Trail Tales Part 8

Although we may read of it, none can comprehend just what it means to a girl-wife, two thousand miles away from her parents, to be treated as an alien, in a land under the flag of the free. This was the case in the strictly Mormon settlements in Utah thirty years ago. Reason only kept the Giant Despair from the threshold of the mind. The bravery of these women can be compared only to the English women of the Sepoy Rebellion days of 1857 in India, or to those of our American sisters who accompanied their valorous husbands to their isolated posts on the Indian frontiers, resolved to share equally in the dangers, and to die lingeringly and cruelly if necessary. Retreat and surrender never grew in the hearts of such women. It was so in the times that were called the "dark days" in Utah--the time when the government applied its functions to the stamping out of polygamous practices, 1883 to 1893--ten terrible years for the Mormon as well as the non-Mormon.

Add to this the fact that, unannounced, a brawny, stalwart Indian might walk in at the door. More than once has it so occurred in our home. One day the door was suddenly opened and in walked a grinning brave, armed with a long knife, and followed by his squaw; extending his empty hand toward the far-from-home girl-wife, alone in the house, he said, "How-do!" In telling us of it, she said: "I was scared to death, I thought, but I would have shaken hands with him if I had died in the attempt. I would not let him know I feared him." But this was not Weber Tom.

It was in those fearsome days when the leading men of Utah--farmers, bankers, stockmen, church dignitaries, all sorts and conditions of the Latter-Day Saints--were being arrested and haled to the courts almost daily, that one morning there rode up to our door the battle-scarred old warrior, Weber Tom, chief of the Skull Valley Utes, or Goshutes.

If perfection is beauty, this Indian was most beautiful, for he was the ugliest creature imaginable, ugly even to perfection. One eye had been gouged out, a knife-scar extended from his ear down across his mouth, and he was Herculean in physical proportions. I am a large man, but once when I gave him an overcoat he tried vainly to b.u.t.ton it over his vast frontal protuberance, looking at me and saying, "Too short, too short."

This giant chief dismounted, and, seeing my wife standing near, reached the reins of the bridle to her and said, "Here, squaw, hol' my hoss."

She said, quietly, "Hold your own horse if you want him held."

Having had to accommodate himself to the rudeness of a civilized woman, he made other provision for his cayuse and then asked her, "Wheh yo'man?"

She told him I was down in the field, and he then proceeded to find me. He was in the depths of trouble. He had several squaw-wives and feared he was to be arrested for it.

Now he approached me. It was dramatic; it was high-cla.s.s pantomime.

It is too bad the kinetoscope, cinematograph, or some other moving-picture machine had not been invented. He seemed awed by a presence, yet so emboldened by the needs of his case that he walked stoically to his quest.

Squaring his Atlaslike shoulders, he began: "You heap big chief. You talky this way" (at the same time extending one finger straight from his lips). "Mormon he talky this way" (now extending two fingers, to show he understood them to talk with double tongue). "Mormon telly me sojer men ketchy me, put me in jug [jail]; me havy two, tree, four squaw. You heap big chief. You telly me this way" (one finger).

Continuing, he said: "Me havy two, tree, four squaw. Mormon he telly me, me go jug; one my squaw he know dat, he heap cry, _heap_ cry, HEAP cry, by um by die!"

This was accompanied by gestures, throwing his body backward in imitation of the dying woman whom fear had killed, according to his dramatic story.

I told him something like this: "No, heap big lie. You go back Skull Valley, you stay home, no sojer ketchy you, you be heap good Injun!"

Upon this he grunted deeply, shook hands cordially, went back to his many-wived tents over across the creek, and soon we saw them filing off through the sagebrush toward their Skull Valley home, many miles over the Onaqui range.

POLYGAMY OF TO-DAY

The man that lays his hand upon a woman, Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch Whom 't were gross flattery to name a coward.

--_John Tobin_.

A baby was sleeping, Its mother was weeping.

--_Samuel Lover_.

Polygamy _may_ die in Mormondom, but has never yet done so. Cases are often reported, and from the manner of their finding it is a certainty that new alliances are being formed continually between married men and unmarried women.

Not long ago a very bright conversion was made in one of the missions of an evangelical denomination. The convert was a young woman of more than average intelligence. Some of her relatives had been polygamists, but she repudiated the whole cult and creed. For a while this decision made it necessary for her to find other residence than her rightful home.

Some time after she permitted herself to be persuaded that a young man of her acquaintance loved her more than he did the polygamous tenet of his church--he was a Mormon--and that he never would attempt to woo and win another woman while she remained his wife. She consented, and was happy in her home life. Not for a moment did she suspect him of double-dealing. Her honest heart was above entertaining such suspicion had it entered. Serenely she saw her children growing to useful womanhood. Not a cloud of anxiety appeared on the calm sea of life; all was fine sailing. One day she was making some repairs in one of her husband's garments when a letter fell from a pocket. It bore the postmark of a city where they both had relatives, and it was quite natural that she should look into its contents.

