Part 21

In 1872 Mr. Shane decided to make a sheep camp about two and a half miles from where he lived, so drove down there in a wagon one morning, in order to pitch a tent and fix things for the comfort of his Mexican herder, who was off with a band of sheep. The camp was beneath the fork of a live-oak tree. The frontiersman left his wagon about a dozen yards from where he was at work, and started to put a small board between the forks of the live-oak, to serve as a shelf. Two guns were in his wagon.

While thus occupied, he suddenly heard a wild war-whoop, and found that he had been attacked by the Indians. A redskin came up behind the wagon, on horseback, and shot at the ranchman with a six-shooter, the ball striking the right-hand fork of the tree and knocking the bark into his face and eyes. The pioneer turned, in order to get his guns out of his wagon, and faced the levelled revolver of the savage. He kept cool—in spite of this danger—and, as he walked to the wagon, received two more shots from the Indian. As the redskin was behind the conveyance, his shots went high, passing over the head of the frontiersman, who soon reached his wagon and looked for his guns. The Comanche saw what the white man was after, and, when he perceived that his shots had failed to take effect, he wheeled his horse and ran away. Shane seized a rifle and fired at him, killing his horse when he did so. As the pinto rolled upon the ground eight more Indians showed themselves and began to charge the lone white man. The gun which he had just discharged was a Mississippi yager, and he had no more balls for it.

But the frontiersman had another weapon: a new, single-shot Ballard rifle, and he only had two cartridges for it; one in the gun and one in his pocket. In leaving home that morning he had left his belt behind, which was full of cartridges for the Ballard. He was in a close place, but he had—as you know—been in close places before, and he was determined to make the best fight that he could. He resolved not to waste a shot. Using his wagon as a breastwork he awaited the onset of the Indians, and when they came nearer he raised his gun and aimed at them. The redskins dodged behind the prickly pear and mesquite bushes, from which they opened fire, hitting the wagon and the ground around it repeatedly.

Now occurred a lively battle. The frontiersman had tied a fat mule about one hundred feet from the wagon, where he could eat grass. A daring redskin concluded to risk his chances and get the animal, so, leaving the cover of the mesquite bushes, he advanced across open ground in order to steal the unsuspecting beast. When Shane saw the Indian coming with his knife ready to sever the rope which held the mule, he determined to risk a crack at him. He was an excellent shot, and he knew that he could kill the Indian if he did not dodge too quickly. Taking a quick but accurate aim, he fired. The Comanche brave jumped high in the air, and then fell in a sheep trail and lay there. The other Indians set up a terrible howling when they saw that their companion had been killed, and several of them ran quickly, seized him by the hair and dragged him out of sight behind the prickly pear bushes. The pioneer still crouched low and waited for the Comanches to come on, but, dreading to expose themselves to such marksmanship, the Indians did not again show themselves.

Certainly things looked bad for Henry Shane, but help was at hand. The Mexican attendant heard the fight, and from the number of shots that were fired supposed that his employer had been killed. He ran to the ranch in order to inform Mrs. Shane of this fact. The lady sent four Mexicans out to see if they could not assist her husband. When they neared the scene of action the Indians decamped, leaving their dead comrade behind. The ranchers buried the Comanche brave where he had fallen in the sheep trail.

When the lucky sheepman returned to his ranch from the scene of this thrilling little battle he found that a strange happening had come to pass. The Mexican sheep-herder who had rushed home to warn his wife that the Indians had surrounded him, was found to be in a serious condition, through overexertion in carrying the news of Henry’s supposed death. The poor fellow was in great pain, and, although he was placed in a wagon and was carried to San Antonio, where he could see the best physicians, he died soon afterwards.

As for the gallant Shane, he continued to have exciting adventures with the redskins, and, not long after the lucky escape which I have just narrated, had another brush with the roving Comanches. He had made a sheep camp three miles from his house, at a place called Long Hollow, and had his Mexican herder with him. This was the faithful Felipe Flores.

Early one morning Shane heard rocks rattling in the hollow below the camp, so he and Flores went out a short distance in front in order to investigate the matter. Felipe went slightly in advance, and to Shane’s questioning as to what he saw, replied:

“It is Mr. Dilliard, whom we have been expecting to help us hunt for some lost sheep.”

Shane kept on, but suddenly started back in dismay. Ten Comanches were coming for him upon the dead run.

In an instant the sheepman turned and hastened to the tent in order to seize his rifle. The Indians were right after him, and crowded Felipe so closely that he ran backward towards the fire. As a Comanche endeavored to thrust a lance into his body he fell into the flames. When this occurred the Indians opened fire upon Henry Shane, endeavoring to hit him before he could get his gun. Several balls struck the tent, but the Ranger was unscathed.

Now the plainsman seized his rifle, and, wheeling around, fired at his enemies. They retreated at once and dashed into the thick brush. As they scampered away, two Indians on the same horse were seen to ride behind a thick bunch of prickly pears, only one of whom came out upon the other side.

“That second redskin is still behind the pears,” said Flores. “He is waiting there in order to shoot any one who may come out to look around.”

“I think that I’ll stir him up a bit,” said Shane, and, aiming at the bunch of pears, he let drive. Sure enough, he routed an Indian, who ran off, screeching loudly. When the spot was afterwards examined a bullet hole was seen in the pears. The redskin had had a narrow escape.

This was not Henry’s last adventure with the redskins by any means, for, about a month later he went down the river, less than a mile from his ranch, to a place called the “Indian Crossing.” There were two Mexicans with him, who had a wagon and a pair of mules. Their intention was to saw cypress logs in order to make boards and shingles for a new ranch house.

The plainsmen finished their work of loading logs and were soon ready to return home. One of the Mexicans, called Antonio, had a gun which had been resighted. He wished to have Shane try it, and therefore called out:

“Come here, Señor, and try my rifle. It can shoot well I know, but I would like to have your opinion of it. There is a tree which will make a good mark.”

“I’m agreeable,” replied Henry, taking up the gun. He fired two shots at the tree. When he had finished, the Mexican went over to see where he had hit the bark.

Over forty Indians were crossing the ford of the river near by at about this moment. They heard the rifle shots, and, learning from a scout that three white men were there, determined to surround and capture them. So they spread out like a fan in order to completely annihilate the little party. Half of the redskins came up on the bluff upon the east side, opposite Shane and his two Mexicans; the balance went to the old crossing above, so as to come around the frontiersmen upon the west side and thus cut off their retreat in both directions. Henry Shane was now in another tight box. Let us see how he fared.

A sudden rattling of rocks warned the pioneer and his companion that some one was near by. His friend (the Mexican) mounted a stump, so that he could see the crossing, and said:

“There are soldiers coming up the river.”

As he jumped down, Henry, himself, climbed up on the stump in order to have a look.

“Soldiers!” he cried. “Why, man, those are Indians!”

He immediately seized his rifle and stood prepared for action.

Antonio, as you know, had gone to look at the bullet marks upon a tree. When the Indians came down the bank of the river they encountered this Mexican and opened fire upon him. Antonio attempted to run back to Shane, but, as he started forward, he was struck by a bullet, and fell into some high weeds. The Indians closed in upon the other two sheepmen, uttering wild cries of delight, for they felt that they had them, and they bore no love for Henry Shane. They were armed with Spencer carbines and commenced a rapid fire upon the bold frontiersman and his companion.

The bullets began to rain in from both sides of the creek, as Shane took shelter behind a huge cypress log and commenced the unequal battle. He was now in the tightest place that he had ever been in in his life, but he kept cool, and only fired at long intervals, and with careful aim. The redskins were uncertain as to the force they were attacking and were afraid to come down into the bed of the river and to fight at close quarters. The second Mexican crawled into a tree-top, so that only his feet were visible. He was of no assistance to the gallant frontiersman.

After shooting away for some time, the Indians decided to send a warrior on horseback below (where Shane was crouching), in order to see if all were killed, or if there were any still left. The frontiersman was on the alert, and, as the redskin approached, he caught the first motion of the reeds as he slipped through. The rest of the red men had ceased firing and were all under cover.

There was a moment of breathless anxiety. Shane held a large revolver in his hand, as he lay close to the ground, watching around the end of the log, as the fellow came in view. At once he aimed at the redskin’s breast and pulled the trigger. The Comanche reeled and fell to one side of his horse, clutching the mane of the animal as it ran up a bluff. The other redskins now rose from the grass and endeavored to stop the startled beast; but he kept running around in a circle, for some time, with the Indian still hanging to his mane. At last he was captured, and a loud wailing cry told the frontiersman that the shot which he had fired had done its deadly work.

The Indians now held a council of war. They could be easily seen by Shane, where he lay. Apparently they had had sufficient fighting, for they mounted and rode off. As they disappeared from view, the happy frontiersman mounted a stump and counted forty warriors. How many he had killed besides this last one he could not tell. He took no time to investigate the matter and prepared to leave at once.

The sides of the log, behind which he had lain, were perforated with bullets. One bullet hole was in his boot leg, one was in his hat, two were in his shirt, three were in the wagon bed, and one of the mules was badly wounded. In spite of this, the animal was able to draw the wagon home with him, in which was placed the wounded Antonio. The other Mexican had crawled from his hiding-place after the fight was over. He was certainly not made of the same stern stuff as was Henry Shane.

The bold rancher and frontiersman had had a narrow escape, but he had a still narrower escape, some time later. It was upon a winter’s day, and he had gone out to a place called “Griner’s Bottom” in order to listen to turkeys as they flew up to roost, for he wished to kill some of them for dinner on Christmas Eve. He found the place, and had not been there long before he heard the sound of horses’ feet. Looking around, he saw five Indians riding towards him. They seemed to be unaware of his presence.

There was no time for anything but quick action. Henry hugged the live-oak tree, against which he had been leaning. As he did so, the Indians came jogging along on both sides of him: two on one side—three on the other. It was rapidly getting dark, so they did not see the lone frontiersman. Luckily they did not look back after they had gone past. Had they done so, they would have seen Henry pressing himself flat against the tree trunk, grasping his muzzle-loading shotgun very tightly and trying to keep his teeth from chattering. Sometimes this antiquated gun missed fire. Oh, fortunate Ranger! The redskins were soon trotting onward in the darkness.

This was not the last adventure which the daring Henry had with the savages by any means, but it was the most exciting. He lived for many years upon his ranch in Uvalde County; prospered, and became one of the solid citizens of the state. Truly his was an adventurous soul. It was to such men as these, who dared to take any chance and assume any risk, that the West owes its settlement, its civilization, and upbuilding.

All honor, then, to Henry Shane,—the Texan pioneer for whom the Indian had no terrors. He passed through so many hairbreadth escapes that one would think him often thankful that he was alive. Hail to this stout German who helped to make history upon the Mexican frontier!

POOR JERRY LANE:

THE LOST TRAPPER OF WYOMING

[_This is the story of a young frontiersman, whom I knew, myself_]

* * * * *

JACKSON’S HOLE, Wyoming, was named after one Jackson, a pioneer, explorer, ranchman, and horseman. Jackson’s Hole was also the home of horse thieves who, gathering up their captured steeds, would run them into this peaceful valley to feed them on the rich, natural hay until they could be driven out at a different angle and sold to some one who knew nothing of their former ownership. Jackson’s Hole was also the home of desperadoes who had fled from justice. Jackson’s Hole was the place that I was going to in the summer of 1899.

“Goin’ to Jackson’s Hole, be yer?” said a fellow in a big sombrero, on the train to Idaho Falls. “Young man, you’ll never get out alive. Young man, it’s a desperate place.”

He winked at me, shook his finger in my face, and dropped back into the seat from which he had arisen. “Young man,” he continued, “the Injuns will get you, sure. Young man, look out!”

I confess that I felt somewhat disconcerted.

“I’ll take care of my scalp,” said I.

Here the companion of my friend in the sombrero spoke. This one had a red handkerchief knotted about his tawny neck, and wore a corduroy waistcoat.

“Yes, son,” said he, “haven’t you heard about the Injuns in Jackson’s Hole two years ago? They stampeded th’ settlers, ran off a lot of stock, murdered an’ burned, until rounded up by the U. S. Cavalry. Reckon there be some more loose in thar now. An’ panthers! Why, boy, they’re as thick as peas in a pod. An’ dangerous, too, by gravy!”

The first speaker guffawed.

“’Tain’t nawthin’ to th’ grizzlies,” said he. “They be monstrous pestiferous. Why, they pull you from your horse they be so unafraid of men.”

I squirmed uneasily in my seat, for I saw that they knew me to be a tenderfoot.

“Boy, you’ll be eaten alive an’ scalped to boot,” continued the fellow in the sombrero. “The good Lord have mercy on your soul.”

“Amen!” echoed his companion.

And I wriggled again, for I saw that they knew me to be an Easterner, and were having fun in their own way.

At any rate, I was bound for Jackson’s Hole and would get there somehow or other in spite of horse thieves, “Injuns” and grizzly bears.

We met at Idaho Falls. When I say we, I mean our party, for we were surveyors, bent upon exploration of Uncle Sam’s possessions, and upon making an accurate map of the somewhat unknown country near Jackson’s Hole. We knew that it was a great land for game and fish and that it was the home of monster bands of elk, but we also knew that it had an unsavory reputation as the haunt for “bad” men of the hills. As I had come up on the train, certain placards in the stations showed that these same “bad” men were still around and had been operating at the expense of the Express Companies.

The placards read:

“$40,000 REWARD

For the Capture, Dead or Alive, of the Men who robbed the Union Pacific Express near Rawlins, Wyoming, on the Evening of June 4th.”

Then followed an inaccurate description of those who had been seen to enter the mail car, seize the box containing valuable mail and expressage, and decamp across the prairie with their plunder on their ponies’ backs.

At Pocatello, Idaho, I looked from the window and saw beneath me a light-haired, blue-eyed Swede. He was standing there nonchalantly, dressed in a corduroy suit, blue handkerchief knotted about his neck, and wide sombrero.

“That’s the sheriff,” said a man at my elbow.

“Where’s he bound?” I asked.

“Into the hills after the train robbers,” he answered. “He has a _possé_ with him and they ought to be able to capture a few of the bandits who held up the Union Pacific Express.”

The train rolled on, but I always remembered that sturdy little figure, standing carelessly on the platform, in corduroys. In a week he had been ambushed, with his entire _possé_, and two had escaped out of the eleven. The little sheriff was buried in the hills.

To get into Jackson’s Hole was then a rather difficult affair, for it meant a long journey by pack-train from either Market Lake or Idaho Falls. But the surveyor and the sons of the pioneer, whom he engaged to pilot him, were not adverse to pushing into a wild country. It took a week to outfit the party, secure the necessary horses, engage the men, and whip the fractious range-animals into some kind of submission for carrying saddles, pack equipment, and heavy bags of food and tenting. Then, in a cloud of alkali dust, and with a crowd of Blackfeet children gazing open-mouthed at the curious caravan, we were off for the blue hills which lay to the northeast.

The plains of Idaho are not only arid and parched, but they are covered with sage-brush, which emits a strong, pungent odor that is delicious. The alkali dust arises in clouds, and chokes one, as one proceeds, but that is not the only difficulty, for—strange as it may seem—the mosquito breeds by the millions in the irrigating ditches, and had it not been for the thick gauntlet gloves and netting attached to our sombreros, we would have been fairly eaten alive by the black swarms which followed us in clouds.

Every now and again—afar off on the prairie—we would see a whirling cloud of moving alkali dust.

“Wild horses running to water,” said one of the cowboys. “That’s the way they always go, on the dead gallop.”

Occasionally we came near enough to see some of them and they were lean, gaunt and rangy creatures, which had escaped from the ranches, had run off to the prairie and had found pleasure in the free and untrammelled life of the plains. They would snort, as we approached, throw their heads high in the air, and then—turning around—would be off like the wind.

As we rode along, hot, dusty, and thirsty, I heard about Jerry Lane.

“This here Lane,” said Jack (a lean, little cowboy) “is a Noo Yorker. He came out here three years ago, sayin’ that life was too tame for him back East, an’ he wanted to be right in the Rocky Mountains, where the wolves, bears, and antelope could be seen, just th’ same as in th’ time of Kit Carson an’ Bill Bent. Some says that he’s a millionaire. Some says that he isn’t. Leastways he has about all th’ money one needs in this here country, an’ they tell me his cabin in th’ Rockies is full of th’ best kind of rifles, of steel traps, books, an’ all that’s nice.”

“HE FOUND LIFE TOO TAME FOR HIM BACK EAST.”

This sentence stuck in my mind and I knew—in a moment—what kind of a youth was Jerry Lane. He had the same spirit as the old explorers. He possessed the imagination of a Lewis or a Clarke; a Champlain, or a La Salle. To him the spirit of the wilderness was all absorbing, and, shaking off the trammels of civilization, he loved to live out his days amidst the towering mountains, which, even then, stretched before us, jutting high from the sage-brush plateau. I immediately felt a sympathetic interest for Jerry Lane.

To cross into the valley of Jackson’s Hole requires one’s utmost exertions, for one must climb up the Teton Pass in order to get over the mountains which surround this paradise of fish and game. For a man and a horse to pass up and across is easy work, but we were unfortunate enough to have a wagon with us. As we neared the bottom of the trail, which led almost perpendicularly up in the air, we saw a broken vehicle of a pioneer.

“The Top of Teton Pass, or Bust,” some one had written on a board and placed upon the battered spokes.

It had “Busted.”

Now climbing, pushing, blowing, we yoked four horses to our wagon and gradually worked it to the summit of the Pass. It was July, but snow was on the ridges, and the air was like Labrador as it swept across the hemlock-covered mountains. When once on top of the Pass, what a view! We gazed down into a peaceful little vale with log houses and thatched roofs, fields of green grass with stacks of yellow hay, and bluish gray rivers curving gracefully across the plain. Hereford cattle, with their brown bodies and white faces, grazed contentedly upon the wide sweep of natural grass, and the barking of dogs sounded indistinctly from the barnyard of a new-made home.

Down we pushed into the valley, then onward, across the Snake River at Moeners’ Ferry, and then to the Buffalo Fork of the Grosventre. Antelope began to appear upon the plain and danced about us like yellow and white rubber balls. Two of the cowboys dismounted and fired at them, resting their rifles upon their knees. They could not duplicate the marksmanship of Kit Carson or Buffalo Bill. Not an antelope was even wounded.

We camped in a beautiful spot near the Grosventre River, and, just as we were lighting the fire for supper, a cry went up from some one:

“Elk! Elk!”

I was busy pouring some coffee, and, looking up, saw a cowboy pointing to a high bank opposite our camp. Sure enough, there stood a noble bull elk, his spreading antlers standing out on either side, giving him a calm and majestic appearance. He was gazing curiously at the animated scene below.

Why is it that the average man’s first instinct when he sees a wild animal is to kill it? I was satisfied with watching this magnificent child of the forest, but not so with the rest of the party. Three of them ran immediately to get their rifles and a fusillade of bullets soon whistled in the direction of the big elk. He turned, galloped off into the timber, and left the cowboys to bemoan their lack of ability with the shooting-iron.

“By gracious,” said one, “I can’t hit a barn door at fifty yards!”

The elk was but one of the many which ranged the Jackson Hole country and whose deep trails could be seen on every hand. Their bleaching antlers, which they had shed, were also upon many a hill, and frequently we would pass a rancher’s cabin, where a fence would have been constructed of the white twisted horns of the old bulls. I knew that we would soon see a quantity of elk, and we did.

Not many evenings later, as we were again boiling our coffee for dinner, the most unearthly scream that I have ever heard echoed from the canyon just to our right. It was answered by another, and—if I can make you believe it—the sound was as if a woman were being strangled.

“Mountain lion screeching,” said Jack, with a grim smile. “Awful noise, ain’t it?”

I confessed that it was.

“Makes me always feel skeery. Kind uv makes th’ gooseflesh creep up my back. Heard ’em a thousand times but always frightens me.”

The cowboy drew closer to the fire and I noticed that he was shivering.