Part 1

THE PIONEER WEST

THE PIONEER WEST

_NARRATIVES OF THE WESTWARD MARCH OF EMPIRE_

SELECTED AND EDITED BY JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH

WITH A FOREWORD BY HAMLIN GARLAND

ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY REMINGTON SCHUYLER

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1924

_Copyright, 1923_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved_

Published October, 1923

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time’s noblest offspring is the last.

BISHOP BERKELEY.

VITAL PAGES IN AMERICAN HISTORY

The history of America is the story of trail-makers, pioneers in every sense of the word. Our forefathers had trails to make in new fields of government, of invention and in city building, but before all, smoothing the way for all, came the men and women who explored and ploughed and planted the wilderness. Their story will grow in interest as the years pass. Their deeds have already taken on something of the dim quality of heroic myths. They form the most distinctive of our contributions to history and poetry.

Many of the most stark and stirring of these chronicles of the border have passed out of print and are now inaccessible even to the painstaking student. It is from among these almost forgotten, yet vital records that Mr. French has selected the chapters of his book of narratives of the PIONEER WEST. I am personally grateful to him for rescuing for me several of these chronicles of which I had heard but which I had not been able to read until they came to me in this volume. I perceive in this collection another link in the lengthening chain of our traditional story. The Great War has thrown the events of our early settlement suddenly into remote distance. It is as if an extra half-century had been abruptly interposed, and this added perspective has given us a new and keener interest in the beginnings of our nation.

No one who has spent a recent summer in Europe can fail to perceive the change of sentiment which has come, since the war, to the peoples of the Old World. To them America is admittedly the dominating economic force of to-day. No well-informed European writer or speaker now pretends to patronize the United States as a young and unformed colony. The foundation stages of American history have acquired new value in the minds of many English and French readers, and such students this book which Mr. French has built up of scattered and neglected chronicles will stimulate to wider research. I commend it to all Americans who have neither time nor opportunity to read in their entirety the volumes from which these notable and representative chapters have been lifted. Broadly chronological in arrangement, they suggest a panorama of the rigorous Westward march of the hunters, woodsmen, planters and gold-miners who were chief actors of the century which ended with the outbreak of the Spanish War in 1898.

With regard to the inclusion of a section from one of my own books I can only say that when approached for a grant of copyright I suggested something to offset the many chapters of life in the mining camps and on the trail, something which should tell of the homely methods of settling the plains. Beyond this suggestion, I did not care to go. The excerpt which the editor has used is a leaf out of my personal experiences in Brown and MacPherson counties in Dakota, in the spring of 1883, and is a faithful picture of the life we led while holding down our homestead claims.

HAMLIN GARLAND.

PREFACE

Oh, that glorious West! The magic and the memory of it! How it thrilled us in our boyhood, how it held us in our youth, how the dream of it filled our young pulsing manhood, till there was none other! “O, to be in England now that April’s there!” once sang Browning, but the song in the heart of young America, forty years ago and more, was the great glorious, boundless West! I crossed the bare Kansas and Colorado plains in the month of March, 1880,--when the Great West was still a vision, yet largely a dream; when scarce small clumps of buffalo could still be seen from the car windows. I shook hands at the bar of the St. James Hotel in Denver with Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack in full buckskin regalia,--still to be seen and known in their habit as they lived.

Yet it was the dawning of a new day for the West and all men knew it. The old order passeth, and so it was here; a new West was coming in, and the great pioneer heroes of an earlier day shook hands with the derby-hatted tenderfoot from the East and tilted glasses in friendly companionship. But the old West--the great, the never-to-be-forgotten epic of our newer civilization--still lingered; and happy, yes, a hero of sorts was he of the East who still sniffed the footprints. Railroads were still largely a dream; the Union Pacific had cut the boundless wastes of the great desert and made travel to California an actuality; but a second great transcontinental iron path was still largely a possibility. The footprints of the pioneers were everywhere; echoes of the pathfinder were yet in the air; gold and silver were being found every day in the wilderness of the Rockies; new camps--reachable only by the primitive stagecoach, whose final departure in an older realm had been magniloquently signed over by old Sir Walter--were springing up overnight; Leadville had a population of thirty thousand and not a score of streets named; Buena Vista, at eleven thousand feet above sea level, was a dream of the gods! Away to the South were Silver Cliff and Rosita, with their hitherto uncombed rocks pouring out fortunes. Ouray was an acknowledged bonanza; and into the Gunnison country poured a steady stream of prairie-wagons over mountain trails that the Indian himself did not know. The plains held unlimited resources in the golden imagination of the pioneer! Was there ever such a dream as his--of sheep and cattle by the thousands--such flocks as Abraham never dreamed of; and away to the South, boundless, unconceived-of possibilities, an absolute Eldorado! Such was the great, the Golden West--to make no concrete mention of California--when the compiler of these pages first felt the urge and the surge toward it. Horace Greeley’s pæan was in the air: “Go West, young man.” And most of us did; and whether fortune or its reverse came, there is not a man of us in whom the red blood flows still that can ever forget that splendid scene. If to the survivor, as to the more or less belated traveler, some echo of it lives in these pages, he has done his work faithfully.

This, then, is an outdoor book. The breath of the prairie, the mountain, the desert, the lake, the sea blows through its pages. It describes for the most part an outdoor life,--a life that in its main aspects and features is the most stirring and eventful chapter in the history of any new civilization. All the elements of romance were crowded into the making of our great West; not a single one is lacking. It was the last great scene in the history of world-pioneering, and contains episodes, like the discovery of gold in California, that are epic. The tale in its infinite variety has been told by many writers; some of whom have passed into oblivion, but have left us living pages; others of them belong to our best literary tradition; a few are among our immortals. It is impossible in a volume of this size to give more than a vivid glance at the scope and importance of this vast literature. The compiler has endeavored to convey an impression of the general scene inspired by the men who were themselves its living actors. “All of which I saw, and part of which I was” has been his motto in gathering his material. He has therefore some hope that he has presented, at least in degree, a living picture of a great drama, now vanished forever, and which undoubtedly can never be paralleled in the annals of world civilization.

JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH

CONTENTS

PAGE

VITAL PAGES IN AMERICAN HISTORY vii

PREFACE ix

THE UNBROKEN WILD (1804) 1 From Lewis and Clark’s Journals

JIM BECKWOURTH’S NARRATIVE (1824) 15 From “Autobiography of James P. Beckwourth”

THE PATHFINDER: IN THE HIGH ROCKIES (1842), _By John C. Frémont_ 37 From Frémont’s Journal of the First Expedition

THE WILDERNESS HUNTER (1845), _By J. B. Ruxton_ 56 From “Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains”

AT FORT LARAMIE (1846), _By Francis Parkman_ 72 From “The Oregon Trail”

GOLD! GOLD! SUTTER’S FORT (1848-1849), _By Charles Pettigrew_ 86 From the _Caledonian_

A FRONTIER DUEL (1848), _By Emerson Hough_ 115 From “The Covered Wagon”

EL DORADO, _By Bayard Taylor_ 124 From “Eldorado”

FRÉMONT’S GREAT RIDE (1849), _By Frederick S. Dellenbaugh_ 158 From “Frémont and ’49”

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, _By Bret Harte_ 161 From “The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches”

THE CITY OF THE SAINTS, _By Sir Richard Burton_ 174 From “The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California”

ON THE COMSTOCK (1860), _By J. Ross Browne_ 202 From “A Peep at Washoe” and “Washoe Revisited”

ALDER GULCH (1863), _By Nathaniel P. Langford_ 231 From “Vigilante Days and Ways”

CHEYENNES AND SIOUX (1867), _By General George A. Custer_ 245 From “My Life on the Plains”

THE PONY EXPRESS, _By Mark Twain_ 268 From “Roughing It”

SLADE, _By Mark Twain_ 270 From “Roughing It”

GENERAL SHERIDAN HUNTS THE BUFFALO, _By De B. R. Keim_ 284 From “On the Border with Sheridan’s Troopers”

AT TUCSON (1870), _By Capt. John G. Bourke_ 296 From “On the Border with Cook”

TOLD AT TRINIDAD (1879), _By A. A. Hayes, Jr._ 310 From “New Colorado and the Santa Fé Trail”

SPECIMEN JONES, _By Owen Wister_ 319 From “Red Men and White”

THE LAND OF THE STRADDLE-BUG--DAKOTA (1883), _By Hamlin Garland_ 343 From “The Moccasin Ranch”

OLD EPHRAIM THE GRIZZLY, _By Theodore Roosevelt_ 357 From “Hunting-Trips of a Ranchman”

THE VANISHED SCENE, _By Hal G. Evarts_ 378 From “The Passing of the Old West”

ILLUSTRATIONS

DR. STEELE, PRESIDENT OF THE GULCH, ACTED AS JUDGE _Frontispiece_

ONCE MORE THE TRAIN FACED THE DESERT PAGE 115

MAN AND HORSE BURST PAST OUR EXCITED FACES, AND GO WINGING AWAY LIKE A BELATED FRAGMENT OF A STORM! “ 270

THE MILK-CANS CLASHED, AND JONES THOUGHT HE FELT THE BOY’S STROKES WEAKENING “ 339

THE PIONEER WEST

THE UNBROKEN WILD

LEWIS AND CLARK

1804

Reprinted from Lewis and Clark’s Journals. July 22, 1804.

Our camp is by observation in latitude 41° 3′ 11″.[1] Immediately behind it is a plain about five miles wide, one half covered with wood, the other dry and elevated. The low grounds on the south near the junction of the two rivers are rich but subject to be overflowed. Farther up the banks are higher and opposite our camp the first hills approach the river, and are covered with timber such as oak, walnut and elm. The immediate country is watered by the Papillon (Butterfly) Creek, of about 18 yards wide and three miles from the Platte; on the north are high open plains and prairies and at nine miles from the Platte the Moscheto Creek and two or three small willow islands. We stayed here several days during which we dried our provisions, made new oars, and prepared our despatches and maps of the country we passed for the President of the United States to whom we intend to send them by a pirogue from this place. The hunters have found game scarce in this neighborhood; they have seen deer, turkeys and grouse; we have also an abundance of ripe grapes, and one of our men caught a white catfish, the eyes of which were small and its tail resembling that of a dolphin. The present season is that in which the Indians go out into the prairies to hunt the buffalo; but as we discovered some hunters’ tracks, and observed the plains on fire in the direction of their villages, we hoped that they might have returned to gather the green Indian corn, and therefore despatched two men to the Pawnee villages with a present of tobacco and an invitation to the chief to visit us. They returned in two days. Their first course was through an open prairie to the south. They then reached a small beautiful river called the Elkhorn or Corne de Ceri. (These natural features have brush names in some instances.) About 100 yards wide with clear water and a gravelly channel. It empties a little below the Pawnee village into the Platte which they crossed and came to the village, about forty-five miles from our camp. They found no Indians though there were fresh tracks of a small party. The Ottoes were once a powerful nation and live about 20 miles above the Platte on the south bank of the Missouri. Being reduced they migrated to the neighborhood of the Pawnees under whose protection they now live. Their village is on the south side of the Platte about 30 miles from its mouth; and their number is 200 including about 30 families of Missouri Indians who are incorporated with them.

Five leagues above them on the same side of the river, resides the nation of Pawnees. This people were among the most numerous of the Missouri Indians, but have been gradually broken and dispersed and even within the past ten years have undergone some sensible changes. They now consist of four bands; the first of about 500 men, to whom of late years have been added a second band called the Republican Pawnees from their having lived on the Republican branch of the River Kanzas--they amount to nearly 250 men. The third are the Pawnees Loups or Wolf Pawnees, who live on the Wolf fork of the Platte, about 90 miles from the principal village and number 280 men. The fourth band originally resided on the Kanzas and Arkansaw but in their wars with the Osages they were so often defeated that they at last retired to their present home on the Red River where they form a tribe of 400 men. All these tribes live in villages and subsist chiefly on corn; but during the intervals of farming rove the plains in quest of buffalo.

Beyond them on the river and westward of the Black Mountains are the Kaninaviesch consisting of about 400 men. They are supposed to have been originally Pawnees--but they have degenerated and now no longer live in villages but rove the plains. Still farther to the westward are several tribes who wander and hunt to the sources of the River Platte and thence to Rock Mountain. Of these tribes little is known more than the names and the numbers, as first the Straitan or Kite Indians, a small tribe of one hundred men. They have acquired the name of Kites from their flying; that is their being always on horseback; and the smallness of their numbers is to be attributed to their extreme ferocity; they are the most warlike of all the western Indians; they never yield in battle; they never spare their enemies; and the retaliation of this barbarity has almost extinguished the nation. Then come the Wetapahato and Kiowa tribes associated together and amounting to two hundred men; the Castahana of three hundred men, to which are to be added the Cataka, seventy-five men, and the Dotami. These wandering tribes are conjectured to be the remnants of the great Padouca nation who occupied the country between the upper parts of the River Platte and the River Kanzas. They were visited by Bourgemont in 1724, and then lived on the Kanzas River. The Seats which he described as their residences are now occupied by the Kanzas nation; and of the Padoucas there does not now exist even the name.

It being vital to the success of further progress to hold council with the Indians messengers were sent with presents and a few days afterwards: in the afternoon the party arrived with the Indians consisting of Little Thief and Big Horse, together with six other chiefs and a French interpreter. We met them under a shade and after they had finished a repast we supplied them we inquired into the origin of the late war between their tribe and the Mahas, which they related with great frankness. * * * The evening was closed by a dance; and the next day the chiefs and warriors being assembled at ten o’clock we explained the speech we had already sent from the Council Bluffs[2] and renewed its advices. They all replied in turn and the presents were then distributed. We gave large medals to Big Horse and Little Thief, and a small medal to a third chief. We also gave a kind of certificate or letter of acknowledgment to five of the warriors expressive of our favor and their good intentions. One of them dissatisfied returned us the certificate, but the chief fearful of our being offended begged it might be restored to him; this we declined and rebuked them severely for having in view mere traffic instead of peace with their neighbors. This displeased them at first, but at length all petitioned that it should be given to the warrior who came forward and made an apology. We then handed it to the chief to be given to the most worthy among them and he bestowed it on the same warrior whose name was Great Blue Eyes. After a more substantial present of small articles and tobacco the council was ended with a dram to the Indians. In the evening we exhibited different objects of curiosity and particularly the air-gun which gave them great surprise. Those people are almost naked, having no covering except a sort of breech cloth around the middle with a loose blanket or buffalo-robe painted, thrown over them. This delegation was from the Missouris and Ottoes who speak very nearly the same language. They all begged us to give them whiskey.

The next morning the Indians mounted their horses and received from us a canister of whiskey at parting. We then set sail and after passing two islands on the north came to one on that side under some bluffs. Here we had the misfortune to lose one of our sergeants Charles Floyd.[3] He was yesterday seized with a bilious colic, and all our care and attention could not save him. A little before his death he said to Captain Clark “I am going to leave you”; and he died with a composure which justified the high opinion we had formed of his firmness and good conduct. He was buried on the top of a bluff with the honors due to a brave soldier, and the place of his interment marked by a cedar post on which we put his name and the date of his death. We named this place after him and also a small river about a mile to the north where we encamped.

We shortly after passed the mouth of the great Sioux River--this river comes in from the north and is about one hundred and ten yards wide. M. Durion our Sioux interpreter says that it is navigable upwards of two hundred miles to the falls and even beyond them. That below the falls a creek falls in from the Eastward after passing through cliffs of red rock. Of this the Indians make their pipes: and the necessity of procuring them has introduced a sort of law of nations, by which the banks of the creek are sacred, so that even tribes at war meet at these quarries without hostility. Thus we find even among savages certain things held sacred which mitigate the rigours of their merciless warfare.

A few days following we had a violent storm of wind and rain in the evening and had to repair our pirogues the next day. At four o’clock Sergeant Pryor and his men came back with five chiefs of the Sioux and about seventy warriors and boys. Sergeant Pryor reported that on reaching their village twelve miles from our camp he was met by a party with a buffalo-robe on which they desired to carry their visitors: an honour which they declined informing the Indians that they were not the commanders of the party. As a mark of respect they were then presented with a fat dog, already cooked of which they partook heartily and found it well flavored. The camps of the Sioux are of a conical form covered with buffalo-robes painted with various figures and colours, with an aperture in the top for the smoke to pass through. The lodges contain from ten to fifteen persons and the interior arrangement is compact and handsome, each lodge having a place for cooking detached from it. The next day we prepared a speech and some presents and then sent for the chiefs and warriors whom we received under a large oak-tree near to which the flag of the United States was flying. Captain Lewis delivered the speech and we gave to the grand chief a flag, a medal, and a certificate, to which we added a chief’s coat; that is a richly-laced uniform of the United States Artillery Corps, and a cocked hat and red feather. A second chief and three inferior ones were given medals and a present of tobacco and articles of clothing. We then smoked the pipe of peace, and the chiefs retired to a bower formed of bushes by their young men, where they divided the presents among each other and ate and smoked and held a council on their answer to us to-morrow. The young people exercised their bows and arrows in shooting at marks for beads as prizes; and in the evening the whole party danced until a late hour. In the course of their amusement we threw among them some knives, tobacco, bells, tape and binding with which they were much pleased. Their musical instruments were the drum, and a sort of little bag made of buffalo-hide dressed white with small shot or pebbles in it and a bunch of hair tied to it for a handle. This produces a sort of rattling music with which the party was annoyed by four musicians during the council this morning.

* * * * *

These Indians are the Yanktons a tribe of the great nation of the Sioux. They are stout and well proportioned and have a certain air of dignity and boldness. They are very fond of decorations and use paint freely and porcupine quills and feathers. Some of them wear necklaces of brass chains three inches long and close strung. They have only a few fowling-pieces among them. What struck us most was an institution peculiar to them and to the Kite Indians--from whom it is copied we were told. This is an association of the bravest and most active young men who are bound to each other by attachment and secured by a vow never to retreat before danger or give way to their enemies. In war they go forward openly and without any effort at shelter. This determination became heroic--or ridiculous--a short time since when these young Yanktons were crossing the Missouri on the ice. A hole lay immediately in their course but the leader went straight ahead and was drowned. Others would have followed but were forcibly stopped by the rest of them. These young men sit and encamp and dance apart from the rest; their seats in council are superior to those even of the chiefs and their persons more respected. But their boldness diminishes their numbers; so that the band is now reduced to four warriors who were among our visitors.

* * * * *