Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 149

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Before sunup Rob had the camp fire going, while Jesse brought in water and wood and John bent over his cooking. Uncle Dick walked up the river to where he had landed his boat the evening previous, and dropped down closer to the camp. The day still was young when the tent was struck and everything packed aboard the boat, which presently landed them on the farther shore, ready for the next lap of their journey and the new transportation that was now in order.

They were met by their new companion, the young rancher, Billy Williams, who had struck his own camp and brought the animals down to meet them. They found him a quiet, pleasant-spoken young man of perhaps thirty, lean and hardy, dressed much like a farmer except that he wore a pair of well-worn, plain, calfskin chaps to protect his legs in riding — something in which the boys could not imitate him, for they were cut down to their Scout uniforms; which, however, did very well.

They shook hands all around, the young rancher quietly estimating his young charges, and they in turn making up their opinions regarding him, which, needless to say, were not unfavorable, for none were quicker than they to know a good outdoor man when they saw him.

“So this is old Sleepy?” said Jesse, going up to the sleek big white mule that stood with drooping head, the stalk of a thistle hanging out of a corner of his mouth. “He’s fat and strong, isn’t he? What makes him look so sad? And aren’t you afraid he’ll run away? He hasn’t even a halter on him.”

“No, he won’t run away,” replied Billy. “You couldn’t drive him away from the packs. He always comes up every morning to be packed, and he always stands around like he was going to die — but he isn’t. Sleepy’ll live another hundred years, anyhow.

“I never hobble or tie or picket Sleepy at night; he sticks close to old Fox. That’s my horse, the red one. You’d think Fox was going to die, too, but he isn’t. He used to be a cow horse; and a mean one, too, they say; but all at once he reformed and since then he’s led a Christian life, same as Sleepy.

“About that thistle. Sleepy is very fond of thistles — he’ll stop the whole train to eat one. Usually he carries one hanging in his mouth, so’s to eat it when he gets hungry. He’s a wise one, that mule. I’ll bet you, an hour before camp to-night you’ll see him wake up and get frisky; all his tired look is just a bluff. And I’ll bet you, too, you can’t manage to ride ahead of Sleepy on the trail. He never will take the last place on the trail.”

“Why, how’s that?” said Jesse. “I should think he’d like to loaf behind, if he’s so wise.”

“No, Sleepy has got brains. He knows that if he gets a stone in his foot, or if his pack slips, a man is his best friend. So he just goes ahead where folks can see that he’s comfortable. You can’t ride ahead of him; he’ll gallop on and won’t let you pass him; so don’t try.

“Nigger, that other mule, doesn’t care — some one’ll have to keep him moving. I usually carry a little rubber sling shot in my pocket, and when Nigger gets too lazy and begins to straggle off I turn around and peck him one with a pebble. Then you ought to see him get into his place and promise to be good!

“I’ve got quite a pack train, at home on the Gallatin, but your uncle said this was all I was to bring. Can we take all your stuff?”

Uncle Dick smiled at that and showed him the four rolls, neat and compact. “The robes make most of the bulk,” said he.

“Yes. Well, I hope they can keep warm in July,” said Billy.

“But we like ’em,” said Jesse. “It’s more like the old times.”

“Yes. Well, I hope you’ve got some mosquito bar. We’ve still got a few old-time mosquitoes in the valley; but in a week or two now they’ll all be gone.”

“Trust these boys to have what they need, and no more,” said Uncle Dick. “Now fall to and get on the loads while I take back my borrowed skiff.”

Billy looked at the boys dubiously. “Well, I’ll make it the ‘lone packer’ hitch,” said he.

“Oh, they’ll help you,” said Uncle Dick. “They can throw almost any diamond, from the ‘government’ hitch down to the ‘squaw’ hitch. You see, we’ve lived up North a good deal, and learned to pack anything — man, dog, or mule.”

“So? Well, all right.” He turned to Rob. “Better take off side,” he said; “the mules are more used to me for near side. I never blindfold them.”

They began with Sleepy, and soon had two packs in the sling ropes, a third on top, with all ready to lash. Rob asked no questions, but went on, taking slack and cinching at the word. Billy laughed.

“Tried you on the old U. S. hitch,” said he. “None better. Set?”

“All set!”

“Cinch!” Rob put his foot against Sleepy’s far side and drew hard. In a jiffy the ropes flew into the tight diamond and Billy tied off. “She’s a good one!” intoned Rob. Billy laughed again.

“I guess you’ve been there before,” said he.

“How about you boys — can you all ride? My saddle stock’s all quiet, far as I know, but — — ”

“I think we can get by,” said Rob. “We’re not fancy, but we can ride all day.”

“Well, you try out the lengths of the stirrup leathers for yourselves, and I’ll lace them for you. First let’s get your loose stuff in the panniers on Nigger — I brought along one pair of kyacks, for it’s easier to carry the cooking stuff and the loose grub that way than it is to make up packs in the mantas every day.”

John, who was cook for that week, now began to open and rearrange his kitchen pack; and Rob was standing off side, ready to handle the lash rope, when all at once they heard a snort and the trampling of hoofs.

They turned, to see Jesse just manage to get his seat on one of the horses, which plunged away, his head down, bucking like a good fellow. For a moment or so Jesse hung on, but before anyone could mount and help him he was flung full length, and lay, his arms out, motionless. It all happened in a flash.

They ran to him. At once Rob dragged him up, sitting, in front of him, and dragged his shoulders back, pressing his own knee up and down the boy’s spine. He saw that no bones were broken, and was using some revival methods he had learned on the football field.

“Ouch! Leggo!” said Jesse, after a little. “What’s the matter?”

Rob let him up. He staggered around in a circle two or three times, dazed. “Gee!” said he, laughing at last. “Where’d I drop from?” Then they all laughed, very gladly, seeing he had only been stunned by the fall.

“All right, son?” asked Billy, coming to him anxiously. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know — — ”

“My fault, sir,” said Jesse, stoutly. “I admit it. I ought to have known more than to mount any Western horse from the right side and not the left. My fault. But, you see, I had the laces loose on the stirrup, so I just thought I’d climb up on the other side and try the length there.”

“You’re right — that’s not safe,” said Billy. “I never knew that cayuse to act bad before. Are you afraid of him now?”

“Naw!” said Jesse, scoffing. “Bring him over — only fasten that leg leather. I’ll ride him.”

“Better let me top him off first.”

“No, sir! He’s in my string and I’ll ride him alone!”

Billy allowed him to try, since he saw that the horse was now over his fright, but he mounted his own horse first and rode alongside, after he had the stirrup fixed. To the surprise of all, the horse now was gentle as a lamb, and Jesse kicked him in the side to make him go.

“Horse is a funny thing,” said Billy. “He ain’t got any real brains, like a mule. He gets scared at anything he ain’t used to, and he can’t reason any. Now look at Sleepy!”

That animal did not even turn his head, but stood under his pack with eyes closed, taking no interest in their little matters.

BEFORE ANYONE COULD HELP HIM HE WAS FLUNG FULL LENGTH, AND LAY MOTIONLESS

They had all the saddles ready and the last rope cinched by the time Uncle Dick returned. He rebuked Jesse for a “tenderfoot play” when they told him what had happened, much annoyed. “I’m responsible for you,” said he, “and while I’m willing you each should take all fair chances like a man, I’ll not have any needless risks. Learn to do things right, in the field, and then do them that way always. You know better than to mount a horse on the off side. That’s an Indian trick, but you’re not an Indian and this isn’t an Indian horse.”

Jesse was much crestfallen for being thrown and then scolded for it.

“Is he hurt any?” asked Uncle Dick of Rob, aside.

Rob shook his head. “I don’t think so. Just knocked the wind out of him. He was lying with his eyes wide open. He’s all right.”

“On our way!” exclaimed Uncle Dick. They all swung into saddle now, Billy leading, old Sleepy next to Fox, the place he always claimed; then Uncle Dick, Jesse, John, and Rob, Nigger coming last, poking along behind, his ears lopping. In a few moments they all were shaken into place in the train, and all went on as usual, the gait being a walk, only once in a while an easy trot.

“We set out and proceeded on under a gentle breeze,” quoted John.

“Reader will suppose one hundred years to have elapsed,” began Jesse, trying to be funny.

“Jess,” said his uncle at that, “rather you’d not poke fun at the Journal, or at our trip. I want you to take it seriously and to feel it’s worth while.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jesse, presently, who was rather feeling disgraced that morning. “I won’t, any more. I’m glad we’ve got horses.”

“Now I want you to remember that when Captain Clark and his three men came in here, on foot, they found an old Indian road, marked plain by the lodge poles. They went up Little Prickly Pear Creek, over the ridge and down the Big Pear Creek.

“You see, Clark was hunting Indians. He wanted horses; because he could see, even if the Indian girl had not told him, that before long they must run their river to its head, and then, if they couldn’t get horses, their expedition was over for keeps. They all were anxious now.

“Billy, all I have to say about the road is that we’ll make long days; and we’ll keep off the main motor roads all the way when we get toward Marysville and Helena, over east and south — no towns if we can help it. It’s going to be hard to dodge them.”

“Pretty hard to help it, that’s no lie,” said Billy. “This country’s all settled now. They been running a steamer up and down the Cañon above the Gate of the Mountains. You folks going to take that trip? Want to see the big dam at the head, at the old ferry?”

Uncle Dick turned in his saddle, to see what the boys would say. John made bold to answer.

“Well, I don’t know how the other fellows feel,” said he. “Of course, we know the Gate is a wonderful spot, where the two ranges pinch in; and the five miles above, they all say, is one of the greatest cañons in America — river deep, banks a thousand, fifteen hundred feet — — ”

“Sure fine!” nodded Billy, who had dropped back alongside.

“Yes, but you see, we’ve been in all sorts of cañons and things, pretty much, first. Now, way it seems to me is, anybody can go, if it’s a steamboat trip. And if there’s dams, she isn’t so wild any more. We’d rather put in our time wilder, I believe.”

The others thought so, too. “Besides, we’re following Clark now,” said Rob, “and he never saw the Gate at all, famous as it got to be after Lewis described it. Lewis went wild over it.”

“Let’s sidestep everything and get up to the Forks,” voted John. “I didn’t know this river was so long. We’ve got to hustle.”

“I’ve got another book,” said Uncle Dick, slapping his coat pocket. “It covers the trail later on — 1904. To-night in camp, I’ll show you something that it says about this country in here at the head of the Missouri River.

“You maybe didn‘t know that Helena, on below us, used to be Last Chance Gulch, where they panned $40,000,000 of gold — and had a Hangman’s Tree until not so very long ago, where they used to hang desperadoes.

“And off to Clark’s right, when he topped the Ordway Creek divide, was where Marysville is now. They only took $20,000,000 out of one mine, over there! And so on. Wait till to-night, and I’ll let you read something about the great gold mines and other mines in this book. I told you the Missouri River leads you into the heart of the wildest and most romantic history of America, though much of it is slipping out of mind to-day.”

And that night, indeed around their first pack train camp fire, with the light of a candle stuck in a little heap of sand on top a box, he did read to an audience who sat with starting eyes, listening to the talks of gold which were new to them.

“Listen here, boys,” he said, after they had traced out the course of the day and made the field notes which served them as their daily journals. “Here’s what it says about the very country we’re in right now:

“‘Gold was discovered in Montana in 1852 and the principal mining camps of the early days were, in the orders of discovery and succession, Grasshopper Gulch — Bannack — 1862; Alder Gulch — Virginia City — 1863; Last Chance Gulch — Helena — 1864; Confederate Gulch — Diamond City — 1865. Smaller placers were being worked on large numbers of streams, many of them very rich, but the four here named were those which achieved national renown from the vast wealth they produced and from various incidents connected with their rise and fall. In 1876 there were five hundred gold-bearing gulches in Montana....

“‘The California gold wave reached its zenith in 1853. What more natural than that the army of miners, with the decadence of the California fields, should search out virgin ground?...

“‘When Captain Clark crossed the divide between Ordway’s and Pryor’s Creeks he had at his right-hand the spurs of the Rockies about Marysville, where one mine was afterward to be located from which more than $20,000,000 of gold was to be taken. As he proceeded across the prickly-pear plains toward the Missouri, he came in sight of the future Last Chance Gulch, whereon Helena, the capital of the state, is located, and from whose auriferous gravels the world was to be enriched to the amount of $40,000,000 more.

“‘From the gravel bars along the Missouri and its tributaries gold dust and nuggets running into millions of dollars have been taken, and the total production from placer mining through Montana, including hydraulic mining, from 1862 to 1900 was, probably, not far from $150,000,000, the total gold production from the state being reckoned at about $250,000,000.

“‘On July 23d the narrative mentions a Creek “20 yards wide” which they called Whitehouse’s Creek, after one of their men. This stream was either Confederate or Duck Creek. The two flow into the Missouri near together — the U. S. Land Office map combines them into one creek. If Confederate Creek — this was the stream above the mouth, in the heart of the Belt Mountains.

“‘This gulch is said to have been discovered by Confederate soldiers of Price’s army, who, in 1861-62, after the battles of Lexington, Pea Ridge, etc., in Missouri, made their way to Montana via the Missouri River and Fort Benton. On their way to Last Chance Gulch they found “color” near the mouth of this creek. Following up the stream, they found the pay dirt growing richer, and they established themselves in the gulch, naming it Confederate; and within a short time Diamond City, the town of the gulch, was the center of a population of 5,000 souls.

“‘Confederate Gulch was in many respects the most phenomenal of all the Montana gulches. The ground was so rich that as high as $180 in gold was taken from one pan of dirt; and from a plat of ground four feet by ten feet, between drift timbers, $1,100 worth of gold was extracted in twenty-four hours. At the junction of Montana Gulch — a side gulch — with Confederate, the ground was very rich, the output at that point being estimated at $2,000,000.

“‘Montana Bar, which lies some distance up the gulch and at considerable of an elevation above it, was found in the latter part of 1865 to be marvelously rich. There were about two acres in reality, that were here sluiced over, but the place is spoken of as “the richest acre of gold-bearing ground ever discovered in the world.” I quote A. M. Williams, who has made a special study of these old gulches:

“‘“The flumes on this bar, on cleaning up, were found to be burdened with gold by the hundredweight, and the enormous yield of $180 to the pan in Confederate and Montana Gulches was forgotten in astonishment, and a wild delirium of joy at the wonderful yield of over a hundred thousand dollars to the pan of gravel taken from the bedrock of Montana bar.”

“‘From this bar seven panfuls of clean gold were taken out at one “clean-up,” that weighed 700 pounds and were worth $114,800. A million and a half dollars in gold was hauled by wagon from Diamond City to Fort Benton at one time for shipment to the East. This gulch is reputed to have produced $10,000,000, from 1864 to 1868, and it is still being sluiced.

“‘Some very large gold nuggets were found in this region. Many were worth from $100 to $600 or $700. Several were worth from $1,500 to $1,800; one, of pure gold, was worth $2,100 and two or three exceeded $3,000 in value.’”

The boys sat silent, hardly able to understand what they had heard. Billy Williams nodded his head gravely.

“It’s all true,” said he. “When I was a boy I heard my father tell of it. He was in on the Confederate Creek strike. He helped sluice five thousand dollars in one day, and they didn’t half work. He said it was just laying there plumb yellow. They thought it would last always; but it didn’t.

“You see, I was born out here. My dad was rich in the ’sixties, then he went broke, like everybody. When he got old he married and settled. He took to ranching and hunting, and I’ve taken to ranching. Times are quieter now. They weren’t always quiet, along this little old creek, believe me!”

“Gee!” said Jesse, rubbing his head, which had a bump on it, “I’d like to pan some gold!”

“I expect you could,” said Billy. “Might get the color, even now, on the Jefferson bars, I don’t know. Of course, they’ve learned how to work the low-grade dirt now — cyanide and dredges and all. It’s a business now!

“Yes, and when we get along a day or so farther, beyond the Forks, I’ll locate a few more spots that got to be famous for reasons that Lewis and Clark never dreamed. From the head of the Cañon up the beaver swarmed; this was the best beaver water in America, and known as such. That was the wealth those boatmen understood. No wonder Lewis thought it would be a good place for a fort. And the traders did build a fur post at the Forks, in 1808. And the Blackfeet came. And they killed poor old Drewyer and a lot of others of the fur traders. Oh, this was the dark and bloody Blackfeet ground, all right.”

“Tell us about it, Uncle Dick!” Jesse was eager.

“Wait, son. We are still on foot with Clark, you know, and we don’t know where the boats are, and we haven’t found any Shoshonis and we’ve not too much to eat. Wait a day or so. We’ve only done about twenty-five miles, and that’s a big day for the packs — not a much faster rate than Clark was marching. He nearly wore out himself and his men, on that march. I fancy not even York, his cheerful colored man, came in that night as frisky as old Sleepy.”

“That’s right,” said John. “It was just as Mr. Williams said — he freshened up and came in playing, kicked up his heels when his load was off, and bit me on the arm and kicked old Nigger. And there he is now, with another thistle saved up!”