The Awakening Of The Desert Part 27

He was not in a contented frame of mind, and therefore swore l.u.s.tily as he mounted the seat, and with six fresh bronchos rushed the team until he reached Willow Springs. It appears that at the previous station he had received from the generous pa.s.senger in the coach a flask of whiskey, to aid him in keeping up his courage. Four fresh spirited horses were now hitched to the coach for the next fifteen mile's drive.

The bleak gale caused all but the driver to go inside. The driver took a fresh draught from the flask, mounted the box and applied the whip in so brutal a manner that it became evident that he was drunk. One of the lead horses led in a run and it was clear that the driver had lost control both of himself and his team. While on one down hill course we found ourselves continuously outside the road, bounding over stones, with the horses in a panic and on a dead run. We were liable to be dumped at any moment. The pa.s.sengers were on their feet, calling through the windows to the driver to stop. He was too drunk to reply audibly.

Being the youngest pa.s.senger and rather slender and supple I crawled through the window over to the top of the swaying coach and slid down on the seat by the driver before being observed by him. Instantly the reins and whip were wrested from his lax grasp. No other act will enrage a professional horseman so thoroughly as this. The driver made a dive for the ribbons and swore that no man should take his horses. A single light blow upon his head convinced him that he must submit. He knew that he was helplessly drunk and his horses were running away. Having had some experience in managing a four-in-hand I was soon able, by watching the course, to turn them to the right up a hillside and bring them under control for a sufficient time to enable some of the pa.s.sengers to escape. Some of them tried to pacify the rearing lead horses with kind words. One strong man consented to mount the box and hold the drunken driver in subjection until the outfit could be brought into the road.

The other pa.s.sengers, except the gambler, walked for half a mile until convinced that it would be safe to ride, when they returned to their seats. The regular driver begged for the reins, but his guard held him in custody until we were in sight of the home-station at Virginia Dale.

The intoxicated coachman had come somewhat to a consciousness of the situation and in response to his pleadings he was permitted to drive the last half mile of his run. All the pa.s.sengers except the gambler abandoned the coach and walked. He who remained was true to his profession and said that he would gamble on the risk and ride. The manager at Virginia Dale said that the driver would be discharged from the service, but our opinion was that it would be only for the night.

On the seventh day we skirted along the eastern slope of the mountains and now once more upon the plains we pa.s.sed numerous herds of antelope and elk. At night we arrived at the Planter's House in Denver.

It had been eight years since George A. Jackson, a trapper and companion of Kit Carson, discovered gold in Cherry Creek near the present site of that settlement. As Pike's Peak (discovered by Zebulon M. Pike in 1806) was hardly a hundred miles distant and was the nearest object bearing a name that had appeared on the maps at any time prior to the Cherry Creek discovery, the diggings were first known as Pike's Peak Gold Mines.

In the following autumn of 1858 intelligence unaccompanied by any particulars reached the States by the way of Omaha that gold had been discovered at Pike's Peak. The news vividly colored by excitable men spread like wild fire through the country. Early in the following spring I saw a small train roll out with a party of adventurers whom I well knew to be on the alluring quest for Pike's Peak gold. One wagon bore the legend which later became familiar "Pike's Peak or bust." I saw members of the party in the autumn of the same year after they had returned "busted." Their hunt was like the storied search for the bag of gold at the foot of the rainbow. Before the rumor of the discovery of the precious metal had barely had time to rouse the average fortune seeker George Scofield of Council Bluffs, who had been a successful placer miner in California in 1849, joined with his neighbors, Samuel Dillon, William Kuhn, George Ritter, and Joseph Wheeler and late in 1858, fitting out a four ox team with supplies, started immediately for Pike's Peak. As they wandered among the foothills near the mountains the snow began to fly. With the view of establishing winter quarters they moved down to Cherry Creek and built the first log house erected in that part of the territory. This was the beginning of Denver. This record with the print of the house is furnished by Ira Scofield who was in at the house warming. Thus was planted, in what was then Kansas territory, another active aggressive center of population which was to open the slumbering wealth of the hills, rouse the latent energies of the soil and carve out the new state of Colorado. The rush of fortune-seekers, the majority of whom went broke, brought to the Cherry Creek country a legion of adventurers. The town, which at the beginning represented a shifting, unstable population, was named Denver in honor of James W.

Denver, then Governor of Kansas territory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRST HOUSE IN DENVER. BUILT ON CHERRY CREEK IN 1857, BY GEORGE SCOFIELD]

After a brief sojourn in Denver I devoted a few days to a tour through the new mining district back in the mountain gulches, and later through South Park to Mount Lincoln, which at that time was said to be the highest peak in the Rocky Mountain Range, and which I ascended on horseback, finding it an easy task.

