston. Celebration of San Jacinto. " Brave Texan : bravest man in the South, sah!" Delights of the Galveston beach. Beauties of the island. Up country. The land of border romance. Bob Rock and his brown mestiza. Hon. "Shack" Roberts. Some political notes. A tolerant and liberal State. 406-418 CHAPTER XXVII. HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF TEXAS. La Salle. First Settlement on the coast. Origin of the border question. Murder of La Salle. The murderers murdered. The missions. Indios reducidos. " Reduced " by prayer and fasting. The " men of reason." War between the French and Spanish. Massacre of San Saba. Decline of the Missions. Louisiana ceded to Spain. Better times in Texas. Louisiana ceded back to France. The border question again. The United States takes a hand. Fearful murders and robberies. Magee's expedition. Des- perate battle. Magee kills himself. Surrender of his army. They are barbarously massacred by the Spaniards. Revolution in Mexico. More trouble in Texas. Moses and Stephen Austin. Oppression of the Texans. Revolution. Heroic defense of the Alamo. Fannin's command butchered. Glorious victory of San Jacinto. Independence and subsequent events. Descriptive sketch of the State. .... 419-43? CHAPTER XXVIII. KANSAS REVISITED. Through the new counties. "Hard times." The Grangers' War. Woman suf frage. Allen County. Neosho. Labette. The Bender murderers. Their real fate. 1 Coffeyville. Ten square miles of cattle! "Not a good year for stock, either." The cattle trails. Montgomery County. Kansas politics. The Osage diminished Re- serve. Independence City. Elk River. Wilson County. Neodesha. Kansas cotton. Into the mound region. Westward, ho! Among the flint hills. South-western Kansas. General view of the State .... 432-446 CHAPTER XXIX. COLORADO. Westward again. 1874. Disappearance of the buffalo. Reach Denver. A long rest. Narrow-guage for Georgetown. The sublime and beautiful in Clear Creek CONTENTS. xiii Canon. Floyd Hill. Stage to Idaho Springs. To Georgetown. 2,000 miners. But where are the women? High climbs. Cool retreats. Independence Day on the summit of the Rocky Mountains. Snow banks and iced brooks. Beauties of the upper parks. Drive to Gray's Peak. The September storm. Climb through snow and ice. 14,400 feet above the sea. And a fearful snow-storm in summer. Down to Denver. Up to Caribou. Wild beauty of Boulder Canon and Falls. The rich silver lodes. On the plains again. Bide to Greeley and Evans. 447-469 CHAPTER XXX. THE CENTENNIAL STATE. Coronado. Mythologic age of Colorado. Pike sees his Peak. The hunters and trappers. Bloody encounters. Love, treachery, and retribution. Gold! The great rush. " Pike's Peak." Society takes shape. Miners' laws. People's courts. Attempts at a Territory. Successful at last: the 38th State. Our life in Georgetown. Griffith Mountain. " The Holy Cross." Rich silver mines. The Dives-Pelican Lode. Curiosities of mining. " Sam Wann," or Juan. Silver by millions. Southern Colo- rado. The White Desert. Possibilities of the new State. . . . 470-489 CHAPTER XXXI. THE MORMON MURDERERS. Another year in Utah. Capture of John D. Lee. His awful crime. Mormon madness in 1857. Assassination of Parley P. Pratt. The doomed emigrants pass Salt Lake City. Are harassed as they go south. Attacked and besieged. Surrender to Lee and others. A plot hatched in hell. The demon Higby gives the signal. Fearful scenes of blood. One hundred and thirty-one Americans fall victims to Mormon malice! And the Governor of Utah "never heard of it!" Brigham certifies to a falsehood. And swears to another. Strange chain of events leading to discovery. Lee brought to trial. Shameful farce of selecting jurymen. A black case made out. Brigham's remarkable deposition. 490-511 CHAPTER XXXII. GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY ? Astonishing conduct of Mormon jurymen. They refuse to convict. But the Mor- mon Church can not afford to sustain Lee any longer. They decide to give him up. Another trial in 1876. And a Mormon jury convict Lee. Sentence pronounced by Judge Boreman. Appeal. Date of execution postponed to March, 1877. Executed upon the very spot of his crime. Lee's final and complete confession. His last words. His peaceful and heroic death. Was Brigham Young guilty? Brigham's apologists. Captain John Codman, Geo. Q. Cannon, Gen. Thomas L. Kane. . . 512-530 CHAPTER XXXIII. THE NOBLE RED MAN. The tragedy of June 25th, 1876. Sketch of Custer's life. Hancock's campaign. Custer's first Indian fight. Massacre of Lieutenant Kidder and party. Sully's cam- paign. Custer's Washita campaign. Yellowstone expedition. Murder of Honzinger and Baliran. Arrest and escape of Rain-in-the-Face. Black Hills expedition. Gold. Events of 1875. Campaign of 1876 against Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Custer in disgrace at headquarters. Descent on the hostile camp. The bloody ending. Sitting Bull goes to Canada, and Crazy Horse to the happy hunting grounds perhaps. 531-557 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIV. PROSPECTING AND MINING. "Hoodoo" mines. Where not to look. Geological formation of Mississippi Valley. Into the mountains. Looking for " float." The amusing " pilgrim." We find a " blos- som." And post a notice. Searching for " indications." Proportion of metal found in ore. We have found a mine. Taking out a United States Patent. Counter claimants. Summary of mining laws 558-567 CHAPTER XXXV. MINING FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES. Leadville, the Magic City. From Hoosierdom to Denver. Greenhorn Range. The Royal Gorge. Railroad enterprise. Good spelling and bad pronunciation. Grand scenery. An artificial thaw. Geological formation of Arkansas Valley. Haphazard prospecting. Yield of Leadville mines in 1880. Future possibilities. The romance cf Leadville. Early discoveries. The big strikes. Sudden wealth and fast life. A business of $18,000,000 a year. The Grand Smelter. An expert examination of ores. The ides, the ets, and the ates. Influence of mines on a locality. . . 568-585 CHAPTER XXXVI. MINING IN 1882. The trans-continental railways. The Wild West abolished. Railway development in New Mexico. The Desert. The Casas Grandas ruins. The great Silver King mine. Globe City. Rough roads and alkali dust. Tombstone. The mining interests. Fu- ture prospects. A view of Arizona New Mexico and Colorado. Silver Cliff and Rosita. Peculiar geological formation. Increase in population of Colorado. Denver. The Black Hills. Annual metal product of Colorado. Natural wealth of the West. 586-596 CHAPTER XXXVII. THE DEAD PROPHET. Brigham dies. His history. " Hard working Brigham Young." The Kirtland folly. Brigham carries a level head. Building upNauvoo. Martha Brotherton "blabs." Hot water. "Spiritual wifery" introduced. "Persecution." Death of Joe Smith. Head of the Twelve Apostles. Journey to Salt Lake Valley. Trouble with the United States. As a marrying man. His wives: Mary Ann, Lucy, Clara, Emmeline, Amelia, and others. An extensive parent. Division of his estate. John Taylor comes into an easy succession. Collapse of Brigham's great plans. A discussion of the problem of Mormonism. Declining. Moral storm approaching. Then comes a better day. 597-610 CHAPTER XXXVIII. WHERE SHALL WE SETTLE? Go West! Southern Minnesota. Iowa. Southern Dakota. Nebraska. Kansas. The Indian Territory. No! Texas. Don't believe all you hear! The Indian bor- der. California: Land monopoly. Oregon. Climate and soil. "The Great American Desert." Probable population in 1900. Where is the surplus population to go? Good land pretty well occupied. What will be the result? Western Wilds will continue wild for a centurv to come. 611-628 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE MAP OF ABORIGINAL AMERICA FRONTISPIECE The non-resident tax-payer 19 " Our liberties, sir " 21 "Civilized" 24 " Thoroughly acclimated " 26 " I hunted the pipe-works " 29 Mrs. Joe's " tantrums " 35 " Made music all day " 40 His last chance 45 " Laying on of hands " 47 " The good old time " 49 " Only a memory " 51 Pulpit Rock : Echo Canon 54 The Great Salt Lake 55 On the slope of Griffith Mountain . 56 To the rendezvous 62 Cafioii de las Animas 65 Getting down to the Cimarron 67 For life or death 71 " Some one came forward holding a cup " 73 " The Mexicans saw no way " 74 "Dolores fainted in my arms-" 81 " The balls whitff -cl around us" 85 Brigham Young 90 Orson Pratt 91 George A. Smith 92 Brigham 's Residences 95 Humboldt Palisades 105. Seven thousand feet above the sea 107 Cape Horn 108 California Agricultural Report 1 Barbary Coast : San Francisco 115 " Bodaciously chawed up " 118 Mormon wives for summer and winter 121 Great expectations 135 Dakotas torturing a Pawnee 138 The two guardsmen 141 The Fallen Monarch 142 Something of a stump 143 A monster 145 Yosemite Falls 147 El Capitan 149 Bridal Veil Fall . 152 Sentinel Rock 155 North Dome and Royal Arches 157 Nevada Falls 159 Vernal Palls 160 Mirror Lake 161 Mormon Militia 165 Chloride Cave, Lion Hill 171 Goshoot Love-feast 173 Lost on the Desert 176 Deacon Chew 183 " They broke loose and lit out down the street " 184 " And they clinched " 185 " Half the town took ashy at him" 186 The Seat of War 187 "Where warring tribes met in peace" 1&9 Fine field for the ethnologist 195 " Slem-lem-an-dah-mouch-wah-ger " 201 (xv) xvi ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE "Go West" 211 Wild Bill 2J3 " Scattering leaden death on all sides " 214 " Divide Hotel and Ranche " 216 " Suggested wild beasts and banditti " 220 The ambush and running fight 225 Pueblo Maiden 230 Kit Carson 234 Pueblo Cacique ' 235 " Woman's Bights " 242 Coming to the " count " 249 On the Mesa Calabasa 269 " Converted on the spot " 271 Navajo Loom 2V3 Aztec Priest and Warrior 284 Down the Cliff 294 Climbing for water 295 Mouth of Pahreah Creek 301 Head of the Grand Canon 304 "Three little Injuns" 312 APi-EdeCeres 313 Winter camp of Goshoots 325 Scenes on the Colorado Plateau . 330 " Dashed across the burning plain " 335 Thomas James kills the Bannock 346 "Behold our Lamanite Brother" 356 " Let me look toward old England before I die " 367 " Willie has struck chloride " 369 Shoshonees with annuity goods . . . . 372 Burning of the Mormon Temple 375 Killing of Secretary McCook 377 Pembina people and ox-carts 379 Winter in Minnesota pineries 380 Minnehaha in winter 385 Dalles of St. Louis River 389 Blue Canon, Sierra Nevada 391 Cotillion on the stump of the mammoth tree 394 View in the Modoc country . . 396 Rapids, Upper Columbia . 402 Cape Mendocino 404 Comanche warrior 410 " I spiled his aim " 416 Un Indio Bravo 421 Texas and Coahuila in 1830 426 General Sam Houston 428 " Droughty Kansas " 433 " Good Osage Heap good Injun " 440 Affluent of Clear Creek 449 South-west from Gray's Peak .461 Deadly combat of Vaughn and La Bonte 474 Toiling up Griffith Mountain 480 Capture of John D. Lee 491 Mountain Meadow Massacre ' 498 Salt Lake City, 1857 513 Execution of John D. Lee 525 The Noble Red Man 581 Scene of Sioux War of 1876 533 "Busted" 534 Custer's first Indian Fight 536 Rude Surgery of the Plains 541 Night Scene in the Canon 571 A new Mining Town 578 Cape Horn and Rail-road, Sierra Nevada 588 " Giantess," Big Geyser of the Yellowstone 594 The Mormon Tabernacle 605 Fort Massachusetts, New Mexico, 1855 620 The Prospector's Peril 624 WESTERN WILDS, THE MEN WHO REDEEM THEM. CHAPTER I. THE HAWKEYES. THE rolling prairies of Iowa were taking on their richest summer hues when I crossed from Prairie du Chien to McGregor, the first of June, 1868, and entered upon a three hundred mile walk across the State. The " Land of the Sleepy," as the aboriginal name implies, was just then the land of men particularly wide awake to their own inter- ests. I was but one of a grand army ever pushing westward active, aggressive, and defiant of space and time. Iowa combined the advan- tages of both East and West, and men of all North-European races were crowding to possess it. There was the Yankee, moving on with that resistless energy which distinguishes the emigrant from our " Dorian Hive." More rarely ap- peared the " Buckeye " and " Hoosier ;" their route was a little farther south, for emigration pays some attention to isothermal lines, and as a rule older States settle the new States directly west of them. There was the blonde Swede, tall and sinewy, his blue eye lighting cheerfully at sight of such landed wealth, in a clime a little milder than his own. Dane and Norwegian were also hurrying into north-western Iowa and southern Dakota. All these Scandinavian races are rarely seen south of latitude 40, but fill whole townships in our new North-west. Dutch, Irish, Swiss, and North Germans contributed each a small quota. One might have fancied himself borne forward on the crest of that great Aryan wave which rolled westward and northward from Ba- bel's plains. Four years after I found many of these emigrants in Da- kota; already at home upon well-improved farms, and surrounded with most of the comforts of life. 2 < 17 > 18 WESTERN WILDS. Iowa and Minnesota were doubtless settled by the best class of im- migrants that ever left the East. Their laws are favorable, their insti- tutions progressive. Born republicans, these new-comers fell, by nat- ural law, into free and progressive commonwealths. At first view one would say that our mother English was in danger of being lost, and that a new language would, ere long, rise in these mixed communities. But English is the language of progress, and that tongue in which laws are written and courts conducted will in time become the ver- nacular of any new country. In no part of America is a purer English spoken. The native of Indiana finds, when settled beside the Yankee, that he must drop some of his " Hoosierisms ;" while the accent and idiom brought from " Down East " are insensibly modified, till the children of both compromise on the written language. Two hundred years ago when a man spoke in the British Parliament it was known on the instant what shire he represented ; travel and civilization have since made the cultured Northumbrian and East Angle to be of one speech. No grammar of the " Hoosier " language has ever been published. Before it becomes extinct, as have so many dialects, it may be well for one who spoke it in his childhood to fix a few of its idioms. It abounds in negatives. Unlike English and Latin, an abundance of negatives is held to strengthen the sentence. "Don't know nothing" is com- mon. " See here," says the native, looking for work, to the farmer, " you don't know o' nobody what don't want to hire nobody to do nothin' nowhere around here, don't you?" "No," is the reply, "I don't." " I reckon " is a fair offset for the Yankee " I guess " the one, as> commonly used, about as reasonable as the other. But it is on the verb to do that the " Hoosier " tongue is most effective. Here is the ordinary conjugation : Present Tense. Regular, as in English. Imperfect Tense. I done it, you done it, he done it. Plural We 'uns done it, you 'uns done it, they 'uns done it. Perfect Tense. I gone done it, you gone done it, he gone done it. Plural We 'uns gone done it, you 'uns gone done it, they 'uns gone done it. Pluperfect. I bin gone done it, you bin gone done it, etc. First Future. I gwine to do it, you gwine to do it, etc. Second Future. I gwine to gone done it, etc. Plural We 'uns gwine to gone done it, you 'uns gwine to gone done it, they 'uns gwine to gone done it. Philologically this language is the result of a union between the rude THE HAWKEYES. 19 translations of " Pennsylvania Dutch," the negroisms of Kentucky and Virginia, and certain phrases native to the Ohio Valley; and in my boyhood I often heard it verbatim as here given. The Iowa pioneers had developed a marked faculty for taking care of themselves, and making the non-resident owner of real estate help de- velop the country. Three-fourths of the taxation was laid upon land, chattels being almost exempt ; and, in the valuation, no distinction was made between slough and upland, vacant and improved. Villages, where, there was much non-resident property, were generally well im- proved; and the side-walks were always best before the non- resident's lots, direct taxation being in the same ratio. If he did not come out and enjoy the promenade he had paid for, it was his own fault. The school laws of Iowa are sur- prisingly liberal in this respect, allowing a school in every township or district where there are six children. The citizens have the right to organize a school district as they will, regardless of their number. One worthy in Wright County, finding himself, wife and seven chil- dren to be the only inhabitants of the township, forth- with called a school meeting, notices being posted ac- cording to law, elected himself director, fitted up one room in his dwelling for a school, and employed his THE NON-RESIDENT oldest daughter to teach the other six children. Thus he gave character to the settlement, and raised the money to im- prove his farm by simple compliance with the' law. And do such a people require Congressional protection from the bond-holders and grasping monopolists of the East? At the end of a week's leisurely travel, I was eighty miles from the Mississippi, and the appearance of the country had greatly changed. There were vast tracts of unsettled prairie ; timber had grown scarcer ; cultivated farms were rare, and just as the space between them increased the people grew warmer in their welcome. I was now away from the main line of emigration; and families in out-of-the-way places are nearly always hospitable. The chance traveler is as good as a newspaper, and is apt to be put to press on arrival. I soon learned to dread the wooded vales along the larger streams on account of the heat. To leave the high prairie for the " bottom " was like going from balmy May to sultry July. Regions where there is much wind are generally health- ful; but when the wind falls one is liable to fall with it. There are no hotter districts in the Union than Iowa and Minnesota during those very brief periods in summer when a dead calm prevails. Though I 20 WESTERN WILDS. had started an invalid, every day's walk made it easy to walk a little farther the next; and at the end of the second week I easily made twenty miles a day. If a man would be cured by nature, he must trust her be taken to her bosom, as it were. Many an invalid goes West for health, and imagines the climate has cured him, when, in truth, he has only forgotten his physic, and been charmed out of his cares, and taken to open air and abundant exercise. Iowa Falls, where the Iowa River leaves the " summit divide " prairies and plunges down a series of beautiful cascades to the level of the lower valley, was the location of the prettiest city on my route, and then the terminus of the Dubuque and Sioux City road. Thence I journeyed up Coon River and out to Wall Lake. To visit this place had been a dream of my boyhood. Twenty-five years ago it was represented as a marvelous work of the "mound builders." I found the "walls" there not so wonderful as described, but well worthy a visit ; not the work of any prehistoric race, but due entirely to the expansive force of ice. In the vicinity are at least a dozen lakes with the same formation some even more curious than the one most noted. They are on the "divide," between the waters which flow northward into the Minne- sota and those which drain southward; and in all countries such a region abounds in lakes. The Iowa winters freeze the lakes almost solid, and the ice gathers up stones, pebbles and mud, and year after year pushes them toward the shore;, then when the lake is full and frozen, it drives them Avith resistless energy into the " wall," till the latter looks like the most compact of man-made masonry. In some instances the water has cut a new outlet and drained the lake, and within a few years nature has begun the formation of a new wall inside the old one. Swans and wild geese abound in this region, which warmly invites the tourist, the scientist and the sportsman". Westward again, and nothing but prairie to be seen; an average of two or three families to the township, and half a day's travel at a time without sight of a house. The swiftly running streams, with hard bot- toms and pebbly banks, disappear, and sluggish sloughs take their place. Down a long slope for six or eight miles, the road brings one at last to a slough, sometimes with current enough to be called a creek, along which is found a scattering growth of timber, and sometimes a few en- closed farms. Thence one rises by slow degrees to another divide, and again down a slope to the next creek and settlement, from ten to thirty miles from the last. But the wave of immigration was rolling in; the railroad had been located on this route, and now the line I traversed presents a constant succession of cultivated fields and tasty homes; a THE HAWKEYES. 