Chapter 18

The week following, a curious conflict took place near the spot where I had captured the large snake. In the morning I had been following a species of paroquet, and, the day being rainy, I had taken an umbrella to keep the gun dry, and had left it under a tree: in the afternoon, I took Daddy Quashi (the negro) with me to look for it. While he was searching about, curiosity led me toward the place of the late scene of action. There was a path where timber had formerly been dragged along. Here I observed a young coulacanara, ten feet long, slowly moving onward; and I saw he was thick enough to break my arm, in case he got twisted around it. There was not a moment to be lost. I laid hold of his tail with the left hand, one knee being on the ground; and, with the right hand, I took off my hat, and held it as I would hold a shield for defence.

The snake instantly turned, and came on at me with his head about a yard from the ground, as if to ask me what business I had to take such liberties with his tail. I let him come, hissing and open-mouthed, within two feet of my face, and then, with all the force that I was master of, drove my fist, shielded by my hat, full in his jaws. He was stunned and confounded by the blow, and, ere he could recover himself, I had seized his throat with both hands, in such a position that he could not bite me. I then allowed him to coil himself around my body and marched off with him as my lawful prize. He pressed me hard, but not alarmingly so.

ESTILL'S DEFEAT.

In the spring of 1782, a party of twenty-five Wyandots secretly approached Estill's station, and committed shocking outrages. Entering a cabin, they tomahawked and scalped a woman and her two daughters. The neighborhood was instantly alarmed. Captain Estill speedily collected a body of twenty-five men, and pursued the hostile trail with great rapidity. He came up with the savages on Hinkston fork of Licking, immediately after they had crossed it; and a most severe and desperate conflict ensued.

Estill, unfortunately, sent six of his men under Lieutenant Miller, to attack the enemy's rear. The Indian leader immediately availed himself of this dimunition of force, rushed upon the weakened line of his adversaries, and compelled him to give way. A total route ensued. Captain Estill was killed together with his gallant lieutenant, South. Four men were wounded and fortunately escaped. Nine fell under the tomahawk, and were scalped. The Indians also suffered severely, and are believed to have lost half of their warriors.

INCIDENT AT NIAGARA FALLS.

On Saturday, the 13th of July, 1850, as a boy, ten years old, was rowing his father over to their home on Grand Island, the father being so much intoxicated as not to be able to assist any more than to steer the canoe, the wind, which was very strong off shore, so frustrated the efforts of his tiny arm, that the canoe in spite of him, got into the current, and finally into the rapids, within a very few rods of the Falls! On went the frail shell, careering and plunging as the mad waters chose. Still the gallant little oarsman maintained his struggle with the raging billows, and actually got the canoe, by his persevering manoeuvring so close to Iris Island, as to have her driven by a providential wave in between the little islands called the Sisters. Here the father and his dauntless boy were in still greater danger for an instant; for there is a fall between the two islands, over which had they gone, no earthly power could have withheld their final passage to the terrific precipice, which forms the Horse-shoe Fall. But the sudden dash of a wave capsized the canoe, and left the two struggling in the water. Being near a rock, and shallow, the boy lost no time, but seizing his father by the coat collar, dragged him up to a place of safety, where the crowd of anxious citizens awaited to lend assistance. The poor boy on reaching the shore in safety, instantly fainted, while his miserable father was sufficiently sobered by the perils he had passed through. The canoe was dashed to pieces on the rocks ere it reached its final leap.

A SKATER CHASED BY A WOLF.

A thrilling incident in American country life is vividly sketched in "Evenings at Donaldson Manor." In the winter of 1844, the relater went out one evening to skate, on the Kennebec, in Maine, by moonlight, and, having ascended that river nearly two miles, turned into a little stream to explore its course.

"Fir and hemlock of a century's growth," he says, "met overhead and formed an archway, radiant with frostwork. All was dark within; but I was young and fearless; and, as I peered into an unbroken forest that reared itself on the borders of the stream, I laughed with very joyousness; my wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. Suddenly a sound arose--it seemed to me to come from beneath the ice; it sounded low and tremulous at first, until it ended in a low, wild yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal; so fierce, and amid such an unbroken solitude, it seemed as though from the tread of some brute animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend with things earthly and not spiritual; my energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape. As I turned my head to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush, at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. By this rapidity, and the short yells they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much-dreaded gray wolf.

"I had never met with these animals, but, from the description given of them, I had very little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their untamable fierceness, and the enduring strength, which seems part of their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveler.

"There was no time for thought; so I bent my head and dashed madly forward. Nature turned me toward home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron skates, and I was some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me I was their fugitive. I did not look back; I did not feel afraid, or sorry, or even glad; one thought of home, the bright faces waiting my return--of their tears, if they should never see me again, and then every energy of body and mind was exerted for escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days that I had spent on my good skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute, an alternate yelp from my ferocious followers, told me too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I could feel their breath, and hear their sniffling scent.

"Every nerve and muscle in my frame was stretched to the utmost tension. The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed, yet still they seemed to hiss forth their breath with a sound truly horrible, when an involuntary motion on my part, turned me out of my course. The wolves, close behind, unable to stop, and as unable to turn on the smooth ice, slipped and fell, still going on far ahead; their tongues were lolling out, their white tusks glaring from their bloody mouths, their dark, shaggy breasts were fleeced with foam, and, as they passed me, their eyes glared, and they howled with fury.

"The thought flashed on my mind, that, by these means, I could avoid them, viz: by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on the ice, except in a straight line.

"At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my sanguinary antagonists came so near, that they threw the white foam over my dress, as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap!

"Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick, or caught my foot in a fissure in the ice, the story I am now telling would never have been told.

"I thought over all the chances; I knew where they would take hold of me, if I fell; I thought how long it would be before I died; and then there would be a search for the body that would already have its tomb! for, oh! how fast man's mind traces out all the dread colors of death's picture, only those who have been so near the grim original can tell.

"But I soon came opposite the house, and, my hounds,--I knew their deep voices,--roused by the noise, bayed furiously from the kennels. I heard their chains rattle; how I wished they would break them! and then I would have protectors that would be peer to the fiercest denizens of the forest. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in their mad career, and, after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them until their dusky forms disappeared over a neighboring hill; then, taking off my skates, I wended my way to the house, with feelings which may be better imagined than described. But, even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice in the moonshine, without thinking of the sniffling breath, and those fearful things that followed me closely down the frozen Kennebec."

OUR FLAG ON THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

We find the following incident of placing the American flag on the highest point of the Rocky Mountains, in "Col. Fremont's Narrative:"

We managed to get our mules up to a little bench about a hundred feet above the lakes, where there was a patch of good grass, and turned them loose to graze. During our rough ride to this place, they had exhibited a wonderful surefootedness. Parts of the defile were filled with angular, sharp fragments of rock, three or four and eight or ten feet cube; and among these they had worked their way leaping from one narrow point to another, rarely making a false step, and giving us no occasion to dismount. Having divested ourselves of every unnecessary encumbrance, we commenced the ascent. This time, like experienced travelers, we did not press ourselves, but climbed leisurely, sitting down so soon as we found breath beginning to fail. At intervals, we readied places where a number of springs gushed from the rocks, and, about 1800 feet above the lakes, came to the snow line. From this point, our progress was uninterrupted climbing. Hitherto, I had worn a pair of thick moccasins, with soles of _parfleche_, but here I put on a light, thin pair, which I had brought for the purpose, as now the use of our toes became necessary to a further advance. I availed myself of a sort of comb of the mountain, which stood against the wall like a buttress, and which the wind and the solar radiation, joined to the steepness of the smooth rock, had kept almost entirely free from snow. Up this, I made my way rapidly. Our cautious method of advancing, at the outset, had spared my strength; and, with the exception of a slight disposition to headache, I felt no remains of yesterday's illness, In a few minutes we reached a point where the buttress was overhanging, and there was no other way of surmounting the difficulty than by passing around one side of it, which was the face of a vertical precipice of several hundred feet.

Putting hands and feet in the crevices between the blocks, I succeeded in getting over it, and, when I reached the top, found my companions in a small valley below. Descending to them, we continued climbing, and in a short time reached the crest. I sprang upon the summit, and another step would have precipitated me into an immense snow field, five hundred feet below. To the edge of this field was a sheer icy precipice; and then, with a gradual fall, the field sloped off for about a mile, until it struck the foot of another lower ridge. I stood on a narrow crest, about three feet in width, with an inclination of about 20° N., 51° E. As soon as I had gratified the first feelings of curiosity, I descended, and each man ascended in his turn; for I would only allow one at a time to mount the unstable and precarious slab, which, it seemed, a breath would hurl into the abyss below. We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit, and, fixing a ramrod in a crevice, unfurled the national flag to wave in the breeze, where flag never waved before.

During our morning's ascent, we had met no sign of animal life, except a small sparrow-like bird. A stillness the most profound, and a terrible solitude, forced themselves constantly on the mind as the great features of the place. Here, on the summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and solitude complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life; but, while we were sitting on the rock, a solitary bee (_bromus, the humble-bee_) came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men.

It was a strange place, the icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky mountains, for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the mountain barrier--a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of civilization. I believe that a moment's thought would have made us let him continue his way unharmed; but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated nature seems at war; and, seizing him immediately, put him in at least a fit place--in the leaves of a large book, among the flowers we had collected on our way.

RUNNING THE CANON.

Col. Fremont, in his narrative, gives the following account of a perilous adventure of himself and party, in attempting to run a canon, on the river Platte. They had previously passed three cataracts:

We reëmbarked at nine o'clock, and, in about twenty minutes, reached the next canon. Landing on a rocky shore at its commencement, we ascended the ridge to reconnoiter. Portage was out of the question. So far as we could see, the jagged rocks pointed out the course of the canon, on a winding line of seven or eight miles. It was simply a narrow, dark chasm in the rock; and here the perpendicular faces were much higher than in the previous pass, being at this end two to three hundred, and further down, as we afterward ascertained, five hundred feet in vertical height.

