Saddle And Mocassin Part 1

Saddle and Moca.s.sin.

by Francis Francis Jr.

PREFACE.

The following sketches were made at different times and during various cruises in the States. The earlier ones are fairly close records of the scenes and incidents which they profess to describe. My movements in the country referred to in the two latter were, however, too desultory to admit of similar treatment; in some cases I traversed the same ground two or three times, and remained for weeks without gleaning anything that would be of interest to the ordinary reader. In the trips detailed in this part of the book, therefore, I have occasionally introduced characters and materials that do not strictly belong in the situations a.s.signed to them. In fact, my object has been rather to present two characteristic studies of local colour than bare records of the travels that afford a pretext for them.

CHAPTER I.

THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.[1]--I.

"Wal, sir, I tell you that that thar Yellowstone Park and them geysers is jest indescribable--that's what they are, sure!" said all the packers, teamsters, and prospectors whom we consulted on the subject.

A greater measure of truth characterised this statement than is usually contained in eulogistic reports of scenery.

We were advised at Ogden that pack trains or waggons could be hired at various points on the "Utah Northern" branch of the Union Pacific Railway; in order to economise time, therefore, my companion preceded me to contract for transport, whilst I remained behind to conclude arrangements in connection with the commissariat department. These completed, I followed him. He met me at Dillon with a history of woe. No "outfits" were to be obtained elsewhere at so short a notice, and here the demands for them were exorbitant. No regard was taken of current rates; the teamsters seemed inclined to regard us as legitimate spoil. I ventured to expostulate with one man:

"What you ask would pay you in three weeks more than your 'outfit'

cost."

"Oh, horses is dear in this country!" he remarked irrelevantly.

"Quite so; but we don't want to _buy_ any."

"Wal, it ain't much for them as has the means and wants to 'go in.'"

I am afraid that, to use a miner's expression, we did not "pan out" as well as was antic.i.p.ated. A little diplomacy eventually secured us the services of a Mormon freighter named Andrews, his boy, a waggon, and twelve mules and horses, upon reasonable terms. We engaged a cook, and with d.i.c.k (the guide we had brought from Ogden) the "outfit" was complete.

d.i.c.k was an old soldier, and a first-rate fellow. True, the Dillon whisky proved too much for him when we were starting, but ordinary poison had been a mild beverage by comparison with it, and we were so glad that it did not kill him outright that we excused his temporary indisposition. Besides, even beneath its influence he displayed the most charming urbanity, and the greatest anxiety to get under way.

"All I wants, Mr. Francis, is to make a start, to get away--beyond the pale of civilisation, as you may say--beyond (hic) the pale," he repeats meditatively.

"Beyond the pail or the cask, d.i.c.k?"

"Beyond the pale," replies he dubiously, after a thoughtful pause.

d.i.c.k was hearty in his endeavours to engage an "outfit."

"Say! you! look here, now!" he would explain to a native; "these here men don't want none of your ---- ---- snide outfits, but jest good _bronchos_, and a waggon, and strong harness."

"Wal, can't yer find no waggons?"

"Waggons! ----! waggons 'nough for a whole army! But, ---- ---- it, these fellows all propose to make independent fortunes out of us in a single day. Why, they want jest as much to hire out one _broncho_ for a week as'll buy whole team."

Swearing is prevalent among these fellows. The reply given to us by a teamster that we met and consulted about the distance of a certain day's journey, concerning which it appeared that we had been misinformed, was by no means exceptional. "Thirty-five miles, ---- ---- it! Why ---- ---- it, it ain't a ---- ---- bit more than twenty-five ---- ---- no! ----!"

Our man, Andrews, was rather gifted in this line. He was to be heard at his best in the early morning, when engaged in catching the hobbled mules and horses. Amongst the more innocent t.i.tles conferred by him upon certain members of our stud were, "the yaller, one-eyed cuss," "the private curse," "the bandy-legged, hobbling, contrary son of----" etc., etc.; here following contumelious references to both the animal's remote ancestors and immediate progenitors. Frantic with rage, he usually concluded by hysterically imploring us to a.s.sist him in hanging them, or driving them into the river with a view of drowning them. Brown, our cook, one of the quietest, gentlest, and best old fellows in the world, rather enjoyed these scenes. His cooking, which really left nothing to be desired, so far as camp cookery was concerned, met with severe criticism at the hands of this unwashed Mormon. The meekest cook would have resented this.