21 region rich with orchards, white and red with clover-tops, or yellow with heavy-headed grain. Then there was but one railroad across the State; now there are four from the Mississippi to the Missouri all stimulated by the completion of the Union Pacific. Then Iowa had one acre in seventeen under cultivation ; now she has one in ten, and a population of nearly two millions. With less waste land than any other State, except possibly Illinois, Iowa could sustain a population of fifteen millions, not merely in comfort, but in affluence. What American realizes the prospective greatness of that tier of States just west of the Mississippi ? Minnesota has 30,000 square miles of wheat- producing soil; Iowa has more arable land than England; Missouri has more iron, coal, timber and water-power than Prussia ; Arkansas in extent and richness fairly rivals the Kingdom of Italy; and Louisiana, besides her sugar and cotton, runs two State governments, de- cides the presidential election, and has a heavy crop of statesmen to spare. The scarcity of timber through this section had stimulated the inven- tion of substitutes. The chief novelty was wire fence, usually made by fastening three wires on a row of posts with slip cleats. This was only to turn cat- tle; but a fancy article was made with six strands, which rendered it in local parlance " horse-high, bull- strong and p i g- tight." Most of the counties thought it cheaper to forbid pigs run- ning at large. In Missouri and the timbered portions of the border States, I heard this statute denounced in much the 'same terms as the prohibitory liquor law "an invasion of our liberties, sir!" Further north populai sentiment was expressed in the pithy saying: "A man's a hog that '11 Let a hog run." Iowa, by an overwhelming majority, had equally prohibited errant hogs and free whisky. Minnesota, when I resided there in 1859, still held many of the traditions of Maine, whence most of the pioneers had come, and had equally condemned the sale of intoxicants. But western manners proved too strong for both States, 'OUR LIBERTIES, SIK ! " 22 WESTERN WILDS. for in the larger towns at least the traffic was, and is, open and unrestricted. Drawing near the Missouri I found the country rising into long ridges and abrupt swells of land, the sloughs disappearing for the most part,, and clear streams again taking their place. The grasshoppers had come in to desolate the few settlements, and for two days' travel I heard little but complaints and forebodings. Their method that season was peculiar. They traveled along a denned track, generally not more than a mile wide ; but over that area they covered the ground, while the air seemed full of white specks, the creatures flying as high as one could see. Before them were green prairies, fields rich in clover, corn and wheat ; behind them blackness, desolation and mourning. But while I studied them a strong wind sprang up from the east, and in a few hours they disappeared and were seen no more ; not, however, until they had destroyed about half the crops in three counties. Whence come they, and whither do they go? Science and unlearned conjecture seem equally at fault. It is certain that they can only breed on high and dry ridges and plains, and a wet season is fatal to them. An old and abandoned road is their favorite hatching ground. For the most part they confine their ravages to the border, but occasionally they sweep in destructive columns far down toward the Mississippi. A few years later I was destined to have an unprofitable experience with them in Kansas, after the State had been free from them seven years, and the least hopeful believed that their day had passed forever. From this region I turned south-west, and the last of June crossed the Missouri to the metropolis of Nebraska. Omaha was then the city of promise. Whether that promise has been fulfilled is a matter of doubt with many who were then sanguine. The rivalry with Council Bluffs, on the Iowa side, was intense and amusing. On the w r est bank, one heard contemptuous allusions to " the Bluffs," " East Omaha," and " Milkville." On the other side there were withering sarcasms about "Bilkville," "Traintown," "Omahawgs," "Omahens," and "The U. P. Station across the river." The editors on one side, according to their statements, made their "libelous contemporaries" on the other "squirm" almost daily. To the stranger, who had no possessions in either place, it was a free comedy. The " Omahawgs," with cheerful disregard of grammar, spoke of their city as the "initial terminus" (in English, " beginning-end ") of the Union Pacific Railroad, and future entrepot of the California, China and Australia trade. It did look reasonable that they should build up a great city, and cheering proph- ecies were abundant. Somehow thev have been slow of fulfillment. A THE HAW KE YES. 23 careful census by the city authorities made the population 19,000. The next year they modestly estimated it in round numbers at 25,000; and the next came a great epidemic (of United States officials) and swept oft' half the number, for the United States census of 1870 credits Omaha with less than 13,000 inhabitants. The city is cosmopolitan. First Street is located in the river (at high water), and the first seven streets are supposed to be on the sandbar. The city begins at Eighth Street, and the location of the fashionables is from Eighteenth to Twenty-fifth Streets, on Capitol Hill. Such are the pleasing self-delu- sions of the expanding mind in the glorious free and boundless West. It was the notable hot season in Nebraska, and a week in the metrop- olis satisfied me. Thence I sought the country by way of the old Cali- fornia trail, and traveled a month in rural Nebraska first in the valley of the Papilion (which the people persist in calling Pappeo),and thence to Fontanelle and up the Elkhorn through what is considered the gar- den spot of Northern Nebraska. It is a region rich in natural wealth, and was even then so handsomely improved that travel through it was a constant delight. There were miles of corn-fields, with heavy crops, and tracts of wheat just ready for harvesting, farm products of all kinds in abundance, and plenty blessing the industrious farmer. Planted timber of nearly all kinds grows rapidly, cottonwood and locust es- pecially; nearly every settler has an artificial grove, and these are abundant enough to greatly beautify the landscape. The soil is deep and rich, the country gently rolling, high, dry and healthful. The wheat through that region averaged twenty-five bushels per acre that year. For the width of the State north and south, and a hundred and fifty miles back from the Missouri, almost every acre is adapted for the production of grain. Thirty thousand square miles of land give abun- dant room for an agricultural population of a million. West of the area I have thus bounded, the land rises more into the barren ridges; only the valleys are very fertile, and most of the country is valuable only for grazing. Society is well organized; churches and schools have been handsomely provided for; vacant land in the fertile section is still abundant and cheap, and if one is native to any latitude north of 36, Nebraska offers him first-class inducements. The Indian still lingered. The Pawnees were the local aborigines, but Omahas (properly Mahaws) and Otoes were common, all three be- ing among the most unprepossessing of the race. Long observation has convinced me that those tribes which fringe the white settle- ments, hanging between civilization and barbarism, always include the meanest looking specimens. Of course, I except the civilized res- 24 WESTERN WILDS. idents of the Indian Territory. Cooper's Indians are extinct, but the " noble red man," in a certain sense, does exist, and I have seen him. But not near the settlements. One must go far into the interior, where they are the style and he the oddity, to see really interesting In- dians. How inferior are the Pawnees to the Sioux, the Kaws to the Utes, the Osages and Otoes to the Navajoes! A few tribes may pass successfully across the awful gulf between savage life and civilized, but there is a fearful waste of raw material in the process. My travels in Nebraska drew near a close, and I stood at evening of a beauti- ful summer day, upon a lofty hill that overlooked the fertile Platte Valley. Southward the scene was bounded by the heavy timber lining that stream; east- ward I looked over a landscape rich in natural and artificial beauty to the for- ests on the Missouri ; northward the winding Elkhorn could be traced many a mile by the tasteful groves which adorn its bluffs, while westward the view was free to the meeting of earth and sky. That way lay adventure and novel scenes ; that way I was mightily drawn. The haze of evening softened the outlines of a beautiful landscape ; from the eastward came the rumble and smoke of a Union Pacific train dashing out for Cheyenne, while westward up the valley a vagrant party of Pawnees were fast pressing out of sight. The scene was an emblem of progress. I breathed the spirit of border- land poetry. The Bedouin instinct stirred within me, and I burned to hasten my departure to that newer West, which already made this region seem old. But before I enter on the long detail of my Western wan- derings, let me briefly sketch the labors and perils of a '49-er, who passed that way nineteen years before me. 1 CIVILIZED." CHAPTER II. A WESTERN CHARACTER. UNCONSCIOUS greatness is a Western product. There many a man, in pursuance of the humblest duties, becomes a hero without knowing it. One such let me celebrate. A most modest hero, he had seen the world without intending it; had lived a romance in the mere earning of a livelihood, and grown great in simple-hearted obedience to family affection. In the autumn of 1873 I made a leisurely journey through the new counties of southern Kansas. The Osage Ceded Lands,, which only five years before had been a game preserve for vagrant aborigines, were now dotted with neat villages flanked by well cultivated farms. From the summit of a lofty mound in Montgomery County one could look over 500 square miles of rolling prairie and fertile valley, the home of 20,000 Americans. Westward the land rose more into barren ridges, beyond which were the fertile slopes of Cowley County and the new country on the Arkansas. Between was a region almost unsettled ; the rocky ridges were fit only for pasturage, and the narrow valleys were neg- lected till better places should be filled. There one might ride for hours without sight of a dwelling, fortunate at night if a settler's cabin furnished him shelter in a room common to all the family. At the close of a September day I had ridden ten miles without sight of a house, and eagerly scanned the horizon. A horseman from the opposite direction hailed me with equal eagerness to learn the distance to Elk Falls, his first chance for the night. On learning that it was ten miles, he indulged in a prolonged whistle, and in turn informed me he knew of no house on this road for fifteen miles. " But," he added, reflect- ively, "ther's old Darnells, only a mile off the road, down Grouse Creek. They'll keep you if you're a mind to stop there. They've got plenty, too, such as it is, and the old woman's a prime cook, and '11 set it 'fore you warm and clean. The old man's the wust shuck up settler on the creek, what with rheumatiz and ager and the swamps and one thing an' another; but git him stirred up and he's a powerful talker. Heap o' life in him yet." So I went to Darnells. (25) 26 WESTERN WILDS. The first show was not inviting. A rambling, double-log house of the South-western pattern practically two cabins under one roof, with a broad covered passage between. But many a pleasant night have I passed, and eaten many savory meal, in those same double-log cabins; and in the long hot days of summer, south of latitude 40, I know of no better place to loll away the delightful after-dinner hour than in the open passage aforesaid. My host was indeed " shuck up," " doubled up," too, I should say. " Fevernager," Arkansas swamps, and prairie sloughs had done their appointed work on him, and he was that perfect wreck, a " thoroughly acclimated man." He was, in local phrase, " yaller behind the gills ; " his face was of a pale orange tint, his cheeks a dirty saffron, while along the neck his skin resembled a ripe pumpkin speckled with coffee grounds. He re- ceived me with dignified wel- come in these wilds no question is made as to lodging the be- lated traveler and referred the matter of supper to "the old wo- man." One glance at her revealed the Cherokee 1 i n e- age. The deep, dark eye w i t h slightly melan- choly cast, the straight black hair, and nose just aquiline enough to give piquancy to the countenance, indicated the quarter-blood ; while her air and bear- ing gave a hint of Ross or Boudinot stock the aristocracy of that most aristocratic of all our aboriginal races. The supper was a surprise. She had evidently learned cooking in better schools than south-western cabins supply. Like him, she seemed prcternaturally quiet, as if ab- sorbed in thought; they lived in the past, and to them Kansas was not the home of the soul. New countries should be settled only by the young, for the tree of deepest root bears transplanting but poorly. " THOROUGHLY ACCLIMATED.' A WESTERN CHARACTER. 27 The broad, red sun was just dipping into the prairie horizon, when a gray haze overspread the landscape, creeping up from the sluggish stream. The old man waved his hand toward it with the brief but expressive phrase, "break-bone fever," and we retired to the cabin and evening fire. As we filled and lighted the inevitable cob pipe, com- mon in the South-west, I spoke of Andrew Jackson's love of the same, and his Tennessee habits, whereat my host broke out with sudden ani- mation : "Ah, you're from Tennessee, a'nt you?" " Not exactly," was my reply, " but I know and like the State." "Well, I was raised there, right on the banks of the Tennessee, but I was born just over the line in Alabama. Yes, sir, sixty-four years ago, in Glen Cove, I tuck my first view of life. Nicest climate in this world, sir, and bad as I've seen it tore up since, I don't want no better country." "But how came you to leave, if it was so good a country?" "Well, a good many things happened; sort o' riled the current and spiled me for a steady life, though I'm pretty well anchored now, for a fact;" and glancing at his distorted limbs, he relapsed into speechless- ness, puffing at his cob pipe, and waiting, Indian fashion, for the talk to break out naturally. Hot youth was more impatient of time, and I asked : " If no offense, what caused you to leave that country for this ? " "Well, I did'nt leave there for here; that would be too big a change. They was many haps and mishaps between. It happened along o' family matters and the war. You see they was five brothers of us and one sister, me the oldest; and mammy sort q' give the rest in my charge. Poor mammy, she never seed any of us old enough to be sure of." "But how about your father?" " Well, daddy was a little onsettled ; along o' trips down into the Cherokee country and tradin with the Injins in fact he let his little finger ride his thumb too often, and his eyesight weakened on it." This was a delicate allusion to his father's intemperance, given in the figurative language of the South-west. "Fact, he took me down among the Injins in Geawjay and North Alabama one trip fine country that, too; altogether too fine for the Injins to keep if the whites wanted it but daddy went-off at last, and that was the how of my first trip. He went off on a broad-horn. You don't know what a broad-horn is. No? Well, it's a flat-boat of the old rig ; and the men come back without him. Them days they com- 28 WESTERN WILDS. raonly walked back from Noo Orleens thro' the Injin country. All they said was he had lost all his money, and swore he'd never come back till he could come full-handed. Mammy was ailin' then, and after that she never seemed to pick up any ; and the day I was sixteen she called me close to the bed and she said : ' Willy, you go find him, and bring him back, for when he dies he'll never be easy 'cept beside me/ and then she laid on me the charge of all the other five and, stranger, I can't somehow talk about that time, but just a week after they was only me and Myra and the four little boys left. I tell you it was a sad time. I've only seen one worse and that was in the war. " I hadn't time to cry much, for I had a family on my hands and mighty little to go on except the place. We all worked and made a crop, and then I fixed things up .a little, and got a neighbor to take the place mighty nice people they was then in old Tennessee and I started to find dad." " What ! went to find your father at that age ? " "Yes," said the old man simply, " mammy had said so, and of course it had to be done. Daddy had been gone a year, when I took a broad-horn to Noo Orleens, and when I was paid off on the levee, I was the worst lost man you ever did see. In the middle of the thickest woods in the world wasn't a circumstance to it. Such crowds and crowds of people, and ships and boats and stores, and men all rushing here and yander, enough to distract you. Why, they wan't more'n one man in four understood a word I said. In all my life I'd never heard of any language but white-man and Injin, and there was I'ortagee. Mexican, Gumbo, French and Coaster, talkin' every thing, and all mixed up. My head was a swimmin just off the boat, you know and sometimes I half reckoned I'd walked right out o' the Ark and into the brick-yard at the Tower o' Babel ; for I'd read o' that anyhow, and might a' known how things would be in Noo Or- leens if I'd a thought. But says I to myself, no time to cry now; I'm here. So I went about asking every man that understood me if he'd seed a man named Hiram Darnell. Well, some of 'em cussed me, and most paid no attention to me; but bimeby one chap says: ' Oh, yes, I know Mr. Darnell ; he's up on Chapitooley Street a chawin' rags for a paper mill.' And another said : ' He was at the pipe- works, and they was trainin' him to go through a drain-pipe,' and all such stuff. " Well, I was that green I hunted the pipe-works, and there they sent me to a leather store to buy 'strap-oil,' and told me a lot more stuff. Then I walked all over the city, miles an' miles an' miles, A WESTERN CHARACTER 29 I HUNTED THE P1PK- WOKKS." lookin' close at every body I seed, an' it seemed to me I seed every body but dad. In less'n a month all my money was gone, an' I felt awful streaked. But I lit on another feller who told me the right track, and we did find out where dad had worked awhile; but he was gone, and finally the police said he wan't in Noo Orleens now. So I went to work on the levee a while haulin' and pitch in', but it was awful hot then. A feller's shadder at noon was right 'tween his feet, and 'fore long I struck an ole pard o' dads, and found he'd gone away up Red River, in the new country. So I went deck-hand on a boat up Red River, and they was nothing like so many folks up there, an' people more civil ; an' I traced him all through Arkan- saw toward the Injin country. But it took a mi^ht of time. Sometimes I worked and some- o times I walked, and at last got where there was no houses hardly, and many a time I was alone all day in the woods, and more'n once nearly lost in the big swamps. At last I got into a more open country and some new settlements about Fort Smith, and then I fell in with some Cher- okees, and sure enough they knowed dad. " You see, a lot o' Cherokees moved out there away back before Jackson come in first time, and dad had his old liking for the tribe, and had fell in with them, and away up in the timber I found him at last. But, law, how he was changed ! He come out of a cabin and looked at me as if I was a stranger. What with hot weather and whisky and the trouble and yaller fever, he wasn't just clear in his mind, and what to do I didn't know. But I'd learnt something by that time, so I watched around and got him fixed up a little, and with a good family, an' I went to work again. The Cherokees was fixin' up considerably, an' I made a pretty good job at rough carpentering; and there I worked a whole year." " You must have been rather home-sick by that time." "Well, I was a little anxious about the boys. Myra was nearly fifteen when I left ; then come Joe, thirteen ; him I played with, an' had more to do with than any of the boys. Many's the hour we've fished an' hunted along the Tennessee. Poor Joe! I've seen the time since when I wished he was a boy agin, but," with a sud- den burst of triumph, " I stuck by him to the last, as I'd promised mammy." 30 WESTERN WILDS. Here the old man fell into such a protracted reverie, that I ven- tured to recall him to the Arkansas and his father. " Oh, yes, I clean forgot. Well, in a year dad was so much better that we started home, takin' a job on another boat to Noo Orleens to shorten up the walk a little." The calm way in which he spoke of shortening the walk from Fort Gibson to East Tennessee, was wonderfully suggestive. If it had been around the world, he would have entered on it with the same reso- lution, as something that was not to be talked about, but done. " When we got to Noo Orleens and got paid oif, we fixed up with some clean clothes, lookin' real human again, and started home. But it seemed like every thing was agin us. The trail then led away from the river, and sort o' north and east, nearly straight toward the bend o' the Tennessee. We worried along with heat, for it was late, till we struck the edge of the Injun country, where we found every thing all tore up. I never got the hang of it exactly ; but the States was a pressin' the Injins to go, an' some wanted to an' some didn't; and the Choctaws they was a fussin' with their agents, an' the Cherokees a flghtin' with one another, an' there was murder an' robbery an' horse- stealin' all over the country, an' their light-horse companies out arrestiii' every body that passed on the roads. Ho\v I got along I don't know. Every time I laid down in an Injun cabin it seemed to me I'd have my throat cut 'fore mornin'; but dad talked the lingo like a born Injin, so they couldn't come no tricks in our hearin', an' every night I dreamed I saw mammy, an' she looked kind o' glad, an-' though she said nothin', her looks meant plain enough : ' Don't cry, Willy, you'll get home all right.' "But when we got to the Cherokee country it was worst of all. They was two parties in the tribe, Rossites and Ridgites, and just then the Rossites got up an' murdered a chief named Mclntosh an' a lot of other Ridgites, an' swore that every Injun that said 'go' should be served the same way. They stopped us, an' wouldn't let us go through at all. They pow-wowed around with us for two months; then come along some that knowed Daddy, an' they said he should go or they'd have blood. So it was settled that I was to stay an' him go on, an' if it proved we was all right, I was to be let go in so long a time. When the time come they turned me loose, an' I started north on the first road I struck. But I was powerfully out o' conceit with the redskins, an' the first two nights I slept out. " It was then September, an' the next day, when I thought I was near the Tennessee, all at once I took so cold I seemed like I'd chill to A WES TEEN CHARACTER. 31 death, an' pretty soon so hot that I stopped at a spring an' drunk an' drunk till I staggered 'round like I had a load of whisky on. An' when night come on, I kept gettin' up an' layin' down first one place an' then another, an' then huntin' water an' tryin' to get into a house that was right afore me, an' yet I couldn't somehow locate it. All at once I come on Joe, an' I cried like a child, an' begged him to take me in an' give me a drink. It 'peared like Joe was scared of me, an' run, an' I run an' called to him all night thro' the woods. Then it come on to rain, an' I got down by a tree, an' it seemed like Joe was jist t'other side of the tree, an' wouldn't come an' help me. So I got up an' staggered on, an' all at once I was at myself, settin' at the foot of another tree, an' somebody was callin' thro' the woods for milk cows. And when the voice come near me I set down an' cried, for it made me think o' Mammy and Myra it was so soft an' sw r eet. Then a girl come up, and I tried to speak, but shivered an' shook that bad I couldn't say a word. But how pretty that little white Cherokee looked ! Stranger, you have no idee. No woman you ever see could ekal her." I was about to demur to this, when the fire blazed up brightly, and I glanced across the hearth at the "old woman;" and was it fancy? or did the lines in the poor, worn old face seem to fade away, and a trem- ulous softness steal into the dark eyes ? I suspended criticism, and after a brief reverie my host continued : " Well, I sunk down agin, an' the next I recollect I was in a cabin, an' an old conjurer was pow-wowing over me. She was the blackest, grizzliest old Cherokee I ever seed; an' as she muttered some heathen stuff, an' rattled a little bell, she sometimes went to the door and stroked her face and kissed her hand to the sun, an' somehow I got the idee she was the same as the pretty little girl that found me, an' the notion of the change made me cry agin. The next ten days I don't know much about, only they had a regular doctor once or twice ; an' all at once I woke one clear morning, an' there set the pretty little Cherokee, an' my head was all right agin. " But law, stranger, I was that weak ! They was white Cherokees that picked me up the man a Scotchman, married to a half-blood woman, and some of the best folks I ever struck. It was weeks be-, fore I could walk a quarter ; then I got strong pretty fast, and bimeby along came dad huntin' for me. An' that girl well, I reckon she spared nothin' that cabin could aiford to help me get well. She used to sing the Cherokee songs, and her mother would tell all about the travels and troubles of the tribe from the time they left the Yemas- 82 WESTERN WILDS. see. in Carolina, till now. And when I was able to go it seemed like a dream as if I hadn't been there a week. It was over two years I'd been gone, but every thing was right at home. After that I had business every two or three months down in the Cherokee Nation, an' all at once the troubles started up again. The rights of it I no more understood than I did the other trouble, only that Jackson had come in President, and took the part of Geawgey and Alabama agin the Injins, an' swore they'd got to go anyhow, an', then they quar- reled among themselves agin. Then her father died the little white Cherokee I mean and her mother was all put out about the troubles, but finally said she must go with her people, and claim her head- rights on the land where they was to settle. Then I spoke to the little girl well, to make a long story short, I've tried for thirty years to pay up, but I'm still in her debt, an' to me she's just as pretty as she was the mornin' she found me in the woods." And now I was sure it was no fancy, for the "old woman" had crossed the hearth and taken the gray head in her hands; the sad, dark eye was again lighted with the gleam of youthful love, the wrinkles gave place to smiles, and the worn face was transformed into something far beyond the beautiful. It was divine. "So your troubles ended in joy at last," said I. "Yes, I reckon you may say so;" then, with his pipe relighted, he puifed away in silence. He had acquired one habit of his stolid Indian friends the habit of having fits of silence, waiting on the stim- ulus of smoke. Two lads of sixteen or seventeen years came in with the proceeds of a day's hunt. " Our grandsons," said the hostess, in a half-apologetic tone, " and about all the dependence we've got now." This was her first and last observation, and we seemed in a fair way to smoke the evening away in silence, when one of the young men threw a fresh knot on the fire. It blazed up brightly, and, with In- dian suddenness, the old man broke out again : " It was a bad thing, a bad, mean thing, the way them people was rooted out. Just think of a whole people, sixteen or eighteen thou- sand, lots of 'em with good farms, an' houses, an' shops, an' startin' schools an' newspapers, havin' to pull up whether or no, with soldiers to prod them along with bayonets, an' go away off to a country they didn't like, an' where lots an' lots of 'em died ! Well, that's what they done." " You mean the Cherokees." " Yes, my wife's folks all went with 'em. So we bought a place of A WESTERN CHARACTER. 33 a Cherokee that was leaving, an' worked it five years, an' got every thing fixed beautiful, with lots of stock and grain. But it seemed like they was no luck in that cussed country ; anyhow, I was turned out bag an' baggage." "Turned out! How? Did you lose your land?" " Well, yes ; it amounted to that finally." He seemed desirous of giving the story, and yet was reluctant to begin. " But how did it happen ? " I persisted. " Well, stranger, I never just got the right of it, an' for a long time I never liked to think of it, for I always got mad an' swore under my breath, an' it worried the old woman, an' made me lose sleep, an' so I've pretty much quit thinkin' about it. You see when the Injins left, there was a deal of swindlin'. Most of 'em was ignorant, an' some signed away their land when drunk, an' a few rascally Injins traveled 'round with the speculators, signin' away others' rights, an' swearin' they was the ones. A man just come up one day with a deed to my land, an' the court pow-wowed awhile about it and said it was his'n, an' I just had to clear." " But you had your stock." " Well, no, not exactly. You see I lawed him awhile, an' the court made me pay for that, an' my lawyer cost something; an' the height of it was, when the thing was done I just put my wife on the only hoss we had left, with a little one behind her, an' the baby in her arms, an' me an' the oldest boy walked, an' we went back to Ten- nessee." "And began again without a cent !" " Well, not that exactly. I raised some money in a year or two. But somehow it didn't seem the old thing to me there, an' so we come over west of the mountains, an' got a little piece of land in Coffee County, an' that was our home till we come out here. After all we've got along, an' I've never been in jail but once." " In jail ! Why you never committed any crime?" " No, but come mighty nigh it once near enough to be took up an' mighty nigh hung for it. But that was out in Iowa." "So you did take another trip, after all." " Yes ; it was along o' the boys, specially brother Joe him that 1 always sot most store by. Joe married young married an Irish girl in the neighborhood, though all of us opposed it. I could see she had temper ; but every feller's got to take his chances on that, anyhow. You know how that is." 3 34 WESTERN WILDS. " No, I can't say as I do. But how did lie get along ?" " "Well, there was trouble. An' bimeby I persuaded Joe if they'd get away from both their folks it would be better ; so he went to In- jeanny, and then to Illinoy. "Well, it seems like when folks get started that way they keep goin' and goin'. One place is too hot and another too cold, an' here its sickly an' there they's bad neighbors, and so on. Leastways it was that way with Joe, and finally he landed in the Half- breed Tract in Iowa. At first he could not say enough in praise of the country. Joe was a great scholar; he could write like a school- master, an' cipher as fast as he could make the figures ; but my wife had to read the letters an' answer for me. All at once we got no more letters for two or three years, and then come one with just a few lines, an' it wound up : ' I've writ so often an' got no answer, I'm discour- aged, but I'll try once more. Come an' see old Joe before he dies !' " Nothin' could a' stopped me after that. I fixed up every thing snug about home, an' got Ben, my youngest brother, to stay while I was gone, an' run down the Tennessee an' up the Mississip to St. Louis. Then I conceited I might need all my money, so I took a job on another boat to Nauvoo, where I landed all right, but soon found I'd run right into the trouble. " It was the year after the Mormon prophet was killed, an' the whole country was up a boomin'. I only knowed Joe lived back in the country somewhere on the other side, an' when I asked about roads they looked at me like I was a pirate. I had to give account of my- self half a dozen times 'fore I got out of town, an' then like enough when I'd step off I'd overhear some feller say,/ D n him, he's one of 'em, and a spy at that.' Over the river it was jist as bad. Every body was afraid of every body else they didn't know. If I went nigh a house when the men was out, liker'n not the woman 'd bolt the door an' set a dog on me, or run out toward the fields and holler for the men. Every body carried a gun, or a club, or a knife, an' I never seed so many big an' savage dogs one or two at every house ; an' they looked jist as snappy an' suspicious as the people, an' watched round close an' stuck by the women whenever a stranger come along. One man I asked a civil question about the road, an' he only grinned an' said, 'Your safest road's back towards Nauvoo; they hang horse thieves over here.' An' that night where I stopped they stood with the door open about an inch, an' made me answer a hundred questions 'fore they'd let me in. Lord, such a catekismcn I Avas put through ! an' didn't half want to let me in then. It was jist the Cherokee COUD- A WESTERN CHARACTER, 35 try over agin, an' they might as well a been at war for any comfort they took. " But next day I found Joe's, and it was the poorest, meanest house on the Tract. I walked in, an' what do you think I seed? Thar was my dear Joe sittin' all bent up, an' poor an' thin, an' lookin', though not over forty, like a man o' sixty. He'd rastled with ager an' room- atiz time about till nothin' was left for any sickness to tack on to, an' all the while that Irish wife o' his tormentin' him to death. When I saw him I never said a word I couldn't but I jist took him in my arms, an' for the first time in all my troubles I broke down an' cried ! It done Joe no end o' good to see me, but it wa'nt for long. She soon spilt our comfort. She was a spitfire when he married her, an' you un- derstand age an' bad luck hadn't improved her any what with bein' out among such rough people, losin' her children, an' livin' in a cabin with a sick man, an' mighty little to go on, for they was poor as the low-wines o' pond-water." Only the western traveler who has been compelled to suck up moist- ure from a prairie slough, or lie down and drink out of a wagon track, can appreciate the force of this simile. It is scarcely possible to con- ceive of a more unsatisfactory drink. " She could swear like an ox-driver, an' when she took a tantrum every thing was ammunition that come to her hand the poker or an old skil- let-handle, it was all one to her. But I stood her off, and was gettin' Joe cheered up right smart, when one mornin' I \vas everlastingly took back by seem' a crowd of men with guns comin' up to the gate. 'What does them men want?' sez I. 'You, like enough,' sez she, snap- pin'-turtle style. An', sure enough, it was me. They snatched me right out of the house, with- out a word o' why, an' I thought my time had come. They was all sorts o' talk about an aw- ful murder, an' two or three o' the lot was hot to hang me up. But the captain said, ' No ; ev- ery fellar should have a fair trial Mormon or old settler, it was all the same.' They took me down to a camp in the woods, where they was more'n a hundred men, some comin' and goin' all the time, an' nearly all drinkin', and the drunker they got the more dangered I felt. One chap stuck his face nearly agin mine, an' sez he, 'Didn't you help kill Miller and Liecy?' 'No,' sez I. 'Didn't you come MRS. JOE'S "TANTRUMS. 