Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 139

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“Now we are leaving the Pawnees and passing into the Sioux country!” said Rob.

They were passing under the great railroad bridge which connected Council Bluffs, Iowa, with Omaha, Nebraska. The older member of the party nodded gravely. “And can’t you see the long lines of the white-topped covered wagons going west — a lifetime later than Lewis and Clark, when still there was no bridge here at all? Can’t you see the Mormons going west, with their little hand carts, and their cows hitched up to wagons with the oxen? Look at the ghosts, Rob! Hit her up. Let’s get out of here!”

“She’s running fine,” Rob went on. “Somehow I think this must be better water, above the Platte. You know, Lewis and Clark only averaged nine miles a day, but along in here for over two hundred miles they were beating that, doing seventeen and one-quarter, twenty and one-quarter, seventeen, twenty-two and one-half, seventeen and one-half, sixteen, seventeen, twenty and one-half, twenty and one-half, fifteen, ten and three-quarters, fifteen, ten — not counting two or three broken days. They seem to have got the hang of the river, somehow.”

“So have we,” nodded the other. “I’ll give you five days to make Sioux City.”

As a matter of fact, the stout little ship Adventurer now began to pick up on her own when they had passed that Iowa city, going into camp on the evening of June 4th well above the town. They purchased bread, poultry, eggs, and butter of a near-by farmer, and opened a jar of marmalade for Jesse, to console him for the lack of buffalo.

“It’s my birthday, too, to-day,” said Jesse. “I was born on the fourth day of June, fourteen years ago. My! it seems an awful long time.”

“Well, Captain Meriwether Lewis was not born on this day,” said his uncle, “but his birthday was celebrated on this spot by his party, on August 18, 1805, and they celebrated it with a dance, and an ‘extra gill of whiskey.’”

“We’ll issue an extra gill of marmalade to the men to-night, and conclude our day of hard travel with a ‘Descharge of the Bow piece,’ just because it’s the Fourth of June. We’re hitting things off in great style now, and I’m beginning to have more confidence in gasoline.”

“What made you want to get to this place, Uncle Dick?” asked John, his own mouth rather full of fried chicken.

“Because of the location — the mouth of the Sioux River, and at the lower edge of the great Sioux nation.

“Lewis and Clark tried to get peace among all these river tribes. They held a big council here, decorating a few more Otoes and Missouris, and telling them to make peace with the Omahas and the Pawnee Loups. The Sioux had not yet been found, though their hunting fires were seen all through here, and Lewis was very anxious to have his interpreter, Dorion, find some Sioux and bring them into council.

“It was at Captain Lewis’s birthday party that the first and only casualty of the trip ensued. You remember Sergeant Floyd — he spelled worse than Clark, and Ordway worse than either — and his journal of some twenty thousand words, which he had kept till now? Well, he danced hard at the birthday party or at the Indian council, and got overheated, after which he lay down on the damp sand and got chilled. It gave him what the Journal calls a ‘Biliose Chorlick,’ and on the second day he died. He was buried on the bluffs below the town, at what still is called Floyd’s Bluff, on the river they named after him, with military honors, and his grave long was known. His river still is known by his name, and it runs right into the town of Sioux City. The river washed the bank away under his grave, and in 1857 the remains were reburied, back from the river. That spot was marked by a slab in 1895, and a monument was put over it in May, 1901. I was a guest at the dedication of that obelisk. It was erected under the supervision of General Hiram Chittenden, the great engineer and great historian. It has a city park all of its own, and a marvelous landscape it commands.

“Well, poor Floyd had no memorial in those rude days, beyond a ‘seeder post.’ They did what they could and then they ‘set out under a gentle Breeze and proceeded on.’”

“Well, but Dorion knew this country, then?” John began again, after a time.

“Yes,” Rob was first to answer, “and that’s what puzzles me — how they got such exact knowledge of a wild region. I suppose it was because they had no railroads and so had to know geography. The Journal says that the Sioux River heads with the St. Peter’s (Minnesota) River, passing the head of the Des Moines; all of which is true. And it tells of the Red Pipestone quarry, on a creek coming into the Sioux. Clark puts down all those things and does not forget the local stuff. He says the ‘Countrey above the Platte has a great Similarity’ — which means the Plains as they saw them. And look, in John’s book — here he says ‘I found a verry excellent froot resembling the read Current,’ What was it — the Sarvice berry? He says it is ‘about the Common hight of a wild Plumb.’ Nothing escaped these chaps — geography, natural history, game, Indians, or anything else! They must have worked every minute of the day.”

“I think his new berry was what we used to call the buffalo berry, in our railway surveys out West,” said Uncle Dick. “It was bigger than a currant and made very fair pies.

“But now we’ve just begun to catch up with our story, for we were talking some time back where they first got a buffalo. That was about thirty or forty miles above here. By to-morrow night we’ll camp in our fifth state since we left home — Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota.”

“On our way!” sung out Rob. “We haven’t got any antelope yet, nor found a prairie dog, nor seen a single Sioux.”

“Softly, softly!” smiled the older companion. “At least we’re in the Sioux and antelope range.”

Their little tent was pitched within a short distance of the river, and their fire made shadows along the wall of willows. At times they all fell silent, bringing to mind the wild scenes of this same country in a time which now began to seem not so long ago.

“My!” said Jesse, after a time, as he sat on his bed roll, his hands clasped before his knees. “Think of it! The Plains, the buffalo, the Indians! Weren’t they the lucky guys!”

“Well, yes,” replied his uncle, “though I’d rather call them fortunate gentlemen than lucky guys. One thing sure, they were accurate when they said the ‘musquitors were verry troublesom’ in all this Missouri Valley. They had to issue nets and bars to the men, so it says, and the misquitr, or mosquiter, or musquitor, was about the only ‘anamal’ they feared. If we don’t turn in, they’ll carry us off to-night.”