"Yes," he said one day, as he turned the antelope steaks in the frying-pan, and listened to the voice of the teamster, softly swearing in the distance, "yes, Mormons always do swear ter'ble, and the women as well, and the children, too--and smoke. I guess they smokes more, and stands for the swearingest people as there is anywhere. And they're all alike."

We took no tent, but relied entirely on fine weather and buffalo robes.

For the first few days the track lay through a gameless and uninteresting alkali country. The dryness of the atmosphere was remarkable. Moist sugar became as hard as rock; discharged powder left nothing but a little dry dust in the gun-barrels; our lips cracked, and our fingernails grew so brittle that it was impossible to pare without breaking them. As we proceeded, the scenery grew wild, and in places fine. On many slopes the pine forests had been swept by fire, and skeleton trunks, from which the bark had fallen away, stood out in ghostly array from the yellow, red, and russet undergrowth, or looked with ascetic asperity upon the bright belt of light-leaved willow bushes, whose boughs danced gaily in the sunlight on the foot-hills.

At length we surmounted a low divide at the head of the Centennial Valley, and caught our first glimpse of Henry's Lake. In the purple haze of an autumnal sunset it lay below us; and the ripples that dwelt there, waked from their midday slumbers by the evening breeze, sparkled, and glittered, and tossed, and laughed, whilst they restlessly compared their blue, and gold, and violet reflections, and chased each other to the sh.o.r.es of emerald islands out on the silver bosom of the waters.

Time was when only the sun came up and looked in upon the solitude of this beautiful sheet of water, dreaming its time away in the still heart of the mountains. At most an occasional Indian wandered thither, to hunt antelope on its gra.s.sy sh.o.r.es, wild fowl in its reedy fringe, or spear, by torchlight, the n.o.ble trout that haunt its crystal depths. Now it is in a fair way to become a summer resort. Already a log hotel has been tried there, and jam-pots and empty meat-tins lie around it in profusion. Fortunately, for some reason it has been deserted. So the pelicans, the swans, and geese that dot the lake's wide surface, the ducks and flocks of teal that sail there in fleets, or skim in close order to and fro, the grouse in the willow thickets, and the wary regiments of antelope upon the slopes, have yet a respite of comparative security to enjoy before civilisation drives them from their patrimony.

We frequently camped near a trout stream. The trout, although proof against the persuasive influence of the artificial fly, were generally amenable to the seductions of the gra.s.shopper, the b.u.t.terfly, or grub.

d.i.c.k's disgust at fly-fishing was amusing. One day B. lent him a rod, and I gave him some flies. He was absent about an hour, and then returned, with but little more than the winch and the b.u.t.t of the rod.

"Well, Piscator, what luck?" inquired B.

"Why, these durned fish don't _piscate_ worth a cent. Guess I'll go and _catch_ some with a pole and a 'hopper, or there won't be any fish for supper."

The identification of trout was one of sundry points upon which the teamster and I agreed to differ. Trout vary considerably in their markings in these mountain streams; still, a trout is unmistakable.

"That's a pretty trout," I said one day.

"He ain't no trout. That thar's a chub."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"A chap told me so."

"I should call it a trout."

"Wal, they call it a chub down at the terminus,[2] and I reckon the boys there know something. Anyway, he's a chub in this country."

With this conclusive argument Andrews always crushed me. We were at issue upon several questions of this and other natures. Only one, however, threatened to result unpleasantly.

Andrews had a boy. He was a surly, flat-faced boy, with a nose like a red pill. His name was Bud, or Buddy. The father thought all the world of Bud. He was one of the many "smartest boys in the States." Naturally his proud spirit brooked no restraint. On all subjects he considered himself the best-informed person in the party. Although only twelve years old, his education was complete, and he possessed, together with great experience and implicit self-reliance, a shot-gun, a rifle, and a racing pony. Bud from the commencement had a.s.sumed command of the expedition; he seemed to labour under the impression that we had come from England on purpose to accompany him.

