Читать книгу Recollections of a Pioneer - J. W. Gibson - Страница 6

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At last we were in California. I had a rather bitter introduction, but I soon felt well again and began to look about to see what California was really like and to learn the truth of all the wonderful stories I had heard about gold. We didn't want to take up claims immediately—wanted to look about and get the best location possible. They told us about Sacramento City being down the river and we decided to go down there. Weaver Creek was a small tributary of the American River, so we went down to the main stream and moved on down in the direction of Sacramento City. We met a man who said he had just been down there. We asked him how far it was, and he said forty miles. Said it was at the mouth of the American River, that is, where the American River flowed into the Sacramento River. In two days we reached the mouth of the river, but we didn't see any city. I saw a few tents, and there was an old sail boat anchored on Sacramento River up close to the bank, but that was all. I asked a man where Sacramento City was. He said, "This is the place."

We didn't expect to find much of a city, but were hardly prepared for what we found. We stretched our tent, turned our cattle out to graze and prepared for a rest. It was a delightful place. I never saw finer grass nor finer water, and we still had plenty to eat. Toward the close of the day I went down to where the sail boat was being unloaded. Four or five men were carrying provisions—flour, bacon, pickled pork, sugar, coffee, rice—in fact everything substantial to eat, out of the boat and throwing it upon the bank among the grape vines. I saw no owner. There were no police and nobody seemed to be afraid of thieves. They were not afraid either of rain, for none could be expected at that season of the year. Nor was there even any dew. Everything seemed to be safe both day and night.

Our lean old cattle fattened fast and in a little while we could hardly recognize them. It was a joy to see them eat and drink and rest after the hardships they had endured. The poor things had suffered even more than the men.

About the first of September we started back to the mines. Twenty miles up the American River we each took up a claim and went to work. Everything was placer mining. Each man had his pan and with it and the water of the river, he washed the gravel away from the loose gold. We worked there several weeks and so far as we could see, exhausted the gold that was in our claims. We found on estimating the result of our work that each man had averaged about sixteen dollars a day for every day he had worked.

About the time our claims were exhausted, we were surprised to meet Russell Hill, a cousin of mine, who had worked his way down from Oregon to Sacramento by way of Shasta City, and learning at Sacramento that we were up the American River, had come on up to see us. He had left his home in Iowa the year before and had gone to Oregon. He told us he had stopped a few days at Shasta City and believed it to be a better mining place than the American River, and urged us to go there. Accordingly we yoked up our oxen and packed our belongings into the wagons again and started. When we reached Sacramento City this time, it was not necessary to ask where the city was. The whole valley was covered with tents and lunch stands. There must have been several thousand people there. They had come in from everywhere, off the plains by caravan, up the river from San Francisco by boat, and from every other place in the world, it seemed to me. There were as yet no houses. People, men mostly, lived in tents and the lunch counters consisted of the sideboards of the wagons laid upon poles supported by forks driven in the ground. Meals were a uniform price, $1.00, but lodging was free. Just spread your blanket down on the grass anywhere and make yourself at home.

Shasta City is two hundred miles up Sacramento River and a little northwest of Sacramento City. Knight's Landing, near the mouth of Feather River, was our first stop of any consequence. We went up Feather River to where Marysville now stands and thence in a northwesterly direction back into the Sacramento Valley. This valley is about an average of twenty-five miles in width and at that time there were no towns or even camps upon it and consequently I can give little account of our progress. I only recall that about every twenty miles we came upon a ranch occupied by a few families of Spaniards. These Spaniards had made slaves of the Digger Indians who lived in mounds or huts covered with earth. The Indians raised wheat and gathered it in cane baskets. They then rubbed the wheat out of the straw and beat it into flour. These Indians went almost naked and lived, themselves, on salmon, acorns, grapes and grasshoppers. They were the most disgusting mortals I have ever seen in my life. When we passed the huts or mounds in which they lived, the pappooses would dart back into them exactly like prairie dogs. I asked an old Spaniard why he kept these filthy Indians around him, and he said they protected him from the wild Indians.

The whole valley was covered by abundant vegetation and was full of wild herds of Spanish horses and thousands of wild Spanish cattle. It was also full of many savage wild animals, grizzly, brown and black bear, California lions, panthers, wolves, wild cats and badgers. There was an abundance also of elk, deer and antelope, and we never lacked for fresh venison.