The petrified forest in South Park was then an interesting feature.

There were numerous stumps of trees of ma.s.sive proportions; some of them that I measured were eighteen feet in diameter. They stood near together in a slight depression, at an alt.i.tude of almost 10,000 feet. They were thoroughly petrified. The indication was that for a long period their trunks had been submerged to a height of 15 or 20 feet above their bases in a shallow lake of silicious waters, until the transformation to that height was complete. The tops not having been submerged doubtless decayed ages ago. With some labor I took home with me a large fragment from one great petrified stump, the rings of which in some places were clearly defined. On counting them across some level section it appeared, by ascertaining the number of rings to the inch, that it had required at least a thousand years for the tree to attain its growth. How many thousand years it had stood in that barren valley since it had been converted into stone no man can tell, but it is certain that the destructive hands of thoughtless men, in the brief period of seven or eight years after my visit, leveled all the stumps to the ground and used portions thereof in various constructive works. In short, there is little left of what should have been preserved intact as an interesting, geological phenomenon. The fireplaces and chimneys in a ranch owned by a Hollander, named Costello, where I once spent the night near this ancient forest, were built from broken sections of these petrified trees.

The b.u.t.terfield Overland Dispatch had been operating a line of stages by the Smoky Hill route for several weeks, and I proceeded onward from Denver by their coaches. As stated by Root in his volume _The Overland Mail_, this company within eighteen months of its establishment, and on account of financial difficulties brought on more or less by Indian depredations, was forced into liquidation.

Evidence that the Indians were very busy in endeavoring to prevent the running of these stages was unpleasantly convincing. On our first night out we pa.s.sed the smoking ruins of a station that had been burned by the Indians within the preceding twenty-four hours. Discovering this state of affairs, the pa.s.sengers kept their guns close at hand. Nearly all were provided with Spencer Carbines.

Having received advices that trouble of this nature was brewing, the driver had taken on board a quant.i.ty of provisions to be used in an emergency. This prophylactic measure proved exceedingly fortunate, because at the home station next beyond the one that was burned, the Indians had within a few hours appropriated everything of the nature of supplies that could be found there, and had then moved on eastward. For some strange reason this building was not then burned, nor were the keepers killed. Our party consisted now of seven pa.s.sengers, one of whom was Governor Alfred c.u.mming. On entering the pillaged station we found a slender, youthful-looking man, with his young wife and infant child.

They informed us that on that morning the Indians had closed in on their station, and as they were hungry after their raidings of the preceding night, the husband in desperation had welcomed them, and he with his little wife had been cooking for them until all supplies were exhausted.

Their stock of provisions was replenished from the supply brought by our coach, and with some a.s.sistance from our driver they wearily cooked our breakfast, in which they were happy to share.

As all the operations were conducted in a single room, the Governor conversed with the young woman while she was preparing the meal. In reply to his questions she said that she and her husband had been alone the greater part of the time during the Indian troubles, and in fact since the station was built. She had no physician or nurse to a.s.sist her at any time, but she and her husband had been able to care for the stage pa.s.sengers, who stopped for their meals, and had protected the company's horses to the best of their ability, yet some of them had been run off by the Indians.

The Governor interested the lady by unrolling a superb grizzly-bear skin, which he was taking to Washington as a gift to the President.

At one of the stations I observed a circular cellar roofed with earth so as to be fireproof, the sides being built up two or three feet above the surface of the ground and provided with port holes. This cellar, or fort, was connected with the station house by a subterranean pa.s.sage, extending under the roadway, forming a tunnel about seventy feet in length. The cellar afforded a place of retreat, in case the station should be fired, and an excellent defense against attack.

Our driver remarked that the Indians were not the only objects of dread.

He said that while bringing some pa.s.sengers on a recent run out from Denver, he observed that they conferred frankly with one another on the best means for concealing their effects, as holdups were not infrequent.

A lady innocently informed her fellow travelers that she had concealed $100 in her stocking and carried but $20 in her portemonnaie. The coach was duly held up at dusk by highwaymen. The attack was so sudden that no defense was made. Each pa.s.senger at the point of a revolver was made to pay tribute while the driver was held at the muzzle of a rifle. The woman trembling with fear delivered her portemonnaie and begged for her life. A skinny-looking miner, whose contribution seemed to be unsatisfactory, said to the active road agent of the gang, "If we can rake up another $100 somewhere, will you let us off?" "Yes," said the bandit, "if you will do it d--d quick."

"It's in that woman's stocking," said the apparently frightened miner.

The money was promptly secured, and the stage was permitted to proceed.

Some curses and threats were soon hurled at the ungallant miner. He finally said, "Me and the woman will fix things up right in the morning."

Sure enough, after the sun was well up the miner reached down his boot leg and hauled out a package of $100 bank-notes, handing the lady from it $200 in good money, and remarked that he was not so mean as he seemed to be, but had thought on the spur of the moment that this was the easiest way of saving all further unnecessary trouble. He had saved just $4800 by his diplomacy.

Not all those reckless freebooters were lost to the world even after the iron rails were laid. It may be of interest to catch a glimpse of one of their later haunts and the home of a better cla.s.s who had for a time been exposed to their influence. The trains at the time in question were running to Kit Carson. It seemed that the gamblers and adventurers of the Southwest had concentered at this point and made its character notorious. It was my fortune to spend a night in that settlement, while _en route_ to Fort Lyon on the Santa Fe trail. The tavern was a big saloon and was said to be the _rendezvous_ for many men who had served their apprenticeship on the road, and was the resort of other experts from the States.

"Can't give you a bed until after midnight," said the proprietor in reply to my request for a room.

The only comfortable waiting place was the billiard room, which afforded shelter until two o'clock in the morning, up to which time whiskey, gambling, and swearing were blended in just and equal proportions. The room having furnished nearly all the revenue to be expected for that night, I was informed that I could sleep upon a billiard table temporarily unused. It then appeared that the billiard tables regularly served this double purpose. Enveloped in a blanket I appropriated the softest spot to be found, and as one by one the abandoned tables were occupied by guests, I became reconciled to my fate.

The next night found me at Las Animas, in a so-called hotel, the part.i.tions of which were made of canvas. Voices could easily be heard from room to room. When I was retiring, the proprietor informed me of the death of an old resident who had been in the colony more than a year, and was therefore an old settler. A little later the same now familiar voice was recognized in another room, as he declared to his wife, "I don't know what in the devil to do about that funeral. They say they are going to get a minister."

"Why, what about it, Jim," replied the woman.

"Wall, they expect me to run it, and if they have a minister I suppose they will want a Bible, and I don't know where in h.e.l.l to get one."

"You ain't going there to hunt for one, are you?" said the woman.

"I guess I could find one there as easy as I could in Las Animas," was the response.

"But say! Didn't they have one when Hat Morrow was buried?"

"I reckon they did, and I'll go right over and find out. If I'm to run the job, I'd like to do it in style."

The man was soon heard to pa.s.s out and close the door.

I did not learn the result of the landlord's quest for a Bible, but I was led to believe that in their hearts there was a latent feeling of reverence for that Book, which an emergency would awaken. The minister, however, may have brought a Bible with him.

On our second day out from Denver our coach was stopped fully half an hour, not by bandits but by a herd of buffalo uncountable in number, which, in a solid body as closely ma.s.sed as a flock of sheep, crossed the road moving southward on their annual migration. From that time for the two succeeding days there was not a moment when there were not many thousands of buffalo within range of our view. The hills in every direction as far as the eye could reach were dotted with those great, dark-moving objects. It would require no marksmanship at 50 or 100 yards to send our Spencer bullets into the ma.s.s without singling out any particular animal. Three buffaloes were left wounded by shots from a pa.s.senger who fired at short range from the coach into the first herd we encountered.

The prairies of eastern Kansas, from which the buffalo had been driven, were more fertile and produced gra.s.s more luxuriantly than the ranges farther west. When we crossed those eastern plains on our return trip, they had become dry from the frosts and late drouth. As we were sitting on the outside of the coach with the driver one night, we observed an increasing glow in the southeast, which betokened an approaching prairie fire that was being driven northward before a brisk southern breeze. The leaping flames soon became visible and their rapid progress was alarming. We considered the advisability of halting and protecting ourselves for a time with a back fire, which is the common practice when travelers are threatened by such a danger. We certainly could not safely advance. The remedy was easy. Yielding the reins to another, the driver jumped to the ground and applied a lighted match to the little clumps of dry gra.s.s on each side of the road. On the leeward side the flames soon gained headway and sped off to the northward widening as they advanced. On the other side they crept slowly toward the oncoming greater conflagration which was approaching with a crackling and subdued roar and lighted up the country in every direction. Beyond us they swept across the road, but when they met the back fire, which advanced but slowly against the wind the two lines of flame melted together into one and died, leaving only the few hot, black ashes, which quickly cooled.

For hours the northern sky was luminous from the reflection of the receding flames, which crossed our trail and swept onward, possibly until checked at the sh.o.r.e of some far away stream.

Thus over that broad uncultivated expanse of fertile prairie those awe inspiring fires were sweeping, as they doubtless had often done in centuries past, unheeded except by the wild dwellers of the plains or in later years by a few stray travelers. And this was Kansas, the first and at this time the only trans-Missouri territory that had been welcomed to the sisterhood of states, except those on our western tide-water that were accessible by navigation.

Although its eastern border near the river had been settled somewhat through the stimulus of the intense ante-bellum struggle to make it a free commonwealth, its western and central territory was still unoccupied. There in the dawn of its infant life this great state lay sleeping, awaiting the coming of the day when the farmer would turn its virgin soil, plant it with seed, and reap the abundant harvest. But those prairies, then remote from commercial or mining centers, have no navigable waters, and the planter cannot thrive unless there first be furnished some means for transporting his crops to market. Until these should be provided, Kansas and all those embryo states must slumber on undeveloped. The ox- and mule-trains between the Missouri and the mines or western coast would follow the trails, as they had done in the years gone by, leaving but little tribute on their way.

A decade had pa.s.sed since Thomas H. Benton in a speech at the St. Louis Court House, in advocacy of a railroad to the Pacific, suddenly pointed toward the West and declared with dramatic emphasis, "There is East, there is India." In his prophetic vision he doubtless saw where the East may be said to meet the West, on the further sh.o.r.e of the broad Pacific, but as the logical result of railroad transportation he also prophesied the development of our own western domain, all of which would be needed for future generations. Horace Greeley also antic.i.p.ated this awakening.

At the time when the great prairie fires occurred, to which reference has just been made, three years had elapsed since the bill had been pa.s.sed by Congress providing for the building of the Pacific railroad, and the work was already inaugurated, both from Omaha and Kansas City, pushing out into the unsettled territory. In the following year the work progressed rapidly from both initial points, and a vigorous population composed of thrifty young people from the middle states poured across the Big Muddy, disdainfully leaving behind them the broad and equally fertile areas in Missouri, partly because they were undeveloped by railroads, and these immigrants built a chain of villages along each of the new western railroad lines as rapidly as the tracks were laid. These villages were speedily surrounded by the green fields of husbandmen, until those roads were like necklaces of steel with emerald settings.

Colleges were soon built in each of the trans-Missouri territories through which the roads pa.s.sed, where two decades before the wolves had roamed at will.

A certain twentieth century statesman having apparently a less distinct knowledge of the past than Benton and Greeley seemed to have of the future has recently said, "States made the railroads," and this allegation was a.s.signed as the reason why state legislatures should regulate railroads without interference by the United States Government.

In watching the magical development of the West, as I have carefully done, and observing that its evolution, sometimes on its fertile lands, at other times on arid deserts once regarded as hopeless, was always rapid along or near the new lines of transportation and scanty, if at all, elsewhere, one is tempted to invert the statesman's a.s.sertion that "States made railroads" and declare with greater justice that "Railroads have made states," and while like men they should be subject to regulation, they also deserve that reasonable protection to which a prime factor in modern civilization is ent.i.tled.

Nearly half a century has pa.s.sed since there began this sudden and wonderful awakening of the Western Wilderness, the processes leading up to which are described in these pages as they were unfolded to one who had observed them from the first quickening of Western emigration.

The Wild West as still caricatured in the arena by dashing, reckless circus cowboys and swift-footed Texas steers is no more. The limitless ranges of semi-arid lands over which those riders coursed their hardy mustangs are now part.i.tioned by wire fences within which steady herdsmen watch their blooded stock.

The old Oregon and Santa Fe trails stretching half way across the continent over wide wastes unpeopled except by savage tribes, once the scene of innumerable thrilling adventures and desperate encounters, are now quite forgotten except as they are held in vivid remembrance by the few still living who have traced their dusty courses across the plains and deserts or their sinuous pathways through the mountain canyons.

Steel railways now parallel those trails along which trains of prairie schooners slowly crept, and thousands of miles of steel branches radiate from them across vast areas hardly visited fifty years ago even by the explorer.

The warrior tribes are subdued and driven to reservations; the buffalo is seen no more on those broad vistas; a dozen great and populous commonwealths have arisen in those territories and have been added to the galaxy of American States, and thriving cities and towns, thoroughly abreast with advanced civilization, are now scattered over the expanse defined on the old maps as the Great American Desert.