Part 1

THE PIONEER TRAIL

BY ALFRED LAMBOURNE

[Decoration]

THE DESERET NEWS Salt Lake City 1913

Copyright, 1913, By Alfred Lambourne

Dedicated to the Memory of MY FATHER.

CONTENTS.

Preface 7 From Preface to Pioneer Jubilee Edition 11 Plates 17 The Pioneer Trail 19

PREFACE.

"An Old Sketch-Book" and "The Old Journey," the predecessors of "The Pioneer Trail," are now out of print, and the volume here offered to the public in their stead is to fill a demand for the original works. In the present book there is much additional matter to the letterpress of the first editions and, indeed, the character of the work is somewhat changed, the work being more an epitome of human emotion rather than one descriptive of scenery. These statements, however, have rather too important a sound as applied to such a short narrative as makes up these pages. Since the issue of "The Old Journey," the sketches from which it was illustrated have been scattered here and there, and the vignettes from the original plates are given in their place. An explanation seems necessary to those who may purchase the book in its new form in anticipation of its being a duplicate of the former works.

I lie at the side of a mountain road. The mountain is steep, the road is edged with trees. There are the wild-cherry, evergreens, and clumps of ancient shrub-oak. The road is now unused; few pass over it, save it be the shepherds who take their flocks from the high pastures of one mountain range to those of another. What once had been ruts made by the wheels of wagons are now changed by rain and flood into deep-cut gullies. It is a place where, in the spring time, the air is fragrant from millions of snow-white blossoms, and where now on the branches of the cherry, hang clusters of crimson fruit. The piece of road is historic. At this, its steepest part, near "The Summit," and where it is crossed by ledges of stone and littered with boulders and shale that once tore the iron from the cattle's feet, I found an ox-shoe. The relic had lain here long. Down this road passed the Pioneers.

There is stillness around. Over "The Little Mountain" arches a cloudless sky, the wide landscape is bathed in sunlight. But this place, now so quiet and deserted, may yet become the scene of animation. The broken road is to be a highway, preserved as a piece of "The Pioneer Trail."

THE AUTHOR.

FROM PREFACE TO PIONEER JUBILEE EDITION.

Some years ago the author of this book was enabled to gratify an ambition to record in artistic form something of the scenes and something of the incidents of the memorable pilgrimage, The Westward March, from the once borders of civilization to the Great American Desert--"An Old Sketch Book," Boston. S. E. Cassino, 1892. His purpose was not to publish a guide-book to the plains and mountains, for which there has been no occasion within the present generation, but rather a summary, a poetic-prose narrative of a typical journey, as seen through the memory and devoid of commonplaces, the more salient features only looming through the past.

When the Jubilee Celebration of the strange journey--for it is that, and those who made it that we are this year honoring and commemorating--was decided upon, it was suggested in consideration of the singular fitness of "An Old Sketch-Book" as a souvenir to be presented during the Jubilee to the Pioneers yet living, that letters were addressed to the Pioneer Jubilee Celebration Commission that speak for themselves. Many of the names appended to the letters were recognized as belonging to the honored band of Pioneer men and women, while the others were of those who think that in this Jubilee Year those who crossed the plains and mountains in ox-teams would appreciate the receiving, and their descendants the giving of a work of this character.

"An Old Sketch-Book," however, was a large and costly volume of a limited edition, and hardly manageable for the present purpose. The author therefore decided to place the sketches and descriptive matter in the form now used, under the title of "The Old Journey." The prompting to undertake the work was not merely encouraging but was made almost a duty by the commendations of the original volume, and had there been no other result from his labors, the author would have felt fully repaid for them by the expressions of approbation from the press as well as from those who saw the birth of the State and who watched its growth to the present hour.

The author is one of those who "crossed the plains." As the years have gone and time has not only cast a sort of glamor over the event, but has given also to men an opportunity to reflect seriously and in calmness and intelligence, that same Journey assumes greatness in our eyes, both in its inception and in its achievement. It finds a prominent place in the History of the West, and will ever stand forth among events. Indeed the world had heretofore seen nothing like it, and in the very nature of things its repetition is improbable, if not impossible. It must now be read; it cannot be experienced.

In presenting this edition there are no excuses to offer. The author has been true to nature and to history, and the publishers have done their part in a manner that must excite wonder and commendation when one thinks of what has been achieved in the wilderness, the advance that has been made in the art of the printer within the few years that have elapsed since the sketches appearing in the book were made.

It hardly needs intuition to foretell success for this little volume.

BYRON GROO. May, 1897.

"Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits. Where the gorge, like a gate way, Opens a passage wide to the wheels of the emigrant's wagon."

PLATES.

The Start from Missouri River. Nebraska Landscape with Prairie Fire. Morning at Chimney Rock. Camp at Scott's Bluffs. Laramie Peak from the Black Hills. Ford of the Green River. First Glimpse of the Valley.

THE PIONEER TRAIL.

This day, within the hour, I took from its place of concealment "An Old Sketch-Book." It lies before me now, I turn its leaves and live once more a past experience. Well, well! How vividly this book brings to me again those stirring days! Why, these are days gone by this quarter, yes, nearer this half century! How unexpectedly we sometimes come upon the past--turn it up, as it were, from the mold of time as with the plow one might bring to light from out the earth some lost and forgotten thing. This book, with its buckskin covers, revivifies dead hours, makes me live again those times when life for me was new; or, if not exactly that, brings them back in memory as reminders of times and conditions now passed away forever.

The book is a reminder, old, battered, dusty, yet truthful, of what an ox-team journey across the western plains and over the Rockies was in the years that are gone.

The book so long neglected, now so full of interest, received hard usage in those former days. Before it lay at rest so long, gathering dust and cobwebs about it, like a true pioneer it was made to rough it in this world. It learned to withstand the brunt of many a hard encounter. Master and book were companions on a long and toilsome journey.

Inside and out; yes, the leaves and the covers all tell tales. This buckskin was drenched many a time by the thunder-storms of Nebraska and Wyoming; by the sleet and snow that fell upon the mountains. Between these sheets of variously-toned gray paper, close to the binding, are little waves of red, gritty stuff, contributions, on some windy day, from the sand hills of the Platte Valley, or the Big Sandy Creek (the poetic Glistening Gravel Water of the Indians), or from "The Three Crossings" of the Sweetwater, or the wearisome piece of road leading from Platte to Platte--North and South--over the ridge and down into Ash Hollow. One end of the book has been submerged in water, a reminiscence, no doubt, of the fording of either the Platte, the Sweetwater, the Big or Little Laramie or the Green River farther on. O, there are many emotions revived within me by a sight of the book; they crowd upon me thick and fast! These crisp, gray leaves of sage, where did they get between the leaves? It was, I believe, on one cool September night, at Quaking Asp Hollow. I remember that then great bonfires were blazing around our camp, and the red tongues of flames showed by their light, wild groups of dancers--the ox-punchers performing strange antics; a fantastic dancing supposed to be under the patronage of Terpsichore; or, at least, some more western muse; a something, as I recall it now, between that of our modern ball-room and the Apache Ghost-Dance.

Remarkable that those sketches can suggest to me so much! Yet it is that which is unseen that fills me with amaze. Turning over the leaves it all comes back. "The Journey" is no longer a dream; it becomes again a reality; I go over the long, long plodding, the slow progress of seemingly endless days. Not only do I look upon the scenes which were transferred to the book, but, through sympathy, on others also that, for want of time, were left unsketched. Incidents of many kinds thrust their memories upon me. Sometimes the experiences recalled were pleasurable; sometimes they were sad. But mirthful or tragic, pathetic or terrible, I go over them again, and the twelve hundred miles, nay, the fifteen hundred, considering the circuitous route that we were compelled to follow, pass before me like a moving panorama. Prairies, hills, streams, mountains, canons, follow each other in quick succession--all the ever-changing prospect between the banks of the Missouri River and the Inland Sea.

How rapidly we have grown! What was once but dreams of the future first changed to reality, and then sank away until now they are but dreams of the past. No more the long train of dust-covered wagons, drawn by the slow and patient oxen, winds across the level plains or passes through the deep defile. No more the Pony Express or the lumbering stage-coach bring the quickest word or forms the fastest transport between the inter-mountain region and "The States." How hard it is to understand the briefness of time that has passed since this great interior country was practically a howling wilderness, inhabited by bands of savage Indians and penetrated only by intrepid trappers or hunters! As we are now whirled along over the Laramie Plains, the Humboldt Desert, or through the Echo or Weber Canons, reclining on luxuriously cushioned seats, and but a few hours away from the Atlantic or Pacific seaboards, we can scarcely realize it. Surely the locomotive plays a wondrous part in the destiny of modern nations. Without its aid the country through which we are about to pass might have become as was surmised by Irving, the cradle of a race inimical to the higher civilization to the East and West. Now we behold it a land giving promise of future greatness, where peace, wealth and happiness shall go hand in hand, and where already it is well-nigh impossible for the youth of today to fully comprehend the struggles and privations of its pioneer fathers.

The sketches, the greater number, are roughly made. There was little time to loiter by the wayside. Some of them are hardly more than hasty outlines, filled in, perhaps, when the camping-ground was reached. Some show an impression dashed off of a morning or evening, or, sometimes, of a noonday. Once in a while there is a subject more carefully finished, telling of an early camp or of a half-day's rest. Some are in white and black merely, others in color.

What a new delight it was to one young and city-bred, to mingle in the freedom of camp life such as we enjoyed near that spot. How sweet it was to pass the days and nights under the blue canopy of heaven! Three weeks we remained there; three weeks elapsed ere our train was ready to start. There was nothing very beautiful, it may be, in the scenery bordering upon "The Mad Waters," but it was wild and sylvan at the time, and we were excited by the prospect of those months of travel that lay before us.

Between the high bank on which our wagons stood and the main course where the Missouri's waters flowed, was "The Slough." There, under the high branches of primeval trees, the river back-waters lay clear and still; there the wild grape vine ran riot; there hung the green clusters of berries that would swell as we journeyed on, and that would be ripe ere we reached our journey's end. There the young, and the old, too, resorted for their bath. Many the fair girl who made her toilet there, often, indeed, that some bright face was reflected in a silent pool, a nature's mirror, while its owner arranged anew her disheveled hair. The daughters of dusky savages, of painted chiefs--the Tappas, the Pawnee or the Omaha--had, no doubt, used that place for the same purpose in other years. Little thought they of the white-faced maidens from distant lands beyond the great seas, perhaps of which they never heard, who should some day usurp their place.

During our days of waiting ere we had started westward, often, indeed, our eyes were turned toward the sunset horizon. From there would come the train of wagons in which the greater number of emigrants would make "the journey." Often there was a false alarm. Each waiting emigrant, impatient of delay, would take some far-off cloud of dust to be that made by the expected wagons. But often it was only bands of frontiersmen, Indians, or perhaps a band of antelope. Would the train never come? How long this wait! At length, well I remember the morning, the word was passed! It was the wagons for the emigrants. The half-cooked breakfast and the camp-fires were left deserted. Each and every one went forward to see the wagons that for so many weeks would be their homes. Some there were who had lover or relative who had preceded them the years before and now their lover or relative returned for those whom they loved. All dust-covered and torn were the teamsters' clothes. Some were bare-headed. Yes, they had raced on the road. Two captains, our own, John D. Holladay, and another equally eager, had made a wager. Each one was positive that he would reach the banks of the Missouri first. In order to gain the wager our captain had aroused his men at the hour of midnight, and in the darkness had forded the deep Elkhorn River, and continued the journey eastward while the members of the other company were enjoying their needed rest.

A daring deed! But those pioneers of the west knew no fear. They were in earnest, too. Captain and teamsters alike shared both the joy and the pride in the winning of the wager.

Then on the afternoon of the same day the other train arrived. O what a shouting and yelling then rent the air. Yet the rival captain and his teamsters took their defeat good naturedly. They had started eastward better equipped than was our captain, and yet the latter had won the race. Of this achievement of course we were proud.

A supper and a ball were given by the losing company. And what a ball-room--the Wyoming Hotel. It was a long, low house of logs and the dance-room was lighted by a row of tallow candles, and the music was furnished by the teamsters from the west, and yet what a time of enjoyment it was! What a contrast between the refined young girls from across the seas, and those roughly clad men from the west. Yet in the future their lives were to be linked in one and their children in turn be builders of the western empire.

Well do I remember, the afternoon, when our captain, that was to be, came to our portion of the Wyoming camp and listed those who were to journey as Independents, of which my father was one. That was the first time that I had beheld a typical captain of the western plains. And still I remember his massive form, his keen eye, his commanding voice and gestures. But his true southern accent plainly told that he had not long lived in the west, but was from the land of the sunny south.

There should be a sketch of "The Slough," I remember such was made. Indeed, it should be the first in the book. But careless hands have torn it away. The first is one looking eastward over the river toward the Council Bluffs. For eastward lay the Missouri River. We saw the steamer Welcome, which had brought us up stream, the Red Wing, and other olden time boats passing occasionally up or down the stream. But westward the level horizon attracted our eyes and made us long for the time when we should start to follow the setting sun.

Persistently, and with eager curiosity, the guide-book was scanned. For weeks ahead we studied the meagre information of "The Route." We learned the names, suggestively odd or quaintly poetic, and we pictured in the mind the places themselves to which they belonged. We formed conclusions to be realized later on or to be dispelled by the actualities. The imagination, heated to the utmost by traveler's tales--half true, half false--looked forward to a region of wonder and romance. Already I had met that "boss of the frontier," the western tough, who had kindly offered with the help of his bowie-knife, to slit or cut off my youthful ears. I had looked upon the frontier log-cabin, half store, half bar, decorated with the skins of the beaver and the wolf, and seen the selling by the moccasined fur-traders of buffalo robes. Before us was the land of Kit Carson, we should pass through the domains of the Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Crow and the Ute. We would see the Bad Lands; the burial trees of the Arapahoe; the lands of the Medicine and the Scalp-Dance. In our path were the villages of the Prairie Dog, the home of the Coyote and the rattlesnake; of the antelope, of the buffalo, the big-horn and the grizzly bear. Prairie Creek, Loup Fork, Fort John, South Pass, Wind River Mountains--O many a name seized upon imagination and held it fast.

And the names of Chiefs--Mad Wolf, Spotted Eagle, Two Axe, Rain-in-the-Face--they were as from some unwritten western Iliad.

But I return to the sketch-book. Indeed it has made imagination wander.

The second sketch in the book is a view near the Missouri River. It is looking westward and shows a Nebraska landscape with a prairie fire. The scene is, indeed, a very different one from what the place would present today. A great prairie fire is sweeping across the plain and the dense whirling mass of smoke, driven before the wind, and the principal feature of the sketch, overshadows with its darkness a far-reaching landscape of low, rolling hills, clumps of trees and a winding stream, in which, however, there is not a sign of human life visible. The stream is a small one, probably the Blue Creek, or it may be the Vermilion, or, perhaps, the Shell. Which one of these I have really forgotten. And the margin, too, is unmarked. Now that region is covered with villages and farms and the smoke is from the chimneys of homes where prosperity and modern comforts are to be found. The sketch shows a wilderness, so great is the change wrought since that day it was made.

"The O'Fallen's Bluffs." The third sketch is a hasty one. The sky and the river--the slow-flowing Platte, are responsive to the light of a golden sunset. The brilliant rays come from behind the huge, square, sedimentary cliffs, and which throw a shadow across the foreground. The main interest in the scene, however, is not that given by nature, but in the presence of man. It shows our long train of wagons--how slightly sketched--coming down from the bluffs, and winding toward the radiance along the dusty road.

And so--we had made a start! We had unraveled, a few at least, of the mysteries attendant upon the management of cattle; we could yoke and unyoke; we knew the effects of "gee" and "haw," and could then throw four yards of black-snake whip with a skill and force that made its buckskin "cracker" explode with a noise like the report of a pistol. We knew, with tolerable accuracy, the moment when to apply, to let off the brake, the degree of modulation in the voice that would enable the intelligent oxen to understand just how much to swerve to the right or the left. We were fast becoming teamsters, "bull-whackers;" theory had given place to practical knowledge, and, moreover, we were not only becoming experts upon the road, but also in those many bits of untellable knowledge needed to make bearable the discomforts of camp-life.

Dearly we learned to love the Platte! Dearly we learned to love the wide and shallow stream. Even if the way was dreary at times, we forgot it when passing along the river banks. "Egypt, O Commander of the Faithful, is a compound of black earth and green plants, between a pulverized mountain and a red sand." So wrote Amron, Conqueror of Egypt, to his master, the Khalif Omar. And so might then have been said of the Valley of the Platte. Day after day we trudged along, and day after day the red hills of sandstone looked down upon us, or the prairie, like the desert, stretched out its illimitable distance. The days grew into weeks, the weeks became a month, and still the cattle, freed from the yoke, hastened to slake their thirst at the well-loved stream. During that month, surely, we ate, each one of us, the peck of dirt--if sand may be classed as dirt--which every man is said to eat in his life time. It filled our eyes, too, and our ears, our nostrils. It was in the food; it sprinkled the pan-cakes; it was in the syrup that we poured over them. Half suffocated were we by it, during some night-wind, as we lay beneath our wagons. O, ye sand hills of the Platte--indeed we have cause to remember.

To the Overland traveller of today, the Platte is almost unknown. But from the time we first discovered the stream, yellowed by the close of a July day, and overhung by ancient cottonwood trees, until we bade it farewell at Red Rocks, within view of Laramie Peak, it seemed, was, indeed, a friend. As on the edge of the Nile, the verdure on its banks was often the only greenness in all the landscape round.

"What possible enjoyment is there in the long and dreary ride over the yellow plains," Rideing, in his "Scenery of the Pacific Railway," asks that question. "The infinite space and air does not redeem the dismal prospect of dried-up seas. The pleasures of the transcontinental journey," he goes on to say, "may be divided into ten parts, five of which consist of anticipation, one of realization, and four of retrospect." With us, at least, it was different. From the railway one is but a beholder of the scenery; but in "The Old Journey" we were partakers therein. We became acquainted with the individualities, as it were, of the way. And then how we crept from one oasis of verdure to another. In the simple scenic combines, too, of the river, rock and trees, what change! But the railway did not follow our devious course.