We reached Shasta late in September, and like Sacramento City, found everything but the city. One or two log cabins and a few tents made up the sum of all the improvements. We put in a few days looking over the situation and viewing prospects for getting gold and decided to spend the winter there. This made it necessary for us to look immediately into our stock of provisions, and upon going through it we found that we had hardly enough to last us. Nothing could be done but go back to Sacramento and secure an additional supply, and brother William and a man by the name of Gleason, from Iowa, who had made the trip with us up the river, started back with one wagon and four yoke of oxen. We stretched our tent and stored all the provisions we had in it in such a way as to protect them, and brother William and Gleason bade us good by.

This trip meant four hundred miles more of hardship and danger, and we hated very much to see them leave, but nothing else could be done. The boys made the trip down without trouble, so they reported upon their return, but on the way back the rainy season set in and swelled the rivers so that they were past fording much of the time. The trip ought to have been made easily in twenty-five or thirty days, but it occupied from the latter part of September until Christmas.

Hard as this trip was upon the two who made it, their sufferings were hardly to be compared to the condition of brother James and myself. We had but a small tent in which to shelter both ourselves and our provisions and such meagre equipment as we had hauled across the plains. We had been alone but a few days when brother James was taken down with the scurvy. About the 10th of October the rain set in and continued almost in a steady downpour for about three weeks. Everything was completely soaked. It was next to impossible to find fuel enough to start a fire. I had to take care of brother James and keep changing the provisions to prevent them from spoiling, had to dry the blankets and clothing three or four times a day. In all, I don't think I averaged more than two hours sleep out of the whole twenty-four during this period of continued rain. I battled along the best I could, and at the end of about three weeks it ceased to rain so hard.

I shall never forget two friends who came to my rescue at this time—Charles Laffoon and Mike Cody. Both were from St. Louis and had run a dray on the wharf on the Mississippi River, they said. They had reached Shasta a few months ahead of us and had built a log cabin. On one side of this they attached a shed which they used for a cook room and the whole made a very comfortable dwelling. Lately, however, a great many people had arrived and they had arranged a bar at one end of the main cabin and fixed up some tables at the other for a poker game. Both of these enterprises proved good money makers and they were getting along fine. After it had been raining three or four weeks, Mike came up to our tent one morning. He saw the trouble we were in and said we must not stay there. I told him I knew nothing else to do. He said he would arrange that all right; that he would make room for us in his cabin. He didn't even wait for an answer, but set to work packing things up. In a little while everything we had was moved under a roof. He fixed a bunk in the shed or cook room for my brother and brought some men up and carried him down and laid him on it. We used our own blankets of course, and I cooked our meals, but Mike and his partner took care of the rest of it. Everything was very quiet in the day time when the men were out working in the diggings, but at night things were mighty lively—drinking, gambling and fighting. We didn't mind all this, for it was so much better than the leaky old tent we had put up with for so long, and no kinder men ever lived than Mike Cody and Charles Laffoon.

Brother William and Gleason got back on Christmas day, worn out themselves and their teams in worse condition. It was still raining. They had had a dreadful time, high water, mud, rain and no shelter. They had to expose themselves in order to keep the provisions dry.

A cabin, some distance away from the cluster of houses which was called the town, had been vacated, and we moved in, though I think Cody and Laffoon would have arranged in some way to accommodate all of us in their cabin had they thought we could do no better. The cabin was fairly comfortable. It had a good fire-place and a good roof, and these were the principal necessities. The weather was not very cold, but everything was so entirely saturated that fire was even more necessary than if the weather had been cold. We had room in the cabin for our cots and provisions, and we settled down about the first of January to spend the winter. We drove the cattle ten miles down the river to Redding's Ranch and turned them loose in his wild herd to graze until spring. About the middle of January, William took the scurvy. James had improved very little, so I now had both of them on my hands. They both lay there unable to walk a step for three months. There was but little that could be done for them, but I had a great deal on my hands doing even that and was thankful that I had been spared from the disease myself, for if I had taken down we should all have been cast upon the generosity of the wild, rough men who made up that camp. I had no fear, however, but what we would be taken care of. During the latter part of the winter, I was taken with a light attack of the same disease. I was very much afraid it would become serious, but I did not get down. I could walk flat footed on my left foot, but had to tip-toe on my right, and all through the balance of the winter I did the cooking, provided the wood, and ran the errands, hobbling along the best I could.