Whenever the trail was well travelled, he would drive our spare stock a few yards ahead of us, so that we were thoroughly annoyed by the dust.

This amused him. Expostulation being without avail, I was forced to insist upon his taking his amus.e.m.e.nt in some other way. Bud declared that "he would be dog-durned if he was going to run his interior" (he called it by some other name) "out a-driving the stock any further ahead--durned if he would." However, he was induced to change his mind, and although the teamster expended a great deal of energy in bold talk and gesticulation, the moment an opportunity was offered him of displaying his prowess, he collapsed. The matter was, therefore, settled amicably. Thenceforward Bud was more circ.u.mspect. He used to overeat himself. When just retribution overtook him, his devoted parent, in an agony of fear, would declare his intention of returning to the terminus in quest of a doctor. On two occasions we hung for awhile in the greatest anxiety upon Bud's languid responses to inquiries concerning his health; and we questioned him as if we loved him--which we didn't.

We all doctored him, too. Yet he lived! Evidently his const.i.tution was strong. Once, in a fit of meddlesome benevolence, I restrained his father from giving him a powerful aperient for diarrhoea. Like most acts of officious good-nature, it was often a source of regret afterwards.

It is a fatal mistake to allow a boy to accompany a party of this kind, the more especially one of these ill-conditioned, never-corrected, western frontier cubs. They seem to think it inc.u.mbent upon them to air their smartness and impertinence at the expense of strangers. Dogs, in camp, are apt to lead to trouble, too, in the West. A dog is regarded there with somewhat the same feelings that he would excite in a Mussulman household. Our dog was the cause of annoyance on several occasions. Once the men mutinied in a body, because I collected some sc.r.a.ps after supper, and gave them to him _on a plate_.

Those who dwell in the neighbourhood of the Yellowstone National Park, love enthusiastically to term it Wonderland, and not without reason.

Within its boundaries (one hundred miles square), there are over 10,000 active geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, solfataras, salses, and boiling pools. Of these, over 2,000 are found in the small area comprising the Upper, Middle, and Lower Geyser Basins. Sulphur mountains, an obsidian mountain, a mud volcano, a so-called blood geyser, and various other remarkable phenomena add to the interest of this extraordinary region, whilst there is scenery here that, for grandeur and grotesqueness, may challenge comparison with the world's most striking features. Proceeding at once towards the Upper Geyser Basin, we pa.s.s the Lower Basin with its so termed "paint pots," or "cream pots," boiling vats of a semi-silicious clay, which varies in colour from creamy white to pink or slate, some fine geysers, and the intermediate "h.e.l.l's half-acre," and adjoining pools. These are at once the most impressive and beautiful pools in the Park. I turned aside twice to them--once on my way to the Upper Basin, and once on my return; seeing them on these occasions under completely diverse aspects, for on the first day a thunderstorm darkened the wonted serenity of the sky.

They are situated in a desolate expanse of white, formed by deposits from the numerous springs that bubble up on all sides. The first pool is of comparative unimportance. The second (whence the locality derives its name) considerably exceeds half-an-acre in size. It has but recently a.s.sumed its present dimensions. These are daily increasing, apparently, and it bids fair, if its devouring energies continue unabated, to unite with its fellow pools, and form a lake some acres in extent. Numerous cracks and fissures scallop its edges, indicating the direction of future encroachments, and it is with feelings of some misapprehension that the stranger to these infernal regions cautiously approaches to windward of the stream, to gaze into the awesome gulf below him. The boiling hiss and roar of many waters issues unceasingly from its depths, but heavy clouds veil them from view, and the miniature cliffs that plunge precipitously down are speedily lost in steam. A breath of wind sweeps past, and through a rift in the swelling billows of vapour a glimpse of the seething surface is obtained. It is a sight that alone repays the labour of a journey thither. And seen as I first saw it, when thunder rolled overhead, and the heavens were rent from time to time with the flash of lightning, the wild character of the scene was enhanced.