1 36 WESTERN WILDS. sneak in' along the brush road from Nauvoo t'other day, then?' says he. 1 No/ sez I, and was goin' on to explain, when he yells out, ' You're a d d lying Mormon, an' I've a mind to shoot the guts out o' you,' 'an the captain stopped him. I noticed the captain didn't touch the whisky, an' that hoped me a good deal. " They took me an' five others to a big house, an' kept us all day an' night, an' then I heard what it was all about. An' no wonder the peo- ple was excited. It skeered me jist to hear it. It was at the only house I'd stopped at on the way where the folks was easy an' civil like. They was a Dutchman named Miller and his son-in-law Liecy lived there; an' they was jist from some old civil country place in Penn- sylvany, or some'rs back there, where nobody's afraid or locks their doors at night ; an' these men had come on the Tract to buy land. It Avas talked round that the old man had five thousand dollars in a trunk, an' a job was put up by some fellers in Nauvoo. They spied 'round a day or two, an' one night three men busted in the door an' fell to shootin' an' cuttin' every thing they come to. The whole house was dashed with blood. The old man fit like a tiger. He was a Dunkard preacher, an' as stout as an ox, an' I mind well it was told 'round for a fact that he nearly killed one o' the men jist with his naked fists; an' when they run a long butcher-knife into his breast, he was so big it didn't go half way through, an' he whipped 'em off an' fell dead in the yard ! What with the old man's fightig', and the women screamin', an' the dogs a barkin', the fellers was skeered oif an' never got a cent o' the money. Then a neighbor galloped to Montrose, a town nigh there, an' raised the yell, an' in a little while the Hawkeyes, as they called theirselves, was out, an' that day they sarched every corner in the county. It was {he roughest time for strangers you ever read of. If you ever seed a lot o' cattle bellerin' 'round where one had been shot, you've an idee. " They was some that even proposed to hang all of us to be sure an catch the right one; an' what made it worse we was as much skeered of each other as we was of the Hawkeyes. But they was one man named Bird in our lot who cheered us up a good deal ; an' pretty soon they got on the right trail, an' it led straight to Nauvoo ; but the Mor- mons wouldn't give the fellers up. Then the sheriff took a whole boat load of men to Nauvoo, an' they had a big meetin', an' threatened war, but finally he got the men he had writs for, an' got 'em in jail; but the sheriif had his doubts, an' set up a game on 'em. They was two brothers named Hodges, an' he took four men of about their build, an' set 'em altogether, an' had Liecy, who lived some dajs, A WESTERN CHARACTER, 37 carried in to look at 'em. The Hawkeyes had us along, for they was bound to catch somebody ; an' it was the solemuest time I ever seed. The two Hodges was as cool as cowcumbers, but the other four men was skeered nearly to death. Liecy took a long look, an' then pinted his finger at the Hodges, an' says he : ' There's the man that shot me, an' there's the man that knifed me ! ' "And that settled their hash. So we was all turned loose, an' Bird an' me made tracks for Joe's. When we got nigh the house, we heard an awful racket, an' run in, an' she had Joe down beatin' him with his own crutch. They'd had another row, an' she'd sort o' got the best of it. I snatched the weepin' outen her hand ; then she swore at us, an' lit out on the road with a partin' blessin', an' that's the last we ever seed o' her." "Bolted, did she?" " Rather that way, stranger. But what do you think that woman done? Went straight to Montrose, an' swore to my havin' bogus money, an' the very next day they put me in jail socked me right in with them two Hodges an' I never felt so mean an' streaked in all my life. I had no learnin' 'cept to read a little, an' that was the first I ever felt bad about it. One of the sheriff's men, Hawkins Taylor, was real kind, an' got me some things an' a lot o' copies set. I put, my whole head to it, an' in jest three weeks, sir, I wrote a nice letter to the old woman didn't tell her where I boarded, though an' then I felt easier. If it hadn't been for that, I'd 'agone crazy, shut up so with them Hodges. I've seen 'em more'n once since, in my sleep. They swore an' sung an' joked an' held up pretty stiff they had an idee their friends in Nauvoo would take 'em out but bimeby their brother there was found one morning with his throat cut, jist after he'd seen the head Mormons an' raised a row with 'em about givin' up these two ; an' then they sort o' lost hope. It was no go. Iowa was up then, an' the Mormons might as well a'tried to take 'em from Gineral Jack- son's army. I was turned loose finally, the day before they was hung. "They was people come a hundred miles to see it, an' camped out in wagons. They had so little fun on the Tract, it was a great treat to see somebody hung. Joe an' me was there, an' that's the first an' last sight of that kind I ever took. I've seen plenty killed, but not that way. We sold Joe's place, an' got him home, an' he picked up mightily in old Tennessee. For an East Tennessee man no other place is as good as the mountains. Only place I've seed to compare vith it was in Californy." "What! Have you been to California, too?" 38 WESTERN WILDS. "Took a little trip out there." " Little trip ! It is considered a pretty big one. Did you go for gold ? " " Some'at, but more on account o' the boys." "Your brothers again?" " No, my own boys. You might say I went to keep them from goin', for I suspicioned it was all foolishness, from the start. I reckon you don't remember the big excitement. No? Well, it swept all Tennessee like a fire in prairie grass. I first heard it one day at Man- chester, when the Whigs had a pole-raisin' along o' the election o' old Zach Taylor, an' a man jist from Noo York spoke, an' said old Zach had conquered for us a country with more gold in it than any nation on earth had. Pretty soon the news come thick. They said men j ust dug gold out o' the rocks thousands in a day. You ought to heard the stories that was told for solemn facts. One man said a feller dug out one lump worth eight hundred thousand dollars, an' as he set on it, a feller come by with a plate o' pork an' beans, an' he offered him fifty thousand for it, an' the feller stood him off for sev- enty-five thousand. It was in the Nashville paper, an' so every body in our parts believed it. "Then every loose- footed man wanted to go. Some jist throwed down their tools an' started ; an' some men that was tied with families, actually set down an' cried 'cause they couldn't go. My boys was as crazy as the rest. But they was only sixteen an' eighteen, an' I seed it wouldn't do. So I said : ' Boys, let me go, an' I'll let you know in time,' an' then I bound 'em to take care o' their mother till I sent for 'em. It would a' been ruination for them young innocent boys to go off with such a lot o' men. Jest as soon as the Tennessee was up so boats could run over Muscle Shoals, a company of forty of us shipped teams an' started, an' landed at Independence, Missouri, the last o' March. The whole country was under water, but our fellers was crazy to git on ; so they hitched up and started right across the Kaw an' into the Delawares' country. But it was all foolishness to start so early. Accident after accident we had. The mud was thicker an' stickier every day, an' all the creeks was up ; but the men kept up a hoopin' an' swearin', an' often had to double teams, an' sometimes we'd stick an' pull out two or three wagon tongues 'fore we'd get through. I never seed men so crazy to git on. They whipped an' yelled, an' wouldn't listen to reason. They was plenty started three weeks after us, an' passed us on the road. An' what was strange, the trains that laid by an' kept Sunday, got to Californy first. You wouldn't believe it, but I've heard hundreds say the same thing. A WESTERN CHARACTER. 3J " Biraeby we got righted up an' on dryer ground, an' went on after killin' two or three hosses an' leavin' one wagon. The trains got strung out all along the trail, so we had grass an' game plenty along up the Blue River an' over to the Platte. There we struck the Mor- mon emigration an' all the Californy trains that went that way. The whole country was et out, an' the Injins threatened, an' the men got to quarrelin'. I tell you it takes a mighty good set o' men to travel together three thousand miles an' not fuss. Sometimes it was Whig and Democrat, an' then it was Tennessee agin Geawgey. I tell you when men are tired an' dirty they'll quarrel about any thing. About half a dozen swore Californy was all humbug, an' turned back, an' at Laramie Forks the company split into two. At South Pass our half split agin, an' ten of us went off with a company to go the new route, south of the Salt Lake. We got to the Mormon City all beat out, an' more'n half a mind not to go a mile further. Plenty got there in worse humor than us. Some had split up till it was each man for him- self, an' some actually divided wagons, an' made two carts out o' one, or finished the trip on hosses. We took a rest, an' traded every thing with the Mormons, givin' two of our hosses for one fresh one, an' finally got off in pretty good shape agin. " But all we'd seed was nothin' to the country from there on. Rocks an' mountains an' sand; an' sand, an' rocks an' mountains miles on miles of it. Sometimes the water was white as soapsuds with alkali, an' sometimes as red as brick-dust, not one time in five sweet an' clean. I reckon I swore a thousand times if I ever got home agin nothin' stronger 'n cold water should pass my lips. I've drove all day 'thout seein' a spear o' green, or a speck of any thing but sand; an' if we got grass once a day, we was in luck. Every day the men swore nothin' could beat this, an' the next day it was always worse. I reckon God knows what he made that country for he haint told any body, though. "At last we got into a region that was the hind end o' creation seventy miles 'thout a drop o' water or a spear o' grass! Nothin' but hot sand an' beds of alkali as white as your shirt. The trains used to start in one afternoon an' drive two nights an' a day, an' get to water the second mornin'. The whole way was lined with boxes an' beds an' clothes, an' pieces of wagons, one thing an' another the trains ahead had left, an' the last ten miles you might a' stepped from one carcass to another on the dead hosses an' mules an' oxen. Two o' our men got crazy as loons you can see such strange things on them deserts. My head was clear as a bell, an' yet half the time I could see off to one 40 WESTERN WILDS. side of us a train jest like our'n, only the men an' bosses ten times as big, an' jist as like as not they'd raise in the air an' move off upside down. It was sort o' skeery, an' no mistake. We left four or five dead bosses on that tract, but when we got to Carson River, it was too pretty a sight to tell about. There was sweet, clean water an' grass an' trees an' trains strung along for miles a restin' their stock. Somo of our men run right into the water an' swallowed an' swallowed till they staggered like drunk men. All the rest of the way was in the mount- ains, but grass and water was plenty, an' the trees how I did admire to see 'em! Hundreds o' miles I hadn't seen a bush as thick as my thumb. "Well, we was into Californy at last, an' it looked like heaven to me. There was big trees, an' the wind blowin' soft away up in their tops; an' the pretty clear streams down the mountain side an' through the gulch- es made music all day. In some places the air was jist sweet that blowed out o' the "MADE MUSIC A!.,, DAY." p j ne ^^ ^ week after week the sky was so blue, an' the air so soft, it seemed like a man could stand any thing. An' no matter how hard you worked in the day, or how hot it was, it was always so cool an' nice at night; you could sleep anywheres on the ground or on a pile o' limbs, in the house or out o' doors, an' never catch cold. A WESTERN CHARACTER. 41 " But if the country was like heaven, the folks was like the other place, I reckon. Such sights such (loins'! I'd never 'a believed men would carry on so. I went to minin' in the Amador, an' first they wasn't a woman in a hundred miles. And when one did come in one day on a wagon, the men all run to look at her as if she was a show. Better she'd a' stayed away, an' twenty more like her that come in when the diggins begun to pan out rich. I believe every woman was the cause o' fifty fights an' one or two deaths. It made me mad to see men fight about 'em, when they knowed jest what they was men that had mothers an' sisters back in the States, an' some on 'em sweethearts an' wives. They was mostly Mexican women, an' some Chilaynos an' South Spainers; an' somehow it was a sort o' com- fort to me that there was hardly ever an American woman among the lot. "Bimoby these diggins sort o' worked out, an' I went down on Tuolumne, an' then mined about Angells an' Murphy's Camp, an' finally to Sonora. Thjen all sorts o' new ways o' minin' come in, but they took capital, an' I let 'em alone. Men was all the time runnin' about from camp to camp so many new excitements no matter how rich the ground where we was, some feller would come in with a big story about a new gulch, an' away they'd go. I've seen a thousand men at work along one creek, an' a big excitement break out, an' before night they wouldn't be twenty left. Sometimes a man would get title to big ground, an' hold it at a thousand dollars, an' when the rush come you could buy him out with two mules an' a pair o' blankets. Many an' many a time I've seen a man go oif that way with a little money an' never be seen alive. Like enough his body was found away down the river, an' like enough it was never found. It got so they was men there that would cut a throat for ten dollars. It wasn't all one way, though. More'n once the robbers would tackle some gritty man that was handy with his ' barkers,' an' he'd get away with two or three of 'em. Every body carried the irons with him, ready to pop at a minute's notice, an' if a man traveled alone, he took his life in his hand. "It wa'nt long though till we got some kind o' government. Cali- forny was made a State the year after I got there, but that didn't sig- nify in the mountains; an' at Angell's Camp we chipped in together and hired regular guards to look after every suspicious man. The worst thing was to get down from the mines to Frisco; for if it was known that a man was a goin' to leave, it was 'sposed he'd made his pile, an' had it with him. At last I made a little raise that was in 42 WESTERN WILDS. the spring of '52 an' concluded to come home. Me an' my partner jest laid down our tools one night right where we worked, an' packed up, an' when the camp was asleep lit out over the hills 'thout sayin' a word to any human bein.' Got home 'round by Panama all right, an' found every thing chipper, an' when I figured up I was just three hundred a head on the three year's trip. Better stayed at home for yold but it saved the boys." " Then you stayed at home and took comfort for the rest of your life, I suppose." There was dead silence. The " old woman " rose and retired to the other cabin ; the youths had long before ascended the ladder which led to their bed in the garret, and my host seemed to have finished. But it was evident there was something more, and it was the most painful part of his story. The old wall-sweep clock struck nine in a loud, aggressive tone, which roused the old man, and he resumed in a dif- ferent manner a mingling of regret and indignation:- " It was a bad thing, a mighty bad thing, for old Tennessee, when the Whig party died. I felt in my bones no good could come of it. But I didn't think it would touch me so close as it did. I knowed trouble would come, but couldn't sec jist how. You know all about that. Our folks was all agin the war from the start. I was down at Manchester the day they hauled down the stars an' stripes, -an' sez I, l Men, you've bit off more'n you can chaw ;' an' they laughed at me. But I knowed them Northern men seed 'em in Californy. Slow, mighty slow, to start a fight, but awful to hold on. " But I sha'u't dwell on this. In less'n three mouths, sir, both my boys was in it. I held up a year or more ; then come both armies swecpin' South, an' what our folks left the Federals took. I thought to make a crop yet, an' fixed up a good deal ; then come both armies back north 'rd agin an' swep' me clean. But my old woman an' the girls turned out an' helped, an' in '63 we 'scaped a long time. Then they come South agin, an' we give it up. I really believed they'd drive each other back an' for'rd there for years. Next year I got up one mornin', an' there was a letter stuck under the door by some gew- rillers, an' it said both my boys was bad shot, an' in the hospital at Atlanta. I felt death in my bosom right then. But I sha'n't dwell on this. An hour after sundown I was off on the only hoss we had left, an' by daylight I was in the sand-hills along the Tennessee. The country was full o' soldiers, but I got round all of 'em an' to Atlanta. It was no good no good. Men was dyin' all round, an' families broke up an' scattered, an' women an' children naked an' starvin'! What A WESTERN CHARACTER. 43 was my troubles to them ? The boys was fur gone, an' no medicines an' nothin' to help 'em could be got It was a might o' comfort, though, to see 'em 'fore they died, an' take back some keepsakes to their mother. Oh, stranger, that war was a powerful sight o' trouble to us all ! "They was buried, along with hundreds of others, an' I was gettiu' ready to start back, when up steps a chap, an' sez he, ' Old man, we want you can't spare a man now that can shoot.' An' I jist had a chance to send word home, an' then took the place my oldest boy had ; an' nigh a year after, when that regiment give in to old Sherman, I was one of the thirty-six all that was left of a big regiment. " * * * I found my folks at a neighbors, but on my place they wasn't a stick nor a rail. I hadn't the heart to try it there agin. We got word that my wife's mother had died in the Cherokee Nation, an' left a good claim ; so I turned over the Tennessee land to my son-in- law (he married my only girl), an' had him take the other grand-chil- dren, too, an' he outfitted us for the Nation. " My wife proved up on her Cherokee blood, an' I was let in under their law as bein' married to a Cherokee that had head-rights, an' we took her mother's place. Nice fixed up, too, it was, on Grand River, jist across from Fort Gibson, an' there my grandsons that come with us made two crops, an' then all at once the troubles about the Chero- kees started up again. I turned cold 'round the heart when I heard it I did want rest so bad. Then I looked back only forty years, to the time when all the country, from Tennessee here, was wild, an' President, Congress, an' all said if the Cherokees would only come out here they wouldn't be bothered for ages an' ages, an' now this country's older 'n Tennessee was then. Neither did any man own his land in the Cherokee Nation; it was common, an' we owned jist the improve- ments. So I took a good long look at the matter, an' sez I, l Once more, Natie, dear (that's my wife), we've got to go once more ; this is too good a country for Injins to keep if white men want it, an' you can swear they will long 'fore we die.' " So I traded that claim for this piece up here, an' my grandsons stuck, an' I guess we'll get along. What I dread more'n any thing is another war." " Why, what reason have you to dread it ?" t(t Burnt child,' you know. All my life I've been a man of peace, an' yet every fuss that come up hurt me. Three times I've been broke up an' ruined by wars an' troubles I had no hand in briugiu' on. Don't you think they'll keep peace while I live?" 44 WESTERN WILDS. There was for a brief moment a new look in his eye the eager, pleading look of a hunted animal. I reassured him, and his face re- sumed its usual air of placid humor and homely philosophy. " The story's about done. Hope I hav'nt bored you. It's a sorter queer world, aint it? Sometimes I think it jist was to be so, an' no help, an' sometimes I conceit I ought to done better; but anyhow, all I git outen the whole of my experience is that a man must keep peggin' away. But you're noddin'. Better you go to sleep early." And di- recting me to the ladder, this uncomplaining heir of adverse fortune sought his bed in the other cabin. Here was a man who had traveled over half the continent, been farmer, boatman, miner, soldier, and Indian trader, and never imagined that he had done more than his duty. Perhaps there is no moral to be extracted from his story ; yet it somehow seems to me one on which discontented respectability, cushioned in an easy chair, might profita- bly ponder. CHAPTER III. THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. IT was an era of change and fierce excitement. Omaha was in her speculative period. Daily hundreds of adventurous fortune-seekers set out for the mountains, and daily the refluent tide landed half as many of the returning a very few fortunate beyond their hopes, many about as well oft as when they started, and quite as many utterly bankrupt. Such a country could not but develop strange characters ; a man either failed, lost hope, and sank into a " floater," or developed an amazing capacity for lighting on his feet at every fall. There, for instance, was my friend Will Wylie, who had seen the el- ephant in its entirety, from trunk to tail. He went out in 1862, and " struck it rich " on his first vent- ure in the mines of Montana; started with teams and wagons to California, and on the way was robbed of every ounce of his "dust" by the then swarming " road agents." They kindly left him his stock, with which he got through to California, and thence made a highly successful trip to Arizona. There he turned his means into a freighting company, and beguiled the lonesome hours of his long drives over mountains and deserts by calculating his certain wealth and early return to the States. When near Fort Whipple, and not three hours ride from a well-manned United States post, the Apaches attacked his train, stampeded all his stock but the mule he rode, and burnt all his property they could not carry oif. By the light of his blazing wagons he fled, with an arrow sticking in his cheek ; his frightened animal ran till it dropped dead, but fortunately not till it had carried him into the quadrangle of the fort. He was picked up in- sensible, and in six weeks was out again with the loss of one eye. He- turning to Montana, he joined the Vigilantes, and had the pleasure (45) HIS L.AST CHANCE. 46 WESTERN WILDS. of presiding at a " neck-tie sociable " where two of the men who had robbed him were hanged. Some more " dust " was obtained out of the old claim in which he still held an interest, and in 1867 he came down on the Union Pacific as a trader. He had what he called a " big biz " at each successive terminus town, and was now in Omaha to buy a " little bill " of ten thousand dollars' worth of provisions, tobacco and " bitters " for the new metropolis beyond Cheyenne. Three years after I found him away up in the mountains of Utah, where he had put all his available means in a new and half-developed mine, and was sinking on the vein with tireless energy, in the daily hope of striking a bonanza. These hopeful ones rarely make the most money, but without them when would the Great West ever have been developed ? There, too, was Jim Garraway (who, however, will never recognize himself by this name), born and reared a gambler never knew much else from boyhood. His father, companions, friends, all were gam- blers ; as a baby he played with faro checks, and learned English in the atmosphere of pool rooms. At twenty gaming was his (infatu- ation. Now he had thoroughly reformed, never touched a card, and was in a responsible position in Wells, Fargo & Co.'s employ. Two years after he surprised me by a call at my office in Corinne, Utah. He was freighting thence to Montana, the owner of mules and wagons worth five thousand dollars. One evening, when idle time hung heavy on his hands, he strayed into one of our " sporting rooms." The smooth-spoken proprietor who so styled it, might have added, " What is sport to us is death to you," for Jim's old infatuation returned. He staked a pile of " chips " and won ; then made and lost, and made and lost alternately, selling his stock when " broke," and scarcely ate or slept till the tail of his last mule was "coppered on the jack." Repentant and returning Mormons were numerous, but seldom noisy. One I met who had been back and forth, in and out of the Church, three times. Now he declared with profane emphasis that this was the last time ; he had seen enough. One little party of a hundred recusant Saints, of all ages from six months to seventy years, had made the journey in primitive style with slow and patient ox- teams, all the adults walking. They had left Salt Lake Valley as soon as the caflons were clear of snow, and been three months on the road. Their condition was wretched; for in those days, under the iron-clad laws of Utah, no apostate ever got out of the Territory with any thing worth leaving. The Mormon priesthood taught the apostolic doctrine of "laying on of hands," and, the dissenters added, what they laid hands on they generally got away with. These people THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. 47 'LAYING ON OF HANDS." were destined to a "Josephite" settlement in . Iowa, and at Council Bluffs they met three hundred new converts on their way to Utah, in charge of a bishop and platoon of elders. But there was very little intercourse between the two. The latter were fresh, hopeful, cheery, singing the "songs of Zion," and rejoicing in their speedy escape from "Babylon;" the recusants sad, weary, half mad and wholly heart- sick. Quick to curse Brigham, they were yet but half cured of their folly, and prepared to surrender mind and conscience to another phase of the same delu- sion. The elders watch- ed their new recruits without appearing to do so, and at sight of the others were full of warnings and allusions to Demas and those who kept not the faith, and were given over to be damned. In those days most of the dissenting Saints left Utah; now they remain, and with the skeptical young Mor- mons are building up a party which is very troublesome to Brigham. Council Bluifs was once almost a Mormon town, and many places in the vicinity were settled entirely by that sect. Apostates by thou- sands are scattered through Iowa, in faith "half Mormon and half nothing," but in practice good and industrious citizens. Mormonism does not make a man a fanatic, unless he goes where the Church has the majority and rules the country. Florence, six miles above Omaha, with as pretty a site as I saw in Nebraska, was the original winter quarters of the main body in their great exodus ; and according to the sanguine belief of the Gentiles who succeeded them, was to have been the great city instead of Omaha. It had the start, and no man can say why it should not have held .it. But there is a mysterious law which governs the location of great cities, and Florence is now only a pretty suburb to the metropolis of Nebraska. The last of July, 1868, 1 took the evening train for Laramie, then the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. For a hundred and fifty miles from Omaha the Platte Valley, which the road follows, is one of the rich- est in the world. Then a change begins, and the country is higher, dryer, and more barren with every hour's travel toward the mountains. It is all the way up-hill. Omaha is 912 feet above sea-level; Cheyenne 48 WESTERN WILDS. 5,600; and through all that long incline of 525 miles, the road-bed maintains a nearly uniform up-grade of ten feet to the mile. At a few places it sinks to a level, and for two short stages there is a down grade westivard : from the Omaha level to the Platte Valley, and from the " divide " down to Crow Creek, on which Cheyenne is situated. Nature evidently designed this valley for a railroad route. The Indian had used it from time immemorial; the voyageur and trapper trailed it for a hundred years before California was known in the East ; then the gold-hunters, Oregon settlers and Mormons turned the trail into a broad wagon road, and lastly came the railroad, obedient to the same necessities for water and a smooth route. West of Loup Fork we found the soil a little more sandy, and the grass shorter, with a dry and withered look ; and this change went on till at last we saw the heavy verdure of the Missouri Valley no more, and were introduced to the bunched and seeded grasses of the high plains and Rocky Mountains. North Platte, where we took breakfast, was once a roaring terminus "city ;" now a way station, with hotel and saloon attachment. Jules- burg, 377 miles out, had been a busy city of 5,000 inhabitants; now it was a wilderness of blackened chimneys and falling adobe walls, the debris of a dead metropolis. In the old days of the overland stage, one Julia, a Cherokee exile, kept the station hotel there ; and in the cheer- ful frankness of Western life the place was known as " Dirty Jule's Ranche." Thence " Jule's," and finally Julesburg. Similarly " Rob- ber's Roost'' has been softened to Roosaville, and "Black Bills" to Blackville. For three hundred miles we follow the course of the Platte, a broad but dirty and uninviting stream, differing only from a slough in having a swift current. Often a mile wide, but with no more water than would fill an average canal, three inches of fluid run- ning on top of several feet of moving quicksand; too thin to walk on, too thick to drink, too shallow for navigation, too deep for safe fording, too yellow to wash in, and too pale to paint with, it is the most disappointing and useless river in America. Nevertheless, many attempts have been made to navigate it, all ending in disaster. Nota- ble among these was the venture of a party of hunters from New England, who started from Laramie in the spring of 1843 to run two flats loaded with furs to St. Louis. After two months arduous toil, often unloading and dragging their boats over sand-bars, they at last abandoned them, cached the property, N and walked to Council Bluffs, where they arrived in July, nearly dead from fatigue and starvation. Three hundred miles out, and the plains in all their vastness are around us. The land rises into long ridges, stretching away swell on THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. 49 swell as far as the eye can reach, as if the heaving ocean had suddenly become firm fixed earth ; and immense pampas spread away alternating flint and gravel with strips of wiry, curly grass, or at rare intervals a protected growth of stunted shrubs. Only the lowest vales contain any cultivable land, and that, to be productive, requires irrigation ; the bright flowers of the Missouri Valley are seen no more, the lark-spur alone retaining its hues; the wild sunflower and yellow saffron become dust-hued and dwarfish, while milk-weed and resin-weed sustain a sort of dying life, and cling with sickly hold to the harsh and forbid- "THE GOOD OLD TIME." ding soil. Now appear depressed basins, with saline matter dried upon the soil, and long flats white with alkali, as if they had been sowed with lime. This is the "Great American Desert" of early geographers, a region practically worthless to the agriculturist, though half its surface is of some value for grazing. Antelope and prairie dog show themselves in considerable numbers, but it is too late for the buffalo; the main line of their northward migration passed two months before, nor are they to be seen as in the good old time the hunters tell about. I shall not inflict upon the reader the standard description of these animals, much less the account of dog, owl and rattlesnake as a 4 50 WESTERN WILDS. happy family in one burrow; for this is meant to be a veracious chron- icle, and though I have since spent many hours in "dog-towns," I do not know such association to be a fact. Passing the last and worst stage of the barren plains, we run down into the Jittle oasis on Crow Creek, and to the " Magic City" of Chey- enne. Its rapid rise and mad career had given it a national fame. On the 3d of July, 1867, the first house was erected; on the 1st of No- vember there was a population of 7,000, with a city government, a municipal debt, and three daily papers. When spring dissolved the snow banks and ice-packs from Sherman summit, the railroad pushed on ; Laramie became the metropolis, and Cheyenne sank to a quiet town of perhaps 1,200 people. Its further decay was arrested by the development of sheep-ranching, and its location as the junction of the Denver Pacific ; and now as the capital of Wyoming and most conven- ient outfitting point for the Black Hills, it looks forward to another era of prosperity. While I rested a few days at Cheyenne, the railroad was rapidly pushing westward, and soon another "metropolis" was laid off be- yond Laramie. From Cheyenne the road bed is nearly level to Hazard Station, officially pronounced the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains; and thence the grade rises eighty feet per mile to Sher- man, 8,342 feet above sea-level, and highest point on the Union Pacific. Beyond that we have the magnificent scenery of Granite Canon and Virginia Dale, the last now seeming peaceful as an Ar- cadian dell, but with as bloody a history as any spot in the Rocky Mountains. In the olden time it was the favorite abode of land pirates, and every ravine in the vicinity was the scene of a murder. Thence the road makes a sharp bend to the north, and we run rapidly downward for forty miles to the new city of Laramie, already past its greatness, and many of its inhabitants leaving for the next "me- tropolis." Laramie Plains, though 7,000 feet above sea-level, abound in rich pastures; but westward the grassy slopes yield rapidly to bar- renness, and at Medicine Bow we enter fairly on the three-hundred- mile desert. In the worst part of this waste we found Benton, the great terminus town, six hundred and ninety-eight miles from Omaha. Far as eye could see around the town, there was not a green tree, shrub, or spear of grass. The red hills, scorched and bare as if blasted by the lightnings of an angry God, bounded the white basin on the north and east, while to the south and west spread the gray desert till it was interrupted by another range of red and yellow hills. The whole basin looked as if it might originally have been filled with THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. 51 lye and sand, then dried to the consistency of hard soap, with glisten- ing surface, tormenting alike to eye and sense. Yet here had sprung up in two weeks as if by the touch of Alad- din's Lamp a city of three thousand people; there were regular squares arranged into five wards, a city government of mayor and aldermen, a daily paper, and a volume of municipal ordinances. It was the end of the freight and passenger, and beginning of the con- struction division; twice every day immense trains arrived and de- parted, and stages left for Utah, Montana and Idaho. All the goods formerly hauled across the plains came here by rail, and were reship- ped, and for ten hours daily the streets were thronged with motley crowds of railroad men, Mexicans and Indians, gamblers, "cappers," and saloon-keepers, merchants, miners, and mule-whackers. The streets were eight inches deep in white dust as I entered the city of canvas tents and pole-houses ; the suburbs appeared as banks of dirty white lime, and a new arrival with black clothes looked like nothing so much as a cockroach struggling through a flour barrel. " ONLY A MEMORY." Benton is only a memory now. A section house by the road-side, a few piles of adobes, tin cans and other debris mark the site where sales to the amount of millions were made in two months. The genesis and evolution of these evanescent railroad cities was from the overland trade. Two hundred thousand people in Colorado, Utah, Montana and Idaho had to be supplied from the States, and every ounce of freight sent them was formerly hauled from six to sixteen hundred miles. This trade successively built up Independence, Westport, Kansas City, Atch- ison, Leavenworth and Omaha ; but as soon as the Union Pacific was started it took that route. Hence those "roaring towns" at the suc- cessive termini, which sprang up like Jonah's gourd, and in most cases withered away as suddenly when the road passed on. First on the list was Columbus, Nebraska, and then Fort Kearney, where George Francis Train confidently located the geographical center of the United States, and future capital, and invested his money and his hopes. Kearney is now a prosperous country village and Train a harmless lunatic. North Platte suddenly rose from a bare sand bank to a city of 4,000 people, with banks, insurance offices and city government, an 52 WESTERN WILDS. aristocracy and common people, old settlers and first families. Three months after it consisted, in the sarcastic language of the Julesburgers, of a hotel, two saloons, a bakery, section-house and another saloon. Then came Julesburg, the wickedest city on the list. For sixty-three days there was a homicide every day ; ten dance houses ran all night, and thirty saloons paid license to the evanescent corporation. The rise culminated at Cheyenne; thenceforward Laramie, Benton, Green River City and Bryan grew successively smaller, and Bear River City closed the chapter with a carnival of crime ending in a pitched battle between citizens and roughs, in which twelve men were killed and twenty wounded. But the history would be incomplete without the annals of Wahsatch, built upon the summit of Wasatch Mountains, 7,000 feet above the sea, in ten days of January, 1869, while the mercury ranged from zero to ten degrees below. Despite the intense cold, the sound of hammer and saw was heard day and night, and restaurants were fitted up in such haste that meals were served while the carpenters were putting on the second thickness of weatherboarding. I ate my first breakfast there in one where the mer- cury stood at five degrees below zero ! A drop of the hottest coffee spilled upon the cloth froze in a minute, while gravy and butter solid- ified in spite of the swiftest eater. It was a " wicked city." During its lively existence of three months it established a graveyard with forty -three occupants, of whom not one died of disease. Some were killed by accident; a few got drunk and were frozen ; three were hanged, and several killed in a fight or murdered; one "girl" stifled herself with charcoal fumes, and another inhaled sweet death from subtle chloroform. Transactions in real estate in all these towns were, of course, most tiUcertain ; and every thing that looked solid was a sham. Red brick fronts, brown stone fronts, and stuccoed walls, were found to have been made to order in Chicago, and shipped in (pine) sections. Ready-> made houses were finally sent out in lots, boxed, marked and num- bered ; half a dozen men could erect a block in a day, and two boys with screw-drivers put up a " habitable dwelling " in three hours. A very good gray-stone stucco front, with plain sides, twenty by forty tent, could be had for three hundred dollars ; and if one's business hap- pened to desert him, or the town moved on, he only had to take his store to pieces, ship it on a platform car to the next city, and set up again. There was a pleasing versatility of talent in the population of such towns. To return to Benton. The Mormon converts were going forward THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. 53 in large parties; 4,000 left Europe for Utah in 1868, that being the largest emigration of any year since the Church was founded. The number of arrivals now scarcely equals that of the apostates. Freight- ing to Salt Lake was also active, and teamsters being in demand, I took a position as engineer of a six-mule team, at a salary of forty dol- lars per month. Our " outfit " numbered ten wagons, sixty-one mules and sixteen men, including a night-herder, wagon-boss and four passen- gers. The four hundred miles to Salt Lake occupied four weeks, two- thirds of the way being through deserts of sand, soda and alkali, where we thought ourselves fortunate in finding a patch of bunch-grass once every twenty-four hours. The first night we formed corral at Raw- lins Springs, and the next in a walled basin on the old stage* road, at what is called " Dug Springs." In the center of the basin was an alka- line lake which, moved by the evening breeze, looked like foaming soapsuds; but on its margin was a spring of pure water. Thence we moved on to the " Divide of the Continent," a plateau of sand and rock, dotted with alkaline lakes in which "cat-fish with legs," as plainsmen style them, are abundant. I afterward saw tne same species at Cafion Bonito, Arizona, where the Navajo boys shot their arrows through them to secure me a few specimens. Science classes them as siredons, a species of lizards. Leaving this unpleasant country by way of Bridger's Pass, we were soon upon the westward slope, and for three days toiled down Bitter Creek the horror of overland teamsters where all possible ills of western travel are united. At daybreak we rose, stiff with cold, to catch the only temperate hour for driving. By nine A. M. the heat \vas most exhausting. The road was worked up into a bed of blinding white dust by the laborers on the railroad grade, and a gray mist of ash and earthy powder hung over the valley, which obscured the sun, but did not lessen its heat. At intervals the " Twenty-mile Desert," the " Red Sand Desert," and the " White Desert " crossed our way, presenting beds of sand and soda, through which the half-choked men and animals toiled and struggled, in a dry air and under a scorching sky. In vain the yells and curses of the teamsters doubled and re- doubled, blasphemies that one might expect to inspire a mule with dia- bolical strength; in vain the fearful "black-snake" curled and popped over the animals' backs, sometimes gashing the skin, and sometimes raising welts the size of one's finger. For a few rods they would strug- gle on, dragging the heavy load through the clogging banks, and then stop exhausted, sinking to their knees in the hot and ashy heaps. Then two of us would unite our teams and drag through to the next solid 54 WESTERN WILDS. piece of ground, where, for a few Hundred yards, the wind had remove^ the loose heaps, and left bare the flinty and gravelly subsoil. Thus, by most exhausting labor, we accomplished ten or twelve miles a day. Half an hour or more of temperate coolness then gave us respite till soon after sundown, when the cold wind came down, as if in heavy vol- umes, from the snowy range, ami tropic heat was succeeded by arctic cold with amazing suddenness. On the 27th of August my mules were exhausted with heat; that night ice formed in our buckets as thick as a pane of glass. Thence across Green River we found Bridger Plains and the valley of Bear River delightful by comparison, and at noon of September 4th passed the summit of the Wasatch and entered Echo Canon. Two days we traveled down this great ravine, enjoying a succession of ro- mantic views sometimes down in the very bed of the stream, and sometimes far up the rocky sides of the cliff, where the "dug- way" wound in and out along the projecting " benches." Emerging thence into Weber Valley, we came upon the first gardens and cultivated fields I had seen for a thousand miles. The Mormon dwellings would have appeared poor and mean in- deed in the States, but to one just from the barren plains the valley was pretty enough. The railroad now runs down Weber Cafion, but we followed the old stage and wagon road southward up the Weber and over the divide into Parley's Park. Thence down the wild gorge known as Parleys Cafion, where every turn brings to view a fresh delight in the sublime and beautiful ; and out upon the " bench," on the evening of September 9th, we saw the great valley of Jordan, and the Salt Lake spreading far to the north and west. Twenty miles westward the Oquirrh Range glowed in the clear air, a shining mass of blue and white. Great Salt Lake ex- tended beyond our sight to the northward, its surface glisten- ing in the light of the declining sun, while to our right the " City of the Saints " as yet appeared but a white spot on the land- scape. To our left the caflon of the Jordan seemed to close, giving the impression that that stream poured from the hills, while down the cen- ter of the valley the river shone like a glimmering band of silver. A PULPIT ROCK: ECHO CASON. THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. 55 little farther and I marked the great dome of the Tabernacle, and then the smaller buildings of Salt Lake City, rise out of the evening mirage, with only the interest of a traveler, and little thinking of the years in which that was to be my home, or in what mysterious ways I was to be identified with its social and political combats. THE GREAT SALT LAKE, UTAH. But before I enter on the hackneyed themes of Utah and Mormon- ism, allow me, indulgent reader, to relieve the tedium of a merely per- sonal narrative by giving the story of one who sought the Westera Wilds from more heroic motives than mine. CHAPTER IV. GEFFROY'S TRIALS. WE sat, my partner Robert Geffroy and I, upon the rocky slope of Griffith Mountain, that looks down upon Georgetown, Colorado. Two thousand feet below us the city seemed sunk in. a great cleft in the earth ; around it rose on all sides precipitous mountains, their summits still covered with snow, though the June sun shone Avarm upon them, and the little pools fed by rivulets from the snow banks were bordered by bright flowers. At our feet the brawling brook formed a clear pool, the usual resting place of those who walked to the summit; a little below it plunged by a series of musical cascades into a granite cafion, and was lost among the foot hills. While our side of the mountain was still in shadow, beyond the town the line of shade and morning sunlight crept slowly down the face of Republican Mountain. My companion gazed long and earnestly upon the sublime "WB SAT UPON THE .ROCKY SLOPE OF GRIFFITH scenery with that gentle melan- MOUNTAIN." choly which habitually shaded his fine countenance. At length his dark eye, beautiful Avith the clear depth peculiar to the Swiss mountaineer, moistened a little, and he fell into one of his rare poetical moods. I had shared Avith him the vicis- situdes of a miner's life, and had found the usually taciturn man of some fifty years a most pleasing companion. Never intemperate, as were so many of the older miners, never garrulous or boastful, there were yet times when some undercurrent of intense thought bubbled to the surface ; then, in free converse in our cabin, he Avas the most fas- cinating of men. His language, with just enough of foreign accent, 156) GEFFROY'S TRIALS. 57 was that of one who had learned it from books rather than men ; his musical voice gave utterance to sentences loaded with poetic thoughts, and his lightest remark would have borne the test of severest criticism. To me he seemed a man of naturally ardent temperament and high aims, but thwarted and long repressed, with mind turned perhaps to unhealthful introspection. But to-day he was in an unusual mood ; he had just passed through one of his seasons of deep sadness, and, as it were, unconsciously, sought relief in friendly confidences. A light re- mark from me on the many uncertainties and disappointments of a miner's life led us on to a free discussion of the vexed questions of free will and destiny. "Are we," he asked, " indeed the authors of our course ? do we suc- ceed by our own endeavors or fail by our own errors? or is there a chain of circumstances running concurrent with our daily lives, and ever shaping them to alien issues ?" I defended with vehemence my views that we all make or mar our own fortunes. He listened calmly, and replied : " Hear, then, my story, and learn how often the great movements of war and politics crush the humblest lives, and that not his own acts merely, but the acts of all his contemporaries, determine one's destiny." Thus began a series of confidences, which, continued some evenings in our cabin, gave me the incidents of an eventful though humble life. * # # # * * # " I am, as you know, a native of beautiful Geneva, and my first rec- ollections are of grand mountains, mirror-like lakes, and old monu- ments. Mine was a childhood of rare happiness. My Swiss mother united to the earnest vigor of her race that wondrous insight into the nature and feelings of childhood, which seems a special gift of God to the German people. My French father, while he had none of that levity or cynic indifference to all religions which so many of that race affect, was yet happily free from superstition, jealous of priestcraft, and, for one in his position, quite a devotee of learning. From our English visitors and customers I early acquired a smattering of their language, and some vague ideas of that liberty which I then, in childish igno- rance, supposed they enjoyed. " Our family life is now present to my memory as a happy union of social love and intellect. My father recited the poems of Racine and Corneille, my mother rehearsed the fairy legends of her people ; both delighted in the heroic annals of the Genevese, and loved to dwell on the better days of that people. Around us was the sublime scenery of Switzerland; our associations were largely with cultivated travelers, 58 WESTERN WILDS. and poetry was inwrought with ray childish nature. But my father was still Frenchman enough to be given to the contemplation of vast systems of social philosophy that peculiarly French philosophy which takes great and comprehensive principles on trust, and believes that man, once they are taught him, charmed by their beauty and symme- try, will gladly embrace them. The federation of the world, the equal- ization of conditions, the abolition of poverty these were the themes that charmed his leisure hours, when not employed in the struggle to further increase the inequality that was already great between him and his poorer neighbors. How pleasing is that philosophy by which great principles are first to be established, upon which society and govern- ment are to be constructed like geometrical figures, and people mod- eled to fit and adopt them ; but how much more practical and sensible that cautious progress of your people and the English, which is taught by events, and is sometimes willing to learn humbly at the tribunal of facts. "On such a nature as mine the daily hearing of these things had momentous influence. Had I been bred to trade, it might have gone well. Commerce would have corrected the errors of an overheated imagination, and contact w r ith men as they are, proved a healthful cor- rective to too much contemplation of them as they might bt,. But my ambitious parents, who were vastly improved in circumstances by the prosperous years that succeeded the general peace, and the return tide of English travel, determined to bestow upon their only son a classical education, at that day in Geneva thought to be the key to all prefer- ments in church or state. Even now I feel a pang at what must have been the keenness of their disappointment. Once entered upon my classical studies, a new world was opened to my impressible mind. Mythology I found but dull how could so grand a people have be- lieved in such filthy deities? but the heroes of classic annals set my very soul on fire. Could it be that such men had lived men that died by battalions for the honor of their country, or ran upon their swords rather than survive her liberty? I panted as I read, I breathed the very spirit of Livy ; I shed tears over what other school-boys called the dull pages of Tacitus. In moments of such enthusiasm, I had but to close my eyes and recite the sonorous lines, and at once before me rushed the awful pageant of the returning conqueror: his triumphal car, the captured enemies of his country walking behind it, the blare of trumpets, the tramp of victorious legions, while the welkin rang with the shouts of Roman thousands. I struggled with the patriots of Thermopylae, I defended the bridge with Horatius, with Dcntaltis GEFFEOY'S TRIALS. 59 I bared my breast to traitors, I ran upon my sword in the despair of Brutus. " But when I read the bright annals of Geneva's better days, it was as though I had breathed an intoxicating incense; and in the Refor- mation I found a vein of antique heroism. Calvin, Pascal, the Wai- dense, the Albigense, I wept over their sorrows and trials, was warmed with their struggles, and glad in their triumphs. Not their religion, but the exaltation of their patriotism excited me. How dull, then, seemed the common-place life of our trading town, how mean its petty economies; and how unworthy the destiny my parents had so fondly imagined for me. The beautiful land and city which patriot reformers had early saved from papal Rome, now seemed given up to the gods of materialism and sold wholly to the commercial Satan. I was blinded to the heroism of common life the true greatness of the many who daily toil and suffer for those they love. "Before reaching my eighteenth year I fully determined to seek a land where political systems were yet to be developed, and might be modeled upon abstract equity. I would be a citizen of the Republic of Humanity. But where was such a land to be found ? The revolu- tion of 1830 had only resulted in giving France another king; and their so-called moderate monarchy I looked upon with abhorrence. Like my classic models, I believed the very name of king incompatible with freedom. England was still less tolerable. I associated it with all that was hateful in titles and hereditary privileges. The New World was the place to look for the Brotherhood of Man ; for the very air of Europe was poisoned with priestcraft, and its soil barren of high resolve. The South American States were struggling toward an auton- omy, but, with the subtle instinct of the Teutonic blood, I distrusted the lofty professions of a Latin race. Their short-lived liberty dem- onstrated an inherent incapacity to respect the individual right, and their young republic was only old despotism under new names and forms. Republics, I was persuaded, could not coexist with priests ; for with their politics I had nearly rejected my people's religion. " With the little sum I could gain by long pleading with my parents, I sought this republic, persuaded that here, when one met a man, he met a brother. " Need I say that I was cruelly disappointed. Without nobility, there was almost equal caste ; and without old families, there was equal tyranny in the new. Wealth and color made classes as widely diver- gent as rank and birth, and in the boasted land of liberty, one-tenth of the whole population were bondsmen. The republic was ruled by 60 WESTERN WILDS. an oligarchy of slaveholders, and along the same paths trod by Wash- ington, black men were chased by republicans, or torn by blood-hounds, for the crime of seeking freedom, in sight of the very school-houses where boys declaimed in praise of William Tell. I visited the various communes, where a few enthusiastic spirits had sought to establish the Human Brotherhood on a basis of perfect equality. At New Harmony I found the short-lived experiment already a failure. Communia was even less satisfactory. The religious communes I found intolerable from their plentiful lack of common sense ; and in the others observed a grossness of conception that raised in my mind a wonder, not that they failed, but that they should ever have been established. I turned my steps toward Nauvoo, then rising into prominence as the last and greatest attempt to establish a religious brotherhood. But there I found all the evils of the old systems, with few of their corresponding benefits : priestcraft without its paternal care, greed without a thought of future reckoning insuring the defeat of its own aims, and a fanat- icism which scorned the commonest suggestions of prudence. That such a community would soon or late come into conflict with the neighboring Americans, was certain. "From Nauvoo, in the early months of 1842, I visited St. Louis, meeting there an agent of the American Fur Company, with whom I took employment. I was nearly cured of my early dreams, but still hoped that a land might be found where humanity would have a fairer chance, and rank and wealth confer no greater power than morals and intellect. I sought the Western Wilds to commune with nature in her unbroken solitudes, convinced that there, at least, the few residents were as brothers. But humanity's weakness is common alike to the city and the desert. On the vast plains, and amid the majestic mountains, wherever man meets man, the struggle goes on even more fiercely, though not more earnestly, than beneath the smooth surface of urban society. Every-where the strong and ambitious are struggling to the front, the weak and unskillful falling to the rear. Under the pressure of com- mon danger or common want, the pioneers do indeed become 'as brothers, for the safety of each is the good of all ; but the danger passed or the want supplied, egotism asserts itself even more fiercely for its temporary repression. Even as you have seen the unhurt buffa- loes gore a wounded mate to death, lest its struggles and bellowings attract the beast of prey, so the rushing crowd can not pause, lest he who is up to-day go down to-morrow. "February, 1843, found me at Fort Lancaster on the Platte, without any particular aim. There I met Colonel Warfield, in the service of QEFFROY'S TRIALS. 61 the young republic of Texas, bearing a commission adorned with the bold signature of Sam Houston, President. I was then twenty-two years of age, and seriously debating with myself whether I should not gladden the hearts of my parents by a return to the sober life of Geneva. A few years had done wonders for me. Practical life had taught me to dream no more of the Brotherhood of Man ; that liberty and progress are to be secured by no cunningly devised schemes, but earned by slow and toilsome steps of the individual, and that priestcraft and despotism can not be argued out, but must be suffered out. But I saw more clearly that a free republic, with all its faults, is still the best attainable government, and a brief acquaintance with Colonel Warfield revived much of my old enthusiasm. The Texans had freed themselves from the tyrannous domination of another race, and were struggling toward a more perfect liberty, and instinctively I sympathized with them. With heightened color and eye glowing with patriotic ardor, Colonel Warfield recounted the undying glories of the Alamo, where Crockett, Travis and their brave companions died fight- ing to the last; of Goliad, Corpus Christi and San Jacinto. It was to me the classic age restored. Heroes walked the earth again. There were giants in that land and in those days. But when he unfolded the bullet-riddled flag that had waved over Corpus Christi, and told of the brave men who there died beneath its folds, I was filled with zeal to emulate their heroism. " When he called for volunteers, a start only was needed, and, fol- lowing my example, a dozen men promptly enrolled their names. We were to be part of a volunteer company of riflemen, the remainder to join us at the rendezvous just beyond the Arkansas, on the Rio de las Animas, in what was then Mexican territory. We were to act as a corps of observation to assist the main army, then on its way from Texas, and were enlisted for nine months, each man to furnish his own horse, gun, and accoutrements. The others accompanied Colonel Warfield at once, but settlement with the company detained me ten days, and I set out alone on the 9th of March. A snow-storm had raged for a week, and, with a great deal of suffering, I made my way alone to the mouth of the Fontaine Que Bouille, and thence, with a single companion, to the rendezvous. Disappointment awaited me. The expected detachment from the States had not arrived, and our whole force numbered but twenty-four men adventurers, apparently, from every clime under heaven, and well supplied as to arms and horses. They were uniformed in dazzling variety, but in one respect harmoniously a uniform of furs, blankets, and rags ! 62 WESTERN WILDS. ?. plain ; and felt keenly my need of that sixth sense wherewith thfc Indian and plainsman can discern the locality of a brook or pool by the appearance of surrounding hills or vegetation. "Night drew on. There was a dead calm and oppressive air. The animals at length refused to move a step further, and I had barely time to spring from my saddle and receive her, when Dolores fainted in my arms. For a moment my agony was terrible the agony at once of fear and indecision. But in a moment " DOLORES FAINTED ls MY ABMS '" fierce energy returned; I raised her, recalled her to consciousness, and now leading, now carrying her, toiled up and over the rocks to the mouth of a gorge that opened upon the side of a precipice a thousand feet above. Why, I scarcely knew, but had a vague hope of protection and rest in the defile. Night came on suddenly, and its coolness greatly revived us. We had as yet suffered little with actual thirst, and when 82 WESTERN WILDS. our first trouble was passed, sank to sleep upon a sand-heap at the base of an immense rock. Soon after midnight we awoke stiff with cold, and now beginning to feel the sharper promptings of thirst, I proposed to search for water down the cafion, but on turning we saw our animals, like us revived by the night air, slowly making their way up the dry arroyo, as if they would seek relief near its head. Some- thing in this manifestation of instinct decided me. The arroyo showed plainly that at some seasons it contained a large stream ; might there not remain a little near its source? " For hours we toiled on up the dry channel, soon leaving the animals far behind ; now stumbling over the immense stones which choked the dry bed, and now searching every clump of grass that showed the faintest tinge of green. The sun rose red and fiery, the air was filled with light haze, and another sultry day began. But with every hour's advance new signs encouraged us : there were clumps of dwarfish pines, and occasionally a shrub of other timber ; the grass in places had an unmistakably green tinge, and occasional tracks showed that various small animals habitually made this passage. But every moment our thirst increased. I glanced at Dolores; her eyes gleamed with that unwholesome fire which is the precursor of delirium. I felt my own head grow giddy ; my eyes were so dry it seemed I could feel the balls grate as they turned in their sockets; my tongue was swollen, my lips cracked, and I spoke with difficulty. Hastily seeking the shade of an immense rock, I broke some splinters from a mountain pine ; these, rolled about in the mouth, soon created a moist- ure, which sensibly relieved our sufferings, and again we toiled on. " It was now noon. The hot sun glared upon the white sand and red rocks, and our sufferings rapidly increased. Almost exhausted, I hap- pened to turn my gaze down the cafion, and saw our animals far below/ still feebly struggling up the ascent. The sight gave me renewed hope, and, with fierce energy, I rushed from side to side of the gorge, search- ing every spot that bore signs of the presence of moisture ; but in vain. An hour longer we toiled on, then Dolores suddenly reeled, and sank, apparently lifeless, in my arms. With loud cries, I bore her hastily to the shade of a projecting rock; I chafed her hands, and implored her to look up and live. She revived, only to relapse into a half-dead condition, scarcely sensible of my presence, but babbling in Spanish of green fields and the cool brooks about her home. I pressed her to my heart, and prayed that death might come at once and end our in- tolerable sufferings. An hour passed thus, then suddenly we seemed to revive again Dolores with alternate sobs and hysterical laughter, DOLORES. 83 and I with renewed determination to push on. Soon we sank into half-unconsciousness, and again revived as suddenly, but with all the pangs of thirst and fatigue greater than before. Slowly this anguish receded, and we sank into a condition of almost complete exemption from suffering, to again revive as suddenly to fiercer pangs. " But this time my vision seemed strangely cleared. The agony yielded to a dull pain, that left me power to think. I saw all the beauties of the landscape in a new light, and gazed on them with act- ual interest, while I pitied and blamed myself for such a feeling. I saw a mountain bluebird flit rapidly over the gorge, and wondered where he was flying and what for; then laughed loud and long at my- self for such untimely curiosity. I noticed a hillock of the desert ants near me, from which the red nation was pouring by hundreds, and a sand-toad near them ; then I remembered that these creatures avoid damp spots, where water is liable to percolate, and again the wild gorge rang with my fierce laughter at their strange habits. I saw a lean coyote steal across the cafion below us, and wondered what he was doing so far up in the hills, and why he had not remained on the plains, as usual, and whether he was lost and hunting for water; then the absurdity of this conceit struck me, and I made what I thought a very witty jest at his leanness, and laughed at my own wit till the cafion rang again. Suddenly I came to myself, and stared around me ; then my gaze fell on Dolores, lying full length upon the sand, and breathing heavily, and all my fierce energy returned. I raised her with unnatural strength, fairly bounded up the cafion several rods, and laid her at the foot of another rock. Again and again I repeated this, one moment kissing her lips and vowing to save her, the next laughing at my temporary fits of strength. At last I laid her in a cool depres- sion at the foot of a cliff, which seemed to have been split by some convulsion, and, for a space, relapsed into insensibility. " When I revived, the cool night had come again, and Dolores was sitting by me, clasping my hand. Such was the reviving effect of the night air, now sweeping down the cafion with a strong breeze, that we were greatly refreshed, and, after a sad, sweet interchange of thought, sank into a troubled sleep. Again we waked suddenly, almost at the same moment, and again the pangs of thirst were upon us in all their fury. Nature has still some mercy, even at her worst, and though a man die in torture, for want of food or drink, she secures him intervals of perfect rest from pain. But now our sufferings were at their worst. Mere abstinence from water for two days would not have produced such effects, but for our continued exertions. The cold night air pre- 84 WESTERN WILDS. vented delirium. I put out ray hand to assure Dolores of my presence, when was it possible ? Did I feel an actual moisture at the base of the cliff, or was it only the cold, dry sand ? Fiercely I scratched away the first few inches of the loose surface eagerly I thrust my fingers into the packed dirt and gravel, and tore my nails digging beside the rock. Yes, it was unmistakable; there was moisture there, and somewhere above it there was water ! "New life animated me. I followed the line of moisture along the base of the rock ; it suddenly ceased, and my heart stood still. An in- stant more, and I perceived that I had passed the immense fissure which split the cliff; in it I again found the moist trace. I followed it a few rods, and perceived that the formation had changed to limestone. Joy overcame me. I screamed aloud, and burst into tears. Every yard that I advanced up the fissure the earth grew more moist. Presently I could squeeze a few dirty drops from a handful into my mouth. Great Jupiter! Was Olympian nectar ever so sweet? A few rods more and there was dank green grass, its matted roots sodden with mud and water. Eagerly I sucked the divine fluid, then tore up a few handfuls and hastened with it to Dolores. Squeezing the scant drops into her mouth, and spreading the grass roots upon her brow, I soon had the exquisite joy of seeing her raise her head and smile. I took her in my arms and bore her to the damp grass-plat ; then, foot by foot, on our knees, we searched the narrow ravine. Soon we came to where a few tiny drops trickled over a mossy stone. With our lips pressed to the rock, AVC drew new life from it. For an hour we alternately sucked at this source, and. cheered each other she calling upon the Virgin, and blessing all the saints by turns, I rejoicing at the happy operations of nature which gave us water in this strange place. " Our worst tortures past, fatigue again conquered us. We sank into a sound sleep, and did not wake till the morning light fell upon our faces. I then saw that the line of green grass continued up the nar- row gorge, and, following it for two hours, we came upon a pool of cold, clear water. Did you ever, after hours of toil across the desert, come upon one of those lime-rock springs, which alone make life possi- ble in the far South-west? If so, you know their wonderful beauty; you can imagine our joy. Around were the yellow and striped mount- ains, seamed and scarred as if by a million years of storm and light- ning; below, the cliff-walled caflon, now filled with the hot and stag- nant air of mid-day, and beyond it the dry sands and treeless desert. Here was a cool spring, central to a little oasis, where the bright fluid bubbled forth from the earth, and dripped o'er the rocks in tiny, cool DOLORES. 85 rivulets where rank, green grass hung over the brim of the pool, and strange, bright flowers spoke of life, and love, and hope. "A day's rest was imperative, and as soon as possible I filled my can- teens and hastened back to find our horses. They had toiled on till morning; then one had fallen exhausted, while the other had halted in the shadow of a cliff, barely able to stand. A canteen full of water, which he drank from my Mexican sombrero, greatly revived him, but the other was past hope. I succeeded in getting the one to the mouth of the gorge, and after a dozen trips for water, he was so far restored as to graze upon the bunch-grass. Next morning we set out again, now with but one horse, and late the next night, having found the trail, reached the water-hole, which was to have been our stopping place the day we were lost. There we again rested a day, which so far restored the animal that he was able to carry Dolores and our little stock of provisions, as fast as I could walk beside him. Again we journeyed on, turning aside at night into a cailon, and keeping near the base of the mountains by day. Once past the divide of the tierra tem- plada and upon the slopes leading down to the Arkansas, water-holes could be found three or four times every day. Our progress was now encouragingly rapid, and in due time we turned the last point on the mountain trail, and with a glad shout hailed the yellow Arkansas. Another day, and we should be on American soil ; the land would be better watered, my gun would supply us with game, and we might trav- el more leisurely. "We turned eastward and down to the plain, to reach the main cross- ing on the Santa Fe trail, and late the next day, while our hearts beat high with satisfaction, descended to the sandy border of the Ar- kansas. A shout was borne to our ears from the heights behind, and turning, we saw a party of mounted Mexicans rapidly nearing us. For an instant our hearts stood still with fear; the next I bounded on the horse in front of Dolores, and urged him fiercely forward. I remembered with agony that I had no traders' permit from the Spanish authorities, and could give no plausible explanation of my condition; capture might mean death, it would certainly mean loss of Dolores. Soon we were in the middle of the stream, at that "THE BALLS WHISTLED AROUND us." 86 WESTERN WILDS. season not too deep for fording; but our pursuers gained fast upon us. As we neared the American shore they reached the opposite bank, and with a yell of rage at being foiled, discharged a volley from their scoupetas. The balls whistled around us; I only noted that the animal did not fall, then spurred him on, and in another moment he scrambled up to the northern bank, and we were safe upon American soil. "Safe! Oh, merciful powers, why had we not an hour more in the start? Why had we come safely through such perils only to part when our haven was won ? Dolores' arm tightened about my waist she did not speak. I turned with a glad smile, a word of love and cheer upon my lips. She was deadly pale, and I had barely time to dismount, when she fainted in my arms.. A shot had entered her giQp ) 9|t |C 3p *P *f* " But anguish was unavailing. There was no time for regrets. Cold water, rest and shade were imperative. Clasping her in my arms, I bounded up the rocks, and laid her by a little pool at the foot of the cliff. I dashed the water upon her face and loosed her clothing. She revived: " ' Holy Virgin, spare him, guide and protect him/ "There was no word for herself. Then starting up fiercely: " l The padre ! The padre ! Bring the padre ! ' she exclaimed. Then recollecting : ( No, it is too late ! too late ! ' " My agony was terrible. I wrung her hands, and implored her to live. My wife, my dear wife, with whom I had shared so many perils, who had saved my life; must she lose her own by following me? must she die here when we were beyond danger? " She soon revived and gave me hope. For a few moments we con- versed, and a thrill of delight shook my frame when she spoke and smiled. But it was brief. She felt no pain ; her hurt was unto death. Soon her eye grew dim. She drew a small crucifix from her bosom, and held it before her face, while she clasped my hand. Her glazing eye was fixed upon the emblem: " ' Oh, Sancta Maria ! ra pro no bis / ' " I took her in my arms. She glanced at me speechless, with an ineffable smile pointed upward, and was gone. * * It was night, but I still held her in my arms. I could not consent. I would not have it so ; she was mine ; I would not yield her to death. * * * Then, laying her on the grass. I raved, prayed and cursed by turns. " Morning found me still there, but exhausted. The first fierce agony of grief had yielded to a dull pain, which seemed unending. DOLORES. 87 Farther up in the foot-hills I found a secluded cove, walled in by precipitous rocks and beautiful with bright-hued mountain flowers; and there, with my hunting-knife, I dug her graye. Taking one tress from her dark hair, I laid her to rest, then wandered away in the mountains, careless what became of me. The buds of the mountain rose, with a few raspberries, were my only food for days ; often I pon- dered whether I should not abandon exertion, and yield a life which was worth so little. But life is sweet, and youth does not easily sur- render it. "The fifth day, I was found by a party of hunters, who took me to Fort Lancaster, where I was received as one risen from the dead. The mountain fever, natural result of my toils and suiferings, now prostrated me, and for weeks I hovered between life and death. The late autumn saw me again abroad, and with returning strength came a desire for vengeance. I sought the capital of Texas to take arms against the Mexicans, but a sort of peace had been made. Dissatisfied, restless, but with my yearning for revenge not quite gone, I drifted eastward and through the State of Louisiana. In the spring of 1846 I descended Red River to New Orleans. Retir- ing late the night of my arrival, and utterly ignorant of what had occurred among nations for many months, in the morning I was wakened by the noise of fife and drum, by the yells of a multitude in the streets, and the Jong resonant cry of a recruiting agent: " ( Turn out ! Turn out ! all you who are willing to fight for your country ! General Taylor is surrounded, and in all probability cut to pieces, but come on and take revenge out of the d d Mexicans ! ' " I was mad with joy. Without breakfast, and scarcely more than half dressed, I ran into the street, and was soon in the ranks of the recruits. The old cannon of 1812 were brought out and thundered through the city; thousands, tens of thousands thronged the streets, with loud cries for country and vengeance, and before the next night a full regiment was ready to embark. The incoming boat from Matamoras brought news that, instead of being ' cut to pieces/ your general had really been victorious at Palo Alto and Resaca cle la Palma ; but there was no cessation in the excitement and the volun- teering. In a wonderful 'y short time our little command was on the Rio Grande. But there was a long period of inaction, and before it ended, I, with many others, was transferred to the army near Vera Cruz. Then there was action enough. " At Cerro Gordo, Cherubusco, Chepultepec, in a dozen fierce en- counters, I sought death where others fell, but found it not. I stood 88 WESTEMN WILDS. amid smoke and carnage, and saw my companions fall on all sides I marched where shells plowed the earth and swords gleamed in the air, but passed them all and lived. But the storm which brought death to others, brought a strange quiet to me. I saw so much death that it reconciled me to life ; I saw such suffering among the poor people we had come to fight, that pity took the place of hate, and I grew ashamed of my thoughts of vengeance. The regi- ment to which I belonged was the first to be discharged. Then a longing grew upon me to revisit my native land, and early in 1848 I took passage for Havre. But I reached Geneva only to find all Europe rocking with revolution. Storms and tumult were to be my element ; I might change my sky, I could not change my destiny. "It was the year of revolution. France ejected Louis Philippe; Berlin followed in a few days with the students' insurrection, and the capture of the palace; the Viennese were soon in arms; Hun- gary struggled bravely against perfidious Austria ; even the long enslaved Italians rose against Carlo Alberto, and little Baden dared the anger of Prussia. In vain the tears and prayers of my mother, in vain the caresses of my sisters and nieces, or the calm arguments of my father; they had found me only to lose me at once. I hur- ried to join the Badenischen insurgents, then hastily organizing against the Prussian regulars. For awhile all went well. It seemed that man was at last to be free. But our triumphing was short. France took another Napoleon ; the troops fired on the Berlin patriots ; Wiindischgratz bombarded Vienna ; Gorgey surrendered without a battle, and the little band under Kossuth, driven to the inhospitable plains of inner Hungary, succumbed to the mongrel hordes of Cossack, Sclav, and Carpathian, poured upon them by the Russian Czar. The Badenischen army, too, retreated, and the revo- lutionists mostly sought the New World. The best blood of the fatherland was expelled, and Germany's loss became America's gain. "With many others I was captured; but, unlike them, I was a citizen of no country, and could claim no protection or ask no clemency. Four long years I languished in a German prison. Need I recall the lonesome hours? The days of unavailing struggle with myself; the nights of restless tossing, or sleep haunted by dreams of the dead. Daily I watched the gleam of yellow light breaking in through the little grating above my head, slowly moving around the walls of my dungeon, and dying away at last on the opposite side. The daily passage of that ray was my only relic of a bright past, my all of life, of light, of liberty. Nightly I sought relief by DOLORES, 89 thoughts that reached beyond the tomb ; the dim rays of natural religion barely gave a gleam of hope that Dolores still lived in another sphere they might feebly cheer, they could not guide me. And even as I recalled that nightly hope, or watched that daily ray, I ultimately resigned myself to look for happiness only beyond the grave, or nursed the hope of liberty and revenge. Ah ! could I escape, I would raise a band of dead hearts like mine and wage in- expiable war on kings. " At last all hope died out. Even the desire for vengeance died. I was conscious only of a dull pain. The memory of the dead seemed as a dream of long forgotten years ; and when I spoke, as sometimes I did, aloud, my own voice jarred on my ear. For two years the jailer who brought my food was all I saw ; then for awhile I had a companion in captivity. But we said little; confinement had deadened the social instincts. We talked neither of the strug- gles of the past, nor of hope for the future ; our hearts had died in the awful solitude. Without passing through death, we were inmates of the tomb. "Why I was released finally I never knew. But I was, with all the others, probably because all danger of insurrection was past, and the government regarded us with contempt. But I came into the world as not of it. My father had died late in '48 ; my mother, worn with grief, had soon followed him ; my sisters had married even before my return from America, and other cares and other loves filled their hearts. Worse than all, liberty was dead. France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, had yielded again to despots; I saw no hope, for the rights of man. Again I sought the Rocky Mountains, whose majestic scenery brought balm to my wounded heart. I have learned that he who yields to fierce impulses or excessive feeling, does so but to lay bai*e his soul to a thousand strokes ; that he who would move faster than his age, will soon be alone with sorrow, and that the Brotherhood of Man conies not by spasmodic struggles, but by steady toil. " Here, where my misery began, in communion with mighty nature I find peace. The memory of Dolores has become a mild joy ; her image is ever present to cheer me. The thought of our affection has become a sort of religion. Near where I found and lost her, I best love to dwell, and every returning autumn finds me a pilgrim to the little mountain gleu that contains her grave." CHAPTEE VI. POLYGAMIA. TURN back the wheels of time, imaginative reader, from 1874 to the autumn of 1868, and allow the author to resume his personal narrative. The first storm of the season had just tipped the summits of the Wasatch with light snow, while summer still smiled upon the valleys, when our train wound slowly through Parley's Cafion, and emerged upon the eastern " bench," from which I obtained my first view of the Mormon Capital. The city stands at the north-east corner of a valley shaped like a horse-shoe the Wasatch the eastern boundary, the Oquirrah the western, and the lake lying to the north-west across the open end. A small spur puts out westwardly from the Wasatch, and breaks down in successive "benches" to the upper part of the city ; out of it flow City Creek and several smaller streams, and along its base bubble up hot chem- ical springs and fountains of pure brine. The topography is Palestine re- produced. We have Lake Utah, a fresh water mountain tarn, dis- charging through the Jordan into another Dead Sea the Great Salt Lake. Along the Jordan extends a fertile but narrow valley, its widest section near the city; all around are mountains, and beyond those mountains long desert wastes, with only here and there a fertile spot. North of Salt Lake City numerous coves indent the mountains ; in each is a small fertile tract and a Mormon settlement, while south- ward, for four hundred miles, is a series of narrow, fan-shaped valleys settled in like manner. I found the city a nice place to rest in, especially in September; and after a journey of eight hundred miles over barren plains, like all vis- (90) BRIGHAM YOUNG. POLYGAMIA. 91 itors, I exaggerated its beauty. There was first the morning walk in the dry, bracing air, then a plunge in the warm -spring bath, and an indulgence in the luscious Salt Lake peaches, after which the day was devoted to investigating Mormonism. I called upon all the Mormon worthies. First upon Orson Pratt, solitary as the only man of learning in the Church, and that learning singularly one-sided. At once a fa- natic and a mathematician (unique combination), he has devoted a life- time of labor and sacrifice to perverting the Scripture, in the vain at- tempt to bring back the modern world to the social system of the Asiat- ics, and a worse than Jewish theocracy. At once the poorest, proudest, most learned, and most devoted of the elders, he is also the worst snubbed by Brigham Young, who has often taken a vulgar delight in humbling the man whose culture and scholarship he can not forgive. While he is systematically ignored in the government of the Church, yet when the Tabernacle has an array of Eastern visitors, he is invariably put up to defend the doctrines of Joe Smith and Brigham; and so, while best known to the world of any man in Brigham's kingdom, he is constantly in trouble, and some- times on the ragged edge of starvation. In early life he was a man of action a traveling missionary, eloquent in the cause and full of zeal, a successful preacher, and voluminous writer; now he is a dreaming astronomer, whose head is among the stars. Later I met W. H. Hooper, monogamous delegate in Congress from this polygamous territory, a man for whom I at first entertained some respect, but learned to distrust by reason of his action in regard to the Mountain Meadow murderers. A Marylander of the old type, native of the " eastern shore," first a merchant's clerk and then cap- tain of a Mississippi steamer, he started across the plains in 1850 on a business venture ; but on arriving in Utah found a Mormon wife and an appropriate mission, as the plausible go-between to do Brig- ham's work among Gentile law-makers. It is not possible that a OiiSON PKATT. 92 WESTERN WILDS. man of his mental make-up ever believed Mormonism ; the more rea- sonable supposition is that he, like many other leaders of this people, holds all religions in equal indifference, but finds his account in this one, and is willing the Church should run along as comfortably as may be, while he accumulates wealth and takes physical comfort. The husband of but one wife, he has never held ecclesiastical position in the Church, but has been remarkably useful during many years service at Washington. In 1872, Brigham concluded that a polyga- mous people ought to be represented by a polygamist, and accordingly sent George Q. Cannon, the four-wived apostle, to Washington. Con- gress, which expelled Bowen for having two wives, admitted Cannon with four, and Hooper returned to his store and bank. As all things spiritual are in doubt, any man is excusable for believing any relig- ion ; but we can barely excuse one who, in mere indifference, pro- fesses belief in the worst imposture of the age. My best interview was with George A. Smith, full cousin to the original Joe, and then an apostle, but a little later chosen in full conference to the place of Heber C. Kim- ball, deceased, as First Coun- cilor to Brigham Young. This man was long known among Gentiles as the most gorgeous liar in the Rocky Mountains. He had four sermons, usually selecting the one most fitting to the occa- sion ; and recited the history of the Church with such an ingenious mixture of fact and fiction, that his dazed hearers accepted the whole as gospel. In his narrative, Mormonism had a roll of martyrs longer than that of the primitive church, and an array of miracles which quite put the Mosaic record in the background. Of sanguine temperament, easily believing every thing that made for the glory of Mormonism, and throwing off with equal ease whatever might have suggested doubt to an earnest thinker, fully persuaded of the Mormon doctrine, that it was right to deceive for the good of the Church, and with a brilliant imagination, that made him believe any GEORGE A. SMITH. POLYGAMIA. 93 thing he had told three times, he was by nature well fitted for the place he had occupied from the first that of Church Historian. To him all doubtful points in Mormon annals were referred as to an infallible oracle. When Gentile visitors to the tabernacle were to be impressed, he stood next to Orson Pratt, and when doubtful questions were to be settled in favor of Brigham's pet designs, he found a precedent or made one with equal readiness. He consist- ently believed and taught that it was the duty of the Mormon laity " to be as a tallowed rag in the hands of the priesthood ; " of each order of the priesthood to yield implicit obedience to their superiors next in rank ; and of all orders, to be subject to the lightest command of their divinely appointed leader, Brigham Young. To the last of his life he obeyed Brigham's lightest request, and died in the confi- dent faith that he could only enter heaven on Brigham's voucher, properly indorsed by Joseph Smith. To such depths of abasement may the heaven-born intellect sink. He was succeeded as First Councilor by Brigham's son, "Johnnie" Young; for it is one of the " first principles of the gospel" as known in Utah, that all power is to be kept concentrated in the hands of the Smiths and Youngs. Daniel H. Wells was then, and is now, Brigham's Second Councilor, these three constituting the First Presidency of the Church, and having the right of final decision on all appeals from the lower priesthood, of whatever branch. Wells is, by popular election and "Divine ap- pointment," a Prophet and a Squire, a Mayor and a President, a Lieutenant-General and the husband of five wives. He is a tall, an- gular and most ungainly Saint, whose face and head bear involuntary witness to the truth of Darwinism. Borrowing a term from dime- novel literature, the Gentiles style him " The one-eyed pirate of the Wasatch." Long acquaintance with his career has only confirmed my first impression of him: he is the most dangerous man in the priesthood. The others are mostly impostors ; he believes it, bloody doctrines and all. Had he held the reins from 1870 till 1873, he would have precipitated a savage conflict, and the end would have been Mormonism drowned in blood, as was the Anabaptist schism, or a new development and fresh lease of life on the cry of " persecu- tion." It is well that he has small chance of succeeding Brigham ; so much more dangerous is a fanatic than an impostor. Brigham Young I did not see or converse with till some time after, but was for many years familiar with his appearance in the pulpit. Physically, the man is as near perfect as is ever allowed to one of our wretchedly developed race. Six feet high and uucom- 94 WESTERN WILDS. tnonly well muscled, he is yet so compactly built that strangers in- variably pronounce him smaller than he is; and one who first sees him step out of his carriage on Main Street, clad in his short, gray business coat, is apt to speak of him as "dumpy." He measures forty-four inches around the chest, and weighs at least two hundred pounds ; his hands and feet are rather large, his head extremely so, and very broad across the base, sloping thence before and behind toward the crown. With very light or golden hair, a cold, glitter- ing blue eye and a massive under-jaw that shuts like a vice, he has the firmness and vigor that usually consist with such an organiza- tion, and that happy mixture of the sanguine and bilious tempera- ments which makes one easily believe himself a man of destiny. Of the hardiest Vermont stock, he was put up by nature to last a hundred and twenty years, but hardships and the worry of governing have shortened his life from twenty to forty years, and he may die any- where between eighty and a hundred, retaining possession of his fac- ulties and growing more tyrannical and avaricious to the last. Not at all a talented man in the common sense of the word, his power is largely the result of his immense physical potency. His physique is one that makes a man do and dare, and then take the results of that doing and daring as marks of divine favor. Even sneering unbelievers who shake hands with him feel the impress of his magnetic potentiality, nor is it pleasant to face him with the con- sciousness that one is his enemy. Many an apostate can bear wit- ness that long after being convinced that Mormonism was a hollow fraud, which he ought to abandon, and could abandon without danger, he still felt a grievous dread of standing up in the "School of the Prophets" to face the wrath of Brigham Young. To women of the uncultured and impressible sort, such a man is often as fas- cinating as a gentle and purring lion : one with all power in reserve to be exercised only for them and upon their enemies. Even a few non-Mormon women have confessed a mild admiration for this mass of power, and at least two Gentile ladies have so far forgotten them- selves as to write in fulsome praise of a man whose very existence is a standing insult to womanhood. Such respect hath great native power and virile force. Before an audience in sympathy with him he is an effective speaker; he can, by a series of strong, nervous appeals, carry them along to almost any pitch of excitement, and commit them, by voice and vote, to almost any absurdity. Add a ready command of language, albeit the vernacular of an uneducated Vermonter, and rare powers as a POL YQAM1A. 95 mimic, and we have the secret of Brigham's strength as an orator. Of eloquence he has none whatever; before a cultured or critical audience he would be a hopeless failure. Whatever greatness he has, finds its source in his splendid physical organization. Thence is his energy, his invincible will, his iron disregard of the sufferings of others the qualities that have made him. His was also the rare good fortune to fall just at the right time into just the right place for his peculiar talents; for it is scarcely possible that in the ordinary pursuits of life he would have made more than ordinary success. The accident of one man's death and the apostasy of two others, made him President of the Twelve Apostles just before Joe Smith's death; after that event, there was none to oppose him save the flighty and un- reliable Sidney Rigdon, whom the Mormons had never trusted, and so Brigham necessarily became head of the Church. BRIGHAM'S RESIDENCES. It is a noteworthy fact that in almost every scheme Brigham has undertaken, except managing the Mormons, he has completely failed. His Colorado warehouses, beet-sugar factories, Cottonwood Canal, B. Y. Express, and hand-cart emigration scheme, one and all, proved dis- astrous failures, the last resulting in three hundred deaths, and the most frightful suffering. Similarly every colony Brigham has sent to the surrounding territories has finally been abandoned as a failure, from Lemhi, on the north, to San Bernardino, on the south. Not a few look forward to his death as a great aid to the disintegration of Mormondom; his continued life will do far more in that direction. "When he took command of the Mormons they had, according to their own accounts, over 200,000 members in all the world; now they num- 96 WESTERN WILDS. ber less than half as many. They submitted all to him, and he has spent thirty years in teaching them the terrors of a religious despot- ism. Thousands have learned that it is easy to surrender rights, but hard to regain them. At first he only robbed his devotees, now he insults them. A few more years of power and he will, to quote the language of a Mormon, " hitch them up and plow the ground with them." Many intelligent men have concluded that Brigham was honest in his religious professions. I can not agree with them. I might reject all other evidence of his hypocrisy, but I can not reject his own. Again and again he lias virtually admitted that his religion was a mere convenience. To a young Mormon friend of the writer, whom he was urging to return to the fold, Brigham said: "It makes no difference whether you believe in it or not; we need you; just come along and be baptized, and pay up a little on your tithing, and it will be all right." To another he said : " It's no great concern what you believe ; I 've got as good a right to start a new religion as Christ or Mohammed, or any other man." And yet again, when speaking of the vote of each semi-annual conference indorsing him as a prophet, he said; "I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I have been profitable to this people." Since then the Gentiles have usually designated him "The Profit." There was a' time, I think, when he believed his religion and worked hard for it ; but as he rose in the Church he learned more, and became what he practically describes himself, a philosophic infidel. A man whose convictions depend largely on his interests, with a happy power of self-deception, a great deal of cunning, some executive ability, and behind it all an immense physical potency, with little mercy or con- science to temper it such, in brief, is Brigham Young. Late in September, I took a walk to Bear River Cafion, some eighty miles north of the city, stopping often with the rural Saints and noting their ways. This trip was through the most enlightened part of Utah, almost the only part the Eastern tourist ever sees. The villages are neat and quiet, and the little farms well watered and cultivated. But even here the great lack is apparent. The Saints have adopted the bee as their emblem, and have stopped with the blind instincts of the bee content with food and shelter, with but little regard for the higher man. Near Ogden was an old Dane, living with a mother and two daughters as wives; in Brigham City lived a bishop, married to two of his own nieces, and near Bear River was another Dane, living with three wives in a POLYQAMIA. 97 ^abin not large enough to make one comfortable. Such cases were my first select specimens of the practical operations of the " Celes- tial Law." As this was but one of many journeys I made in Utah, a few general notes on the topography will be in order. The Wasatch Mountains on the east, and Sierra Nevada on the west, like the two sides of a ( ), inclose a region known as the Great Basin, in which nature appears to have worked on a dif- ferent plan from that pursued in the rest of the country. All the streams run towards the center, none towards the sea; a river is larger at the head than at the mouth when it has a mouth very few of the lakes have any outlet, and, with rare exceptions, both pools and lakes are bitter with salt, iron, lime, or alkali. From the mountains which form the rim of the Great Basin, sub-ranges successively fall off towards the center, and the whole interior plain is an almost unbroken desert. But from the Wasatch and Sierras many streams put out towards the center, and, at the points where they leave the mountains, are bordered by little fan-shaped valleys. These, constitute all the cultivable land in the Basin ; the rest is fit only for timber or grazing, or is totally barren. Throughout the Basin all the detached mountains run north and south; on them is the only timber, and about their base the only grass to be found. If the mountain is high enough to supply melting snow throughout the summer, there may be a settlement at its base; otherwise all the streams that issue from it will be dry in early spring, and cultivation, that is to say, irrigation, be impossible. Southward, the country grows steadily dryer and more barren ; the valleys smaller, the deserts larger, the streams more unreliable. In Arizona and Southern Utah, I found it difficult, indeed, to get water twice in a day's ride. In the north the most rugged mount- ains are relieved by graceful adjuncts; there is a gradual ascent from plain to bench, from bench to foot-hill and lower sub-range, and over all is a faint green tinge from brush or bunch-grass, or a dreamy haze that softens the rudest outlines. But in the south there is a grandeur that is awfully suggestive suggestive of death and worn-out lands, of cosmic convulsions and volcanic catastro- phes that . swept away whole races of pre-Adamites. There the broad plateaus are cut abruptly by deep cartons with perpendicular sides, sometimes 2000 feet in height ; there is a less gradual ap- proach to the highest ranges, and the peaks stand out sharply de- fined against a hard blue sky. The air is noticeably dryer ; there is no haze to soften the view, and the severe outlines of the cliffs 7 98 WESTERN WILDS. seem to frown menacingly upon one who threads the canons. Nee- dle rocks project hundreds of feet above the general level, while hard volcanic dykes ris above the softer lime or sandstone mighty battlements, abrupt and unpassable Pelion upon Ossa piled, as in Titanic war. The western half of the great Basin is Nevada, the eastern, Mor- mon Utah. All that part of the Territory east of the Wasatch is still the range of the Mountain Ute, and, for the most part, unfit for white settlements. As nine-tenths of the cultivable land lies along the western base of the Wasatch, in the little detached val- leys mentioned, it results that Mormon Utah consists of a narrow line of settlements down the center of the Territory: an attenuated commonwealth rarely more than ten miles wide, but nearly sev