Our previous success had made us bold, and we determined again to run the canon. Every thing was secured as firmly as possible; and, having divested ourselves of the greater part of our clothing, we pushed into the stream. To save our chronometer from accident, Mr. Preuss took it, and attempted to proceed along the shore on the masses of rock, which, in places, were piled up on either side; but, after he had walked about five minutes, every thing like shore disappeared, and the vertical wall came squarely down into the water. He therefore waited until we came up.

An ugly pass lay before us. We had made fast to the stern of the boat a strong rope about fifty feet long; and three of the men clambered along among the rocks, and, with this rope, let her slowly through the pass. In several places, high rocks lay scattered about in the channel; and, in the narrows, it required all our strength and skill to avoid staving the boat on the sharp points. In one of these, the boat proved a little too broad, and stuck fast for an instant, while the water flew over us; fortunately, it was but for an instant, as our united strength forced her immediately through. The water swept overboard only a sextant and a pair of saddle-bags. I caught the sextant as it passed by me; but the saddle-bags became the prey of the whirlpools. We reached the place where Mr. Preuss was standing, took him on board, and, with the aid of the boat, put the men with the rope on the succeeding pile of rocks.

We found this passage much worse than the previous one, and our position was rather a bad one. To go back was impossible; before us, the cataract was a sheet of foam; and, shut up in the chasm by the rocks, which, in some places, seemed almost to meet overhead, the roar of the water was deafening, We pushed off again; but, after making a little distance, the force of the current became too great for the men on shore, and two of them let go the rope. Lajeunesse, the third man, hung on, and was jerked headforemost into the river, from a rock about twelve feet high; and down the boat shot, like an arrow, Bazil following us in the rapid current, and exerting all his strength to keep in mid channel--his head only seen occasionally like a black spot in the white foam. How far we went, I do not exactly know; but we succeeded in turning the boat into an eddy below. "_'Cre Dieu,_" said Bazil Lajeunesse, as he arrived immediately after us, "_Je crois bien que j'ai nage un demi mile._" He had owed his life to his skill as a swimmer, and I determined to take him and two others on board, and trust to skill and fortune to reach the other end in safety. We placed ourselves on our knees, with the short paddles in our hands, the most skillful boatman being at the bow; and again we commenced our rapid descent. We cleared rock after rock, and shot past fall after fall, our little boat seeming to play with the cataract. We became flushed with success, and familiar with danger; and, yielding to the excitement of the occasion, broke forth into a Canadian boat-song. Singing, or rather shouting, we dashed along, and were, I believe, in the midst of the chorus, when the boat struck a concealed rock immediately at the foot of a fall, which whirled her over in an instant. Three of my men could not swim, and my first feeling was to assist them, and save some of our effects; but a sharp concussion or two convinced me that I had not yet saved myself. A few strokes brought me into an eddy, and I landed on a pile of rocks on the left side. Looking around, I saw that Mr. Preuss had gained the shore on the same side, about twenty yards below; and a little climbing and swimming soon brought him to my side. On the opposite side, against the wall, lay the boat, bottom up; and Lambert was in the act of saving Descoteaux, whom he had grasped by the hair, and who could not swim.

For a hundred yards below, the current was covered with floating books and boxes, bales and blankets, and scattered articles of clothing; and so strong and boiling was the stream, that even our heavy instruments, which were all in cases, kept on the surface, and the sextant, circle, and the long, black box of the telescope, were in view at once. For a moment, I felt somewhat disheartened. All our books--almost every record of the journey--our journals and registers of astronomical and barometrical observations--had been lost in a moment, But it was no time to indulge in regrets; and I immediately set about endeavoring to save something from the wreck. Making ourselves understood as well as possible by signs, (for nothing could be heard in the roar of the waters,) we commenced our operations. Of every thing on board, the only article that had been saved was my double-barreled gun, which Descoteaux had caught and clung to with drowning tenacity. The men continued down the river on the left bank. Mr. Preuss and myself descended on the side we were on; and Lajeunesse, with a paddle in his hand, jumped on the boat alone, and continued down the canon. She was now light, and cleared every bad place with much less difficulty. In a short time he was joined by Lambert and the search was continued for about a mile and a half, which was as far as the boat could proceed in the pass.

Here the walls were about five hundred feet high, and the fragments of rocks from above had choked the river into a hollow pass, but one or two feet above the surface. Through this, and the interstices of the rock, the water found its way. Favored beyond our expectations, all our registers had been recovered, with the exception of one of my journals, which contained the notes and incidents of travel, and topographical descriptions, a number of scattered astronomical observations, principally meridian altitudes of the sun, and our barometrical register west of Laramie. Fortunately, our other journals contained duplicates of the most important barometrical observations. In addition to these, we saved the circle; and these, with a few blankets, constituted every thing that had been rescued from the waters.

THE RESCUE.

A young girl has been captured at her father's hut, when all the males of the household are absent hunting wolves. She is seized by the Indians, and borne swiftly away to the encampment of a war party of the Osages. She is then placed in a "land canoe" and hurried rapidly forward toward their villages. Among the party she recognizes one whose life she had been instrumental in saving, when a prisoner. He recognizes her, and promises to assist her escape. At this point the following narrative commences: