Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway Part 5

As we left Steptoe Valley and came down a long slope into Spring Valley, we crossed Sh.e.l.lbourne Pa.s.s under the shadow of the Sh.e.l.lbourne range.

We pa.s.sed some young people from Detroit, the gentleman driving his car.

We also pa.s.sed some men with their laden burros taking supplies to the sheepmen in the mountain ranges. These sheepmen live their lives apart from the world for months at a time, seeing only the man who brings their supplies at intervals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. American Baptist Home Mission Touring Wagon. 2.

Fish Springs Ranch, Utah.]

We had luncheon at Anderson's ranch, where they treated us very hospitably. I judged that this was a Mormon's household, as Mormon marriage certificates hung upon the wall and as the Deseret Weekly was evidently its newspaper connection with the outside world. Here our friend Mr. N. took on board a young man from the ranch who wished to get back to Salt Lake City. This young fellow was delighted to have such a ride and Mr. N. was glad to have a traveling companion. Later in the day we pa.s.sed Tippett's ranch and learned that its owner travels thirty-six miles for his mail and supplies. Toward evening we crossed the Utah border and immediately came upon bad roads. We had a rough stretch until we reached our station for the night, Ibapah. Ibapah consists of a very pleasant ranch house and of a general supply grocery, both house and grocery owned by Mr. Sheridan. We had a comfortable night at the ranch house and purchased some beautiful baskets made by the Indians and brought by them to Mr. Sheridan for sale. The air was so fine and the evening so delightful that we reluctantly retired. Never can I forget the crystal silences of those still nights on the high plains of the West. The next day, June 25th, we had a drive of one hundred and twenty miles across rough and lonely country. From Ibapah we went on through the valley in which the ranch lay, coming to an extremely rough canyon road, practically nothing but the bed of a stream. Then came Kearney's Ranch, where they warned us of some mud holes in the road ahead. We drove around a rocky point, picking our way carefully, some hot springs and a sulphur lake smoking off in the distance on our left. The mountains rose to the right above our route, bare and bald. We came to Fish Springs Ranch in the midst of this lonely country and stopped for luncheon. Our host was a tall and powerfully built elderly ranchman in a blue jumper. A younger man lived with him and the two did their cooking and eating in a little log and stone house, near the main ranch house.

He explained to us that he kept the little house because it was once a station on the Wells Fargo stage route. "Horace Greeley ate at this table when he came on his historic Western trip, and so I keep the place standing," he said. His young helper cooked our meal in the back room and our host served it in the front one. We had fried eggs, potatoes, pickles, cheese, bread, b.u.t.ter, and tea, and an appetizing cup cake cut in square pieces. I noticed a White House Cook Book lying on a little table near by. Our host was very hospitable. "Have some of them sweet pickles, folks." "Do we raise cattle here? You bet we do. I have had this ranch over thirty years." As we left him he warned us that we were now entering the "Great American Desert" and that we would have sixty miles of dry plain with very little undergrowth and with no water. He told us that if we got into trouble we should start a fire and "make a smoke." "I'll see you with my gla.s.ses" he said, "and drive to your rescue with gasoline and water." I had seen near the ranch house a clear, bubbling spring which doubtless gave its name to the ranch.

We a.s.sured him that we were well stocked with gasoline and that we had on our running board a standard oil can filled with water. When we were twenty miles away I could still see the ranch house, a tiny speck upon the horizon. At last we came to a well by the roadside which was marked "County well." The road, though somewhat b.u.mpy, was in many places smooth and excellent, a sort of clay highway. Midway across the desert we met another car and exchanged greetings.

Late in the afternoon as we were climbing up a slight pa.s.s, a dust storm overtook us. The sky was overcast, the mountains and plain were blotted out, and we could only drive along slowly and endure the choking clouds of dust until the storm had swept by. It was blessed to come again into clear sunshine and to see the outlines of the mountains appearing once more. Once over the pa.s.s, we came into a great ranch valley and saw that we had left the bare plains behind us. We reached the Kanaka Ranch in time for supper and were a.s.sured that we could have lodging for the night. The Kanaka Ranch of eight thousand acres is the property of the Mormon church. It is under the charge of a young manager who looks after the Hawaiians (Kanaka meaning a South Sea Islander) who have been converted to the Mormon faith, and who have been brought to the ranch to work upon its acres and to make their homes there under the friendly shadow of the church's authority. The manager was a dignified young man with a pleasant wife and four dear little children. They gave us a most appetizing supper and breakfast. "The difference between your belief and ours," said our host to T., "is that you believe in a completed revelation. We believe in a continuous revelation."

I heard him talking very fluently in the Hawaiian tongue to some of his disciples who had come in for farm directions.

The next morning was wonderfully fresh and clear, a rain having fallen during the night. We had just a taste of what a rainy trip would be across country, as we slipped about on the greasy mud of the highway.

One reason why our long journey was so ideal was because of the dry season. Day after day we came on over perfectly dry roads and under perfectly clear skies. Another advantage of our journey was that we were traveling East. Every afternoon the sun was behind us, to our great comfort; and the beautiful light fell on the plains and mountains ahead of us. No wonder that we loved to travel late in the afternoon and that we had to make a stern rule for ourselves to follow, to the effect that no matter how tempted we were, we would not travel after sunset.

By dint of creeping slowly along we pa.s.sed the slippery stretches of road and enjoyed the fine open country with the mountains to the right and the farms to the left. After pa.s.sing Grantsville we came by some large concentrators and smelters in the shadow of the mountain. Turning left we came around the shoulder of the mountain, and there to our left was Great Salt Lake, sparkling and blue-green in the morning light, a mountainous island in the middle of it. We could see the Casino at the end of the long pier at Saltair, a favorite resort for Salt Lake City people. We pa.s.sed the miners' homes at Magna and Garfield, someone having written facetiously the sign "Mosquito Park" over the entrance to a swampy district with its little settlement of cottages. Now we came into a beautiful upland country with fine farms and every appearance of prosperity. Cottonwoods and tall poplars were seen everywhere on the landscape. They are very characteristic of this part of the country.

They grow rapidly and the cottonwood sends its roots long distances in search of water. As we approached Salt Lake City, it appeared to us to be a green, wooded city extending down a long slope on the mountain side. The new State House towered high at the upper end of the slope against the background of lofty mountains, still snowy, which guard the city.

I was charmed with Salt Lake City. It has a beautiful situation, high and picturesque. Its streets are very wide and this gives a certain stateliness and air of hospitality to the town. It is laid out on a generous scale. Many of the residence streets have green stretches of flower-adorned park running through the center. The open lawns of the homelike homes, the broad streets, the residences of stone and brick, the ma.s.ses of pink rambler roses climbing over them, all make a charming impression upon one. Then there are delightful excursions into the canyons of the great mountains near the city. We took such an excursion by electric car line, fourteen miles up into Immigration Canyon. This is the old trail along which the Mormons came in 1847. At the end of the line is a delightful hotel, the Pinecrest Inn. Had there been time we could have taken many more canyon trips.

"The Utah" is a beautiful hotel with every modern equipment. A great bee hive, the Mormon emblem, glows with light at night on top of the building. Of course we saw the Mormon tabernacle and walked about its splendid grounds. I was particularly interested in the "sea gull monument," designed by Brigham Young's grandson, and erected in memory of the sea gulls that saved the crops the first year of Mormon settlement by coming in flocks and eating the locusts that threatened to destroy everything green. We enjoyed the fine view from the State University buildings on the "bench" high above the town.

In Salt Lake City I purchased some "canyon shoes" of a famous manufacture, and later I found them admirable for heavy walking trips.

We left Salt Lake City by driving through Parley's Canyon, a deep gash in the mountains parallel to Immigration Canyon. It is a favorite local drive to go out through Parley's Canyon and return to Salt Lake City through Immigration Canyon. The roadway is very narrow, as it shares the canyon floor with a railroad track and with a rushing stream, so one must drive carefully and keep a sharp lookout for trains. We met an itinerant Baptist missionary driving in his big caravan wagon into the country for a preaching trip. After leaving Parley's Canyon we came into open rolling country, and pa.s.sed the substantial stone buildings of Stevens Ranch and Kimball Ranch. Then came Silver Creek Canyon, more open than Parley's Canyon and with a fair road. We had luncheon at the Coalville Hotel. I was attracted to the little town of Coalville because there were so many yards where old fashioned yellow rosebushes were laden with bloom. We drove on through Echo Canyon, whose red sandstone rocks, chiseled in many forms by wind and weather, have very fine coloring. At Castle Rock the whole formation is like that of a ma.s.sive fortification. Six miles before we reached the town of Evanston, we crossed the State line and were in Wyoming. It is a pity that these State boundaries are indicated in many places by such shabby, indifferent wooden signs, looking as if they had been put up over night.

Doubtless as the Lincoln Highway is improved there will be dignified boundary stones erected to mark the State lines.

Evanston is a pleasant little town 6300 feet high. Near Evanston is the Chapman Ranch, where many thousands of sheep are handled. We stopped in Evanston only a few minutes and then drove on through delightful desert country, open and rolling, grey-green and blue in its coloring. The Wyoming desert has a sharper and more vivid coloring than that of Nevada. The tableland is more rolling and the mountains are farther away. It is a wonderful sheep country, but the flocks are at present in the mountain ranges. Later, as the autumn comes on and cold falls upon their mountain pastures, the herders will bring them down to these plains over which we are pa.s.sing.

Mr. Dudley of Alpine Ranch told us that should we visit the ranch in autumn we would find the whole valley covered with sheep. We heard much "sheep talk" in Nevada and Wyoming. We learned about the "shad scale"

which the sheep eat, and about certain kinds of sage brush that are very nutritious. Mr. Dudley had pointed out to us a low-growing white plant, somewhat like the "dusty miller" of our childhood, that is extremely nutritious for cattle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Prairie Schooners, Westward Bound. 2. Lincoln Highway Sign in the Desert. 3. Sheep in the Wyoming Desert.]

Here and there on the desert we see fine bunches of beef cattle, feeding in little oases; green, damp stretches of country in the midst of an ocean of sage brush.

Now and then we pa.s.s a cattleman or a sheepman riding with that easy give of the body which is so graceful and so characteristic of Western hors.e.m.e.n. I know nothing like it, save the easy posture of those immortal youths who ride forever in the procession of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum. They have the same graceful easing of the body to the motion of the horse, and give the same impression of the harmony of horse and rider. Often we pa.s.s white, closely plastered log houses, just such as we saw in Nevada. We see white canopied wagons in the barnyards of almost every ranch house, just as in eastern Nevada. These people think nothing of traveling long distances in their prairie schooners with their supplies for roadside camping at night. They travel in their wagons to pay visits, to transact business and to buy supplies, and make long journeys in the summer months.

The smell of the sage brush, pungent and aromatic, is in my nostrils from day to day. I love it in its cleanness and spiciness, and shall be sorry when we have left the desert behind us. We have to be watchful for chuck holes made by the indefatigable gophers or prairie dogs. They often burrow in the ruts of the road. Our local guide leaflets, furnished us by garages along the route, are full of warnings about "chucks." Once we come upon a badger, beautifully marked, who has thrown up a large mound of dirt in burrowing his tunnel just in the middle of the road. He sees us coming and scuttles into his hole. We stop the car as we get near the hole and sit motionless. We wait patiently until finally his beautifully marked brown and white head is thrust cautiously out of his shelter. He is very curious to see what this huge black thing is, standing silent near his dwelling. Twice his head appears and his bright eyes peer out curiously. Then the click of the camera frightens him and he disappears to be seen no more.

Occasionally we pa.s.s motionless bodies of gophers and rabbits that have been struck by the flying wheel of some pa.s.sing motor as they madly scrambled for safety.

Late in the day we pa.s.sed Fort Bridger with its few old stone houses, probably barracks in the old days. Shortly before coming into Fort Bridger we came upon two draught horses feeding peacefully by the roadside. As they saw us, they immediately came into the road and began to trot just ahead of our machine. First we drove gently, hoping that after their first fright they would turn aside into the great plain which stretched for miles, unbroken by fences, on each side of the road.

But no, they trotted steadily on. Then we drove faster, hoping to wear them down and by the rush of our approach to force them off the road.

Once they were at the side of the road we could quickly pa.s.s them and their fright would be over. To our disappointment they broke into a wild gallop and showed no sign of leaving the road. They were heavy horses, and we were sorry to have them thundering so distressfully ahead of us.

Then we dropped into a slow walk and so did they. But as soon as we traveled faster, they broke into a gallop. For ten miles they kept this up. We were quite in despair of ever dropping them, when suddenly we came to a fork in the road. To our joy they ran along the left fork. Our route was along the right fork and we went on to Fort Bridger glad to be rid of the poor frightened beasts.

A breeze sprang up toward sunset and we came in the twilight to the little town of Lyman where the only hostel was The Marshal, half home and half hotel, kept by Mrs. Marshall. As we came into the town the high, snowy Wahsatch range was on our right. We had first seen its distant peaks about twenty-four miles out of Evanston.

Mrs. Marshall gave us an abundant supper and we slept dreamlessly in a little upper room with one window. Upon what a glory of sunrise did that little upper window look out that morning of the first of July! The vast landscape was bathed in lavender light, the Wahsatch range and the mountains of our Eastern pathway catching the first glory of the coming sun, while the plains were in deeper lavender.

The village street looked like a pathway of lavender. The little wooden, painted houses, the barns, some red, some grey and unpainted, all glowed with transforming light and color. Robins and meadow larks were singing.

Far, far to the northeast was a purple horizon line. The air was like wine. I stayed at the window until I was half frozen in the cool morning air, entranced by it all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Wyoming Cattle. 2. The Marshall Hotel, Lyman, Wyoming.

3. Before Shearing, Medicine Bow, Wyoming. 4. After Shearing, Medicine Bow, Wyoming.]

It was at Lyman that we heard talk of the ever smouldering feud between cattlemen and sheepmen. Not far from Lyman is the "dead line" over which sheepmen are not allowed to take their sheep. On the other side of this stern boundary are the cattlemen, and they have issued a warning to the sheepmen which they have more than once carried out. A few years ago a sheepman either purposely or carelessly got over the dead line with his sheep. He was mysteriously shot and two hundred of his sheep were killed in one night. No one knows who the murderer was. Back in the shadows looms the threat of the cattlemen, grim and real.

We had been told in Wyoming of the buying of a big ranch by adjacent ranch people in order that no sheepman might come in to share the water and the ranges with the cattleman.

Cattle will not feed, they tell us, where sheep have fed, as the sheep tear up the earth and also graze very closely. It is impossible for sheep and cattle to graze comfortably on the same ranges.

We left Lyman in high spirits after a good breakfast, driving along with the Wahsatch mountains on our right and with detached mountains continually appearing on the horizon as we moved eastward. We were now in the region of what they call in the West "b.u.t.tes," a "b.u.t.te" being, so far as I know, a detached, isolated ma.s.s of mountain. The Wyoming b.u.t.tes are wonderfully carved by wind and sand and weather and many of them present a mysterious and imposing appearance. Often they are table lands, rising square and ma.s.sive against the horizon like immense fortresses. On the way to Granger these ma.s.sive table lands with their square outlines loom up against the grander background of the snowy Wahsatch range.

The first thirty miles out of Evanston we had an excellent road. There was a charming desert flower growing in the dusty road and alongside, white and somewhat like a single petaled water-lily. Its buds were pink, and it sprang from a whorl of leaves like those of a dandelion. Its fragrance was most delicate. There was also the lovely blue larkspur, and there were cl.u.s.ters of a brick-red flower which grew rather tall.

Then there were clumps of something very like a dark scarlet clover. The fine mountain scenery, the fantastically carved b.u.t.tes, sometimes like miniature canyons, the glorious air, all put us in delightful humour with ourselves and the world. At the little town of Granger on the railroad line we met two young pedestrians who were walking on a wager from Kearney, Nebraska, to Seattle. They were to have $500. apiece if they reached Seattle by the first of August. Their yellow outing shirts bore the inscription, "Walking from Kearney, Nebraska, to Seattle." They told us they were able to make forty miles a day. When they reached Salt Lake City they were to have substantial new walking boots from the merchants at Kearney, the bargain being that at that point they were to return their worn boots to be exhibited in the shop windows of Kearney.

They had been halted at Granger because of lack of money, having miscalculated their needs. They had just had a telegram from home, sending them money and a.s.suring them of more help if they needed it.

They looked strong and fit and were perfectly confident that they would win the wager. We also met two young motor-cyclists from Akron, Ohio, en route for the coast.

There were several eating places at Granger, but it was too early for luncheon, so we pressed on to Green River, a Union Pacific Railway town.

From Granger to Green River the road was poorer and more b.u.mpy. Fine ma.s.ses of rock and carved tableland rose on the horizon as we drove along. As we approached Green River a splendid red, yellow, and clay-colored mountain loomed on the horizon, which as we neared the town resolved itself into long lines of b.u.t.tes back of the town. Teakettle Rock, an immense, isolated b.u.t.te, rose to the left, and Castle Rock was just back of the town. The b.u.t.te scenery both approaching and leaving Green River was very fine. The coloring was extremely rich; soft reds, yellows, browns, and clay colors. There were long lines of round b.u.t.tresses and great concavities of rock, more like the famous Causses of southern France than anything I have ever seen.

We had luncheon at Green River in the s.p.a.cious dining room of the Union Pacific Station, and felt ourselves quite in touch with the East to be eating in the same dining room with pa.s.sengers of the long overland train.

Our drive from Green River to Rock Springs and from Rock Springs to Point of Rocks was through lonely, desert country. It was nearly six o'clock when we reached Point of Rocks, but the sun was still high.

Point of Rocks is simply a watering station for the trains and is marked only by a station house, a grocery, and a few little cottages. The young groceryman has fitted up the rooms over his grocery for pa.s.sing travelers. We established ourselves in the front one, lighted by one little window. It was very clean, though very simply furnished. The floor was bare and our furniture consisted of a bed, a chair without a back, a tin wash basin resting upon the chair, a lamp, a pail of fresh water with a dipper, and a pail for waste water. We had two fresh towels and felt ourselves rich in comfort. Next door to the grocery was a little cottage where a woman cooked for the few railway operatives and for travelers. Our bacon was somewhat salty and our coffee a little weak, but our supper and breakfast tasted good for we had the sauce of hunger. We met there a young railway operative who had come from the East to this high, dry situation for the climate. He told us that when he first came, the change to the stillness and s.p.a.ce of the plain from the busy city and from his life as a journalist was so great that he could not keep still. He said that he walked fifteen miles a day, driven by some inner restlessness; but that he gradually became used to the quiet and now he loved it.

We had an evening talk in the grocery with a young commercial man, who said laughingly that these accommodations were somewhat different from the gorgeous Hotel St. Francis of San Francisco. We a.s.sured him that we did not mind simplicity and were deeply interested in seeing our country under all sorts of conditions. He was spending some hours of his time before the solitary train came through in persuading the groceryman to commit himself for a large bill of goods. The commercial man said sadly that never before in his ten years of travel had he seen business so uncertain.

The water at Point of Rocks comes from a thousand feet below the surface and has a slight sulphur taste.

CHAPTER IX

We drove from Point of Rocks to Wamsutter, where we had luncheon. The road from Point of Rocks to Wamsutter is very rough and we were tormented by the plague of these roads of the plains; namely, gutters made across the roadway by running water in time of freshets. One has to be continually on guard for these runnels. Sometimes they are very deep.

They give the machine a frightful jar and if one comes upon them suddenly they are likely to break an axle. One must possess one's self in patience and drive at a pace that will enable him to slow down quickly in coming on them. Chuck holes and these gutters across the road are the two chief difficulties of travel across the plains. However, many a backcountry road of the Eastern States is just as uncomfortable for motor travelers.

On our way to Wamsutter we pa.s.sed a fellow traveler, a gentleman from New York with his family. His son drove their car, a Pope Hartford, and they were seventeen days out from New York. They had ten days more in which to reach San Francisco if they were to help their friends win the wagers which had been made on the time of their trip across country. We a.s.sured them that they would be able to reach San Francisco in ten days, barring serious accidents, if only they would rise early and drive late, making ten hours a day.

Just outside of Point of Rocks we had come upon another and a humbler caravan. A man and his wife were encamped in a canvas-covered moving-wagon by the roadside, having found a patch of gra.s.s that promised forage for the horses. We stopped to talk with them and learned that they lived near Pueblo, Colorado. Having planted their crop they had come away on a prospecting tour into northern Wyoming to look up better farming country. They were now returning, traveling by day and camping by the roadside at night. They had had what is called mountain fever, due they thought to the bites of mosquitoes.

They liked the Wyoming country they had seen, but deplored the heavy drinking. They told us of one man who had said that he did not mean to go into town on the Fourth of July. Everybody got drunk, said he, and he did not want to put himself in the way of temptation. They spoke of a lovely farming country in the midst of which was a little town where saloons were open all night and all day Sunday. They told us of one saloon keeper who had been hauling barrels of whiskey for days in preparation for his business of July 4th. He openly boasted that he meant to take in $3,000. on that day.