What despair and agony seized her when she read therein the statement from the "other woman" telling her "fond" husband of the birth of the child!

The poor, heart-stricken, and hitherto trusting wife immediately rose to the dignity of outraged womanhood and insulted wifehood and compelled the polygamist to choose at once between her and the concubine. He did so, choosing the younger woman and leaving her who had trusted him too fondly.

This is not a tale of the ancients in Utah, but a living, festering story of the vivid present.

One way of avoiding prosecution by the law is the surrept.i.tious, clandestine rearing of children, whose mothers lose no prestige in the community; for it is well understood "among the neighbors and friends." "Public polygamy has been suspended," but the requirement of the doctrine remains unchanged.

GREAT SALT LAKE

So lonely 'twas that G.o.d himself Scarce seemed there to be.

--_Coleridge_.

This is truth the poet sings That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

--_Tennyson_.

GREAT SALT LAKE

Many stories, weird and lurid, true and untrue, have been told of this body of saline water lying imposed on the breast of the beautiful and scenic State of Utah. Although one of the transcontinental highways of ocean-to-ocean travel has extended its bands of steel directly across its wide bosom for many miles, it is still a spot where mystery lingers.

Private as well as public legends are handed down from lip to ear rather than from page to eye. For that reason there are tales of this wonderful salt sea to be learned only by residing in the vicinity. Its natural moods are unlike the ocean, and its individual characteristics would make a book.

The briny pond is but a wee thing as compared with its gigantic dimensions in the days when its waters were sweet and had an outlet to the north. Then its arms spread far south into Arizona, over into Nevada and into Idaho. It was 350 miles from the northern end to the southern, and 145 miles across from east to west. The area was 20,000 square miles. This greater lake stood 1,000 feet higher than does the present one, although this one is 4,280 feet above the level of the sea. Geologists have named the earlier one Bonneville, in honor of the intrepid soldier-explorer whom Washington Irving has so well fixed in American literature.

By some as yet unknown cataclysm a great break was made at the north end of this inland ocean and its pent volume was poured into the canon of the Port Neuf toward the ravenous Snake. This reduced the level four hundred feet, but the old beach line may still be easily noted.

Gradually this diminished body became smaller and smaller until it reached the present stage of desiccation.

So impure is this heavy liquid that after evaporation there is a residuum of twenty-eight pounds of solid matter in every hundred. This is composed of salt, magnesium, and other elements carrying three dollars of gold to the ton; the gold is not made a matter of trade or of industry because facilities are lacking for its handling. Very little animal life is found in this brine, and none of vegetable; in fact, at every point where the water touches the sh.o.r.e vegetation vanishes utterly. The animal life is that of a very small gnat which, mosquito-like, lays its eggs on the surface of the water. The larvae, when driven sh.o.r.eward, collect in such quant.i.ties as to cause a strong, unpleasant odor observable for miles to the leeward. Myriads of seagulls here find a dainty feast.

Salt Lake affords the finest and really the only beach-bathing resort in the whole interocean country. The bathing is attended with little, if any, danger. In thirty years only two persons have been lost. These strangled before a.s.sistance reached them. One body was found after four years, lying in the salty sand at the south end of the lake, whither the high winds from the north had drifted it. All the parts protected by the sand were perfectly preserved and as beautiful as if carved from Parian marble.

The tops of a number of sunken mountains still protrude above the surface and form islands: such are Fremont, Church, Stanbury, Carrington, and others. Some of these are habitable, possessing fine springs and irrigable land. Very few people live on these islands, but some brave spirits dare to face the semiprivations of such isolation and stay there with their herds.

Doubtless, many tales of heroism and devotion could be told of those who have lived on these islands. One of the best known is that of Mrs.

Wenner, who, a few years after her marriage, went with her husband and little children to live on Fremont Island. Her husband's health failing, the oversight of the herds fell largely upon her, but she cheerily took up the burden, the while she trained her little ones, and was ever a true companion to him whom she daily saw slipping away.

The end came on a dread and fearsome day, while the faithful man who worked for them was detained on the mainland by a raging storm. The children and an incompetent woman could give her little a.s.sistance or consolation. There on the lonely, storm-lashed island, with faint-whispered words of love, the dear one closed his eyes forever.

Tenderly she cared for his body, and sadly she kept her vigil, replenishing through the long night the two watchfires intended as a signal to those on the mainland. On the night of the second day, the man made his dangerous way back to the island--and with his help she laid the loved husband in his island grave, with no service but the tears and prayers of those who mourned.

This is but one story of desolation and sorrow--but the deep, briny waters and the barren, forbidding sh.o.r.es hold in their keeping many suggestions of mystery and of tears.

ARGONAUT SAM'S TALE

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul.