Part 29

Also, she had enjoyed, particularly when with the children, watching a reddish-brown dog resembling a cocker spaniel, ride a horse, standing up behind a man. A prospector working a claim up near the summit, five or six miles out, rode a bay horse daily out of Goodsprings, to and from his work—always with the dog standing on the horse’s back. As it was a daily occurrence, the children had become accustomed to seeing the dog ride the horse—but they were especially anxious for Myrtle to view the spectacle, with them. Myrtle had met, and visited with, some of the children’s mothers. One of the women was from Soldier, Kansas, near our home. In fact, with faithful Elwood Thomas as escort, Myrtle had been pretty much all over the camp — except of course saloon row on the north side—Hobson street I believe it was called. Elwood had told her it was not the lowest spot in Nevada, but even so, it was no place for a lady.

Myrtle had now really caught the spirit of the West. She was actually planning on the spending of the yet undelivered profits of the mine, on a home in Goodsprings. Everyone had told her that we were on the high road to a big success. Our home would be on the “bench” near Charley Byram’s place, where we could be sure of getting water. Bachelor Charley Byram, I believe, had the only private well, with windmill, in Goodsprings. He was the son of August Byram, former partner of Green Campbell, in the sensationally rich Horn Silver mine at Frisco, Utah. Born in Atchison, Kansas, Charley was now — in Nevada and Los Angeles, where he lived with his mother and sister — -a typical Westerner, seemingly without the proper appreciation of a native son for his old home town. He said to me, “The last time I was back in Atchison, two years ago, I could have fired a shotgun down the full length of Commercial street without hitting a soul.” To one who knows the unobstructed and flat straightness of Commercial street, it seemed as if he should have been able to do better than that. Charley would have to up his sights and show marksmanship if he were to hit pay ore on his claims up in the porphyry zone. I believe he missed in this.

Myrtle said she wanted flowers, lots of roses, and green grass—a show spot, sort of oasis in the desert as it were. Something that everybody else didn’t have. Well, I too had been caught by the spell. Why not let her have them? Contingent, however, on one little reservation. Only if, and when, the lead-zinc mine should give up its treasure. We couldn’t spend all that money living a prosaic life.

Before leaving Goodsprings for California, Myrtle said to me, “Let’s come back this way. I’d love it. And since you think you are so good at discovering zinc overlooked by your partner, maybe YOU could, after all, find gold in ‘them thar hills’.”

Might say here that eight years later Myrtle had the chance to repay the old miner, Elwood Thomas, for his kindness by entertaining him in our home. Elwood — just in from Nevada — came into the Wetmore hotel one evening about eight o’clock when I happened to be present. Also, Henry McCreery—sometimes affectionately called “Henry Contrary”—Elwood’s brother-in-law, was in the hotel office at the time. We had a good visit together. When Henry was ready to go home he said, “Well, Elwood, I’d like to ask you to go home with me for the night — but I’m afraid Becky wouldn’t like it.” Becky Thornton was Henry’s sister and housekeeper—his wife Patience, Elwood’s sister, having passed on some years earlier. Elwood said, “Oh, it’s all right. Maybe I ought to go out and see the Old Man” — meaning his bachelor brother Manning, living a half mile east of town. Elwood was the oldest and Manning was the youngest in a family of seven children—but the older one was the younger in appearance. I said, “Come along with me, Elwood—I know Myrtle will be glad to see you.” And she was. They had done Goodsprings all over again before retiring that night. And, sadly, we were to see our very fine old friend laid to rest in the Wetmore cemetery within the week. He was fatally injured in a horse-and-buggy accident while visiting his daughter, Mrs. Maude Ralston, in Holton.

Elwood had told us that he had a message from a miner in Goodsprings to deliver to a woman in Wetmore, but he could not remember her name. The wife and I put in a portion of the night trying to figure out who it might be with a connection out there. The next morning after breakfast, I went with Elwood down to the Spectator office. Editor Turrentine gave him a personal, with comment, naming the man in Goodsprings whose message Elwood would like to deliver, if he could find the woman. It brought results. Mrs. Nels Rasmus drove over to Holton the day following publication — and received her message. Mr. Thomas had gone over there to visit his daughter. Mrs. Rasmus had lived in the home of P. T. Casey, the Corning banker. I believe she was an adopted child. The Good-springs miner was connected in some way with one or the other of the two Corning families.

Two years later—1917—I chanced to meet this man with a stalled Model T Ford near the summit west of Goodsprings, on a very slippery road, deep in snow and slush. In the car with me, were Joe Walter, Frank and John Williams, and the driver. We were coming down the grade, and he had been going up. Recognizing the name on introduction, I asked him—just to be sociable—what was wrong with his car? He answered rather smartly, “If I knew I wouldn’t be here.” It was probably a very correct answer — but I thought it was no way to dismiss a fellow who had a message from Mrs. Rasmus for him.

NOTE—Frank Williams died in a hospital in Las Vegas. Nevada, December 19, 1947. This story is printed, without change, just as it was written prior to his death.

MONEY MUSK Published in Wetmore Spectator—

January 24, 1936.

By John T. Bristow

The deep snows of the past month recall the winters back a half century, and more. It seems there was always snow on the ground in the winter months then.

In the early days, besides making boots and shoes, my father, William Bristow, hunted and trapped a good deal, whenever he could spare the time from his business. Always one or more of his boys would go with him on those outings. We all loved the outdoors—and with my father we were like pals.

Among his catches were mink, raccoons, lynx, bobcats, and sometimes a catamount. The catamount was an overgrown wildcat between the bobcat and the cougar in size. The largest one he ever caught weighed sixty-seven pounds. There are none here now.

My father did not trap for the little fur-bearing, stink-throwing skunk, but often one would be found in one of his mink traps. Then, from a safe distance, he would shoot the skunk, carefully remove it, and deodorize the steel trap by burning before making another set.

The time came, though, when my father thought he might just as well save the skunk pelts. Skunk fur was in demand at a good price, the best skins bringing around four dollars. My father was not avaricious. But times were close—and he had many mouths to feed. And four dollars was four dollars.

My mother, of course, did not like to have her home polluted with skunk essence—and her boys refused to help with the skinning. So, when my father would find a well-marked skunk in one of his mink traps he would say, rather sadly, as he tossed it aside, “That’s four dollars thrown away.”

Then, one Sunday when William Peters was along—he was called Methuselah, or Thuse, for short—my father found a big skunk in one of his traps. It had fine markings. He said, “I’ll skin this one, if Thuse will help me.” Thuse said he didn’t mind; he had trapped and skinned a lot of them without getting stunk up.

It was a cold day—ice and snow everywhere. And while they skinned that skunk my brother Charley and I built a roaring fire with the scaley bark ripped off standing shell-bark hickory trees, and some fallen dead tree limbs picked out of the deep snow.

When they had finished skinning the skunk my father walked over to the fire and threw the carcass into the flames. He and Thuse then went over to an open spring that came out from under the roots of a big elm tree on the Theodore Wolfley farm west of town, and washed their hands. They had returned to the fire and were bending over the blaze drying their hands, when my father said, “So you boys think you’re too nice to help your old daddy skin a skunk.” He laughed. Methuselah chuckled. Then, spreading his hands with a sort of satisfied air, my father said, “It’s as easy as falling off a log when you know how.” Thuse chuckled again, and said, “Pshaw—of course it is!” And then, as if giving instructions for his sons to note, my father went on, “I shot him in the head before he had time to kick up a stink and of course we were careful not to cut into the stink-sack.”

Charley said, “Smart guys—you two.” Father gave him a withering look, but said nothing.

Thus chagrined, Charley and I started away to gather some more fuel. Then there was a sharp pop—a sort of explosion, as it were—in the fire. We looked around into an atmosphere suddenly made blue with sickening fumes and sulphurous words of condemnation. We saw Pop clawing frantically at his whiskers—he wore a full beard then—and the two Willies were dancing around the fire like Comanche Indians.

It was all so sudden. That darned skunk carcass, as if in a last noble effort of defense, had exploded and the contents of that carefully handled stink-sack was hurled at those two self-assured skinners, with my father’s whiskers as the central target for some of the solids. Pugh! It was awful!

Adopting Indian lingo, Charley laughed, “Heap brave skunk-skinners!”

Father said, “I don’t like the way you said that, young man. One more crack out of you—and I’ll tan your hide.” But he wouldn’t have done that. Charley was a model of perfection, and no one appreciated that fact more than did his daddy.

Now, have a look at Thuse. A weazened little wisp of a man in his twenties—wrinkled, uncouth, slouched in his clothes always much too big for him, he looked as if he had already lived a goodly portion of the long span of years accredited to the ancient Methuselah.

On the way home, Methuselah, speaking to my father, said, “They’ll want to run us out of town, Bill, when we get back to Wetmore.” My father said he could bury his clothes, but still he was greatly worried about his whiskers. And, naturally, he was thinking about my mother, too.

Charley said, soothingly, “Oh, just go on home Dad, and play her Money Musk, and everything will be fine. Money talks, you know. You’ve got as good as four dollars in your game sack, and God only knows how much musk, if you want to call it that, you and Thuse have got on your own hides.”

My father played the fiddle, and while “Over the Ocean Waves” was his favorite, he played equally well another tune called “Money Musk.” He would entertain his family in the home of evenings with his old-time fiddling.

We reached home about dusk, purposely timed. My father and Thuse were both increasingly worried. Thinking that it might be more satisfactory to let father face his problem alone, or with only Thuse present—and for other reasons—Charley and I went out to the woodpile and stalled around a bit. Old Piute and Queenie came out of the doghouse to greet us. Father never took the dogs along when running his trap line.

My mother came to the door and called in her gentle, sweet voice—she was always gentle and sweet with her boys—”Come on in here, you little stinkers, and get your suppers!”

My father was not at the festive board that Sunday night. He was nowhere about the house, that we could see — and we ate our supper in comparative silence.

Occasionally, my mother would sniff at us, but she offered no protest. Doubtless her two darling boys carried more than a suspicion of the polecat’s pollution, but, having just had a whiff of those two Willies, her keen nose was unable to separate the real from the imaginary.

It was almost two hours later when father came home. Methuselah was with him. They were both appreciably slicked up—but not really so good. Father was, more or less, shorn of his beard, and looked “funnier” than his boys had ever before seen him. And, would you believe it, the first thing he did was to pick up his fiddle and play Money Musk. I looked at my mother—then turned to Charley, giggled, and whispered, “I don’t believe it’s going to work.”

Charley giggled, too, and said out loud, “I betcha I could name some slick skunk-skinners who are maybe going to have to sleep out in the doghouse tonight.”

Sitting ramrod straight on the edge of her chair, with a hitherto wordless dead-pan expression, my mother said, “You tell ‘em, kid.” That did it. Dad snapped, “You don’t smell so darned nice, yourself, young man!”

William Peters could play the fiddle almost as well as father. They teamed well in furnishing music for the town dances, in the old days. They now played as if there was urgent need for prolonging the agony. Nero blithely fiddled while Rome burned. And likewise those two Willies fiddled well into the night while my mother stewed.

GONE WITH THE WIND Published in Wetmore Spectator,

January—1943.

By John T. Bristow

I have been asked to “write up” the Kickapoo Indians. This I cannot do satisfactorily without more data. I do not know the history of the tribe and, at this late date, I do not choose to waste time in acquainting myself with the particulars. It takes a lot of research to do a story of that nature. And, historically written, it would be rather drab. Anyway, this is a hurry-up assignment I am writing now to help out Carl, The Spectator Editor, while he is playing a lone hand during his father’s sickness.

WANTS WRITEUP OP KICKAPOO INDIANS

From Porterville, California, George J. Remsburg, who formerly lived in Atchison, and years ago had some excellent historical articles pertaining to Northeast Kansas printed in the Atchison Daily Globe, writes:

“A while back I received from you a copy of the Spectator containing your article, Turning Back the Pages. You have given us a splendid story of the Old Trail days in Northeast Kansas. I read every word of it with intense interest, and am preserving it for future reference. Also accept my thanks for copies of the Spectator containing your Memory’s Storehouse Unlocked. It is a most interesting narrative, and I am glad to have it for my historical collection.

“Why don’t you write up some recollections of the Kickapoo Indians?

“Mrs. Robert T. Bruner, of your town, is my much beloved cousin—as good a girl as ever lived.”

Marysville, Kansas, Dec. 18, 1938. Dear Mr. Bristow:

I have just received the Diamond Jubilee number of the Seneca Courier-Tribune, and among other feature articles read your article on “Green Campbell.” I want to congratulate you on this product of your able pen. It presents the theme in a fascinating, interesting manner; and incidentally garnishes the subject with a lot of worthwhile pioneer history.

It is too bad that persons with your ability to write—to draw word pictures — with words from an apt, concise, and well-stocked vocabulary, should lay down the pen. Those products, tho very interesting now, with the passing of years become literary gems. So keep on writing, Mr. Bristow; we love the articles of your able mind and eloquent pen.

I don’t believe you have ever written up the Kickapoo Indians—right at your door? Why not reconsider—and do it now?

Under separate cover I am mailing you one of my latest books, “The Jay-hawkers of Death Valley.” I want to give you the opportunity to read it. You need not buy it.

John G. Ellenbecher.

Mr. Ellenbecher has been writing historic articles for many years—principally about the old Overland Trail. In company with Abe Eley, formerly of Wetmore, Mr. Ellenbecker called on me when I was writing the Green Campbell story. I told them that it would be my last. But it was not. I reconsidered. Twelve of the stories in this book have been written since. And I may write still another one.—J. T. B.

However, there are some incidents having Indian connections which might make fairly readable matter. The Kickapoos were, I judge, just like other Indians — pushed out of civilization to make room for the whites. They had come here before the white settlement, of course. Where they came from I do not know—Michigan, maybe.

The Kickapoos did not war with other tribes. Nor did they molest the whites. Still, they were Indians, and it was hard for the early settlers to believe that they would have a lasting record as such—since hostile Indians roamed the country west of the Blue river. Back in the early 90’s when the Kickapoos took up the Sioux “Ghost Dance, or Messiah Craze,” as it was called, and held all-night pow-wows for several weeks, there was some nervousness among the whites.

In the early 70’s the Kickapoos came to Wetmore to do their trading. They had Government money and were good customers of the two general stores. Later they did their trading at Netawaka, and still later at Horton. My father, a shoemaker, came to know some of them rather intimately. I knew many of them too.

Masquequah was Chief then. Many are the times I have sold him white sugar and red calico—the Indians would not buy brown sugar if they could get white sugar. This was when I was a clerk in Than Morris’ store. Associated with me then were Curt Shuemaker, George Cawood and “Chuck” Cawood. In the good old days we often piled up a thousand dollar sales of a Saturday.

I should, perhaps, amplify this assertion about the sugar. We sold at that time about four times as much brown sugar which came in barrels marked “C” sugar, as we did white sugar. One day the boss said, “The town’s full of Indians; sell no white sugar to anyone until after the Indians leave.” When I told the Chief we had no white sugar, he said, “Ugh, Indian’s money good as white man’s money—maybe. Indians go Netawaka buy white sugar.” And that is what they did. Sorry, I can’t tell you why Morris did not want to sell the Indians white sugar that day. It could hardly have been because it consumed more time-it was a busy Saturday—to “tie-up” white sugar. We had no paper sacks then. The system was to weigh-up the sugar, lay a piece of wrapping paper flat down on the counter, empty the sugar onto it; then tie it up—if you could. A green clerk like myself could waste a lot of time trying to wrap up a dollar’s worth of granulated sugar. Brown sugar would pack together, and wrap more easily.

The story got out that the Netawaka merchant would sell the Indian a bill of groceries, put it in a box, and a clerk would obligingly carry it to the Indian’s wagon—and then, while the Indian was loitering in the store, the clerk would slip out and rob the box, in the interest of the merchant. But, if this were true, the Indians seemed to like it. They followed the Netawaka merchant to Horton when that town got started in 1886. Also, it was said, a certain white farmer living near the southwest corner of the reservation, would sometimes ride out from Netawaka with one of his Indian friends, letting his hired hand follow up with his own rig. At opportune times, the white man would reach back and throw out packages for the hired hand to gather up. Methinks Sam would have had hard luck in fishing out a package of granulated sugar such as those tied-up by me.

The old, old Indians are, I believe, all dead now. Of the younger generations, I know little—except that they are the descendants of a once relatively large tribe, and that their once large domain has been reduced to thirty sections, and that much of the land within the boundaries of the reservation is now owned by white people.

H. A. Hogard, Educational Field Agent, and Grover Allen, Indian, were in Wetmore last Sunday practicing archery with George Grubb and Ollie Woodman. They told me the Indian population now numbers about 280. There are about fifty families.

For my first episode I shall tell you about a deer-hunt my father and I had with the Indians. In a former article I told you about an Indian with a party of deer-hunters we chanced to meet in the John Wolfley timber, whom my father named Eagle Eye. His Indian name was far from that, however.

It was Eagle Eye who had arranged this hunt. He brought along from the reservation, eight miles northeast of here, two extra ponies—one of normal size and not too large at that, and a little one for me to ride. While putting the saddle on the little pony my father asked the Indians if it were a gentle pony. Eagle Eye said, “Him heap gentle like lazy squaw.”

It had snowed during the night and was still snowing when the Indians arrived at day-break. Two deer-runs were to be covered and it would take a full day to do it. Then, too, our party wanted to, if possible, get onto the grounds ahead of other hunters. It was not very cold, and my father was pleased with the snow. Tracking would be good. A natural born hunter, snow always appealed to him. He had killed a great many deer in his native Tennessee.

In the old days in Tennessee there was hardly ever enough snow to do a good job of tracking. However, hunters down there this winter would have had snow aplenty to track deer—if deer still remain to be tracked. A foot of snow and thirteen degrees below zero was recorded January 19th at Nashville—where I was born, the second son of a tanner, at 11:30 p.m., December 31, 1861.

Also in our hunting party, riding a small pony, was a little Indian boy whom they called—shall I say—Nish-a-shin. This might not be correct. When we got lined out, Eagle Eye rode first, then my father. I was third in line and Nish-a-shin was fourth. Three Indians followed in single-file formation with long rifles carried crosswise in front of them. The Indians all rode bareback, even Nish-a-shin. My father had secured two saddles for us.

In the gray of that early Sunday morning after the storm abated and the white prairie lay still, Eagle Eye headed west toward the John Wolfley timber. We traveled in silence, never out of a walk. From the head of Spring creek we went across to Elk creek and Soldier creek.

At that time the whole southwest country was practically virgin prairie. The Dixon 40-acres where Maurice Savage now lives, and the Bill Rudy land where Joe Pfrang’s home now is, were the only fenced tracts in that section of the country. Bill Rudy went to California. Years later when my father went out there they renewed their friendship. And one time when I was visiting in Fresno my father took me to see Mr. Rudy. He owned an 80-acre ranch and seemed to be well pleased with the change he had made. He had much to say about the intense cold weather he had endured on his homestead here. The winters Mr. Rudy experienced in Kansas were very much like the one we are now having, only in the old days real blizzards were the rule.

On October seventeenth, 1898, Jack Hayden lost nineteen head of cattle, in a pasture north of the Rudy — or Pfrang — place, in an unusually early and unusually severe blizzard. The cattle drifted with the blinding snow-storm over a bank and piled up in a ditch. I was in Chicago at the time. It rained in Chicago, but coming home on the Burlington, the first snow appeared near the north line of Missouri, got heavier toward Atchison, and from Atchison west on the Central Branch, it was really heavy. That snow, and succeeding falls, kept the ground here covered in a sea of white until spring.