Besides this, we were somewhat troubled by finances. Everything was going out and nothing coming in. Everybody at work making plenty of money, but we were compelled to stay in this cabin and spend what we had made. We were rich, however, in provisions. Had enough to last us a year and they were worth more than gold. I remember that flour was worth two hundred dollars a sack, and most everything else was in proportion.

Late in March a doctor drifted into camp. He heard that we had sickness up at our cabin and came up. He looked my brothers over. He had no medicine and there was very little, if any, in the camp. He prescribed raw Irish potatoes sliced in vinegar. We had no potatoes. I went down to see if I could find them in camp. I hunted the place over and could not find any. I was going home discouraged when I met Mike Cody. I told him what I had been doing and he said if there was a potato in California, he would get it for me. Next morning a man brought a bushel up to our cabin and told us that was all the potatoes in that part of the country. I asked him what he wanted for them and he said they were paid for. When I asked him who paid him he said it was Mike Cody. I then asked what he got for them. He said seventy-five dollars. I took the potatoes and fixed them up as the doctor had told me and gave them to the boys. In a few days they began to mend and in two or three weeks were able to hobble about the cabin, and by the first of May they were well enough to take care of themselves nicely. I hadn't forgotten Mike Cody in the meantime. I went down one day and told Mike I wanted to settle for the potatoes and for the use of his cabin the early part of the winter. He said "You don't owe me anything for staying at the cabin and the potatoes were a present." Said if he could do anything else, just let him know. I thanked him the best I could, but he told me that he didn't want any thanks, and that I must not feel under obligation to him. He reminded me that on several occasions when he wanted to go out in town and have a good time, I had kept his bar and run his poker game for him, and said that paid for everything he had done for us. I knew that was only an excuse to keep me from feeling so much in debt to him, but I let it go at that and never lost an opportunity to show that I appreciated what he had done.

I ought to mention, probably, my experiences as a bar-keeper and manager of a poker game on the few occasions when I was called upon to assume those responsible positions. The bar was a broad plank which rested upon supports and extended clear across one end of the cabin. The bottles of whiskey and bowls of gold dust were kept on this plank. Mike sold nothing and had nothing to sell but whiskey. When a man wanted a drink he would hand me over his sack of gold dust. I poured out the price of a drink in the scale pan and put it over in the bowl. I then gave him his drink and handed him back his bag of gold dust. The poker game was not very hard to manage. The players had their rules and kept their guns close by to enforce them. This made everybody very cautious about observing the rules and seeing that a fair game was played. As long as the fellows remained sober I never saw any trouble over these games. Sometimes a fellow would get drunk and try to start trouble and he usually succeeded. We generally saved the lives of such fellows by taking them immediately away and putting them to bed.

About the 1st of May, Gleason, who had remained at the camp all winter, and I rigged up a couple of pack mules and went over to Trinity River, thirty miles west. There we found quite a prosperous camp where they were getting a good deal of gold. We each took up a claim and went to work, and got quite a quantity of gold. About the 1st of June, James and William, who by that time were able to ride horseback, came over and they each took a claim. By the 1st of August we had worked these claims pretty well out and decided to go on to Salmon River, forty miles farther west. While we were at Trinity River, Alfred Jack of near Camden Point, Platte County, came in and joined us. He decided to go on with us to Salmon River and we all packed up and started. The trip was without incident, except that over toward the end of our journey we came to an Indian village. We rode in toward the village and as we approached we saw the bucks all running away as fast as they could, leaving their squaws and pappooses behind. This was strange behavior and we wondered what it meant. When we got up to the village, we found a white horse which they had just shot full of arrows. This looked a little dangerous to us. We didn't know the meaning of this conduct and took it to be a sign of war. We passed on through the village, hurried after the Indians and soon overtook them. We had our guns and plenty of ammunition and were pretty well prepared for a fight with them, as against their bows and arrows, though they greatly outnumbered us. When they saw we were prepared for them and knowing as they did that we had not harmed their squaws and pappooses, they came and told us that they had run away because their dogs had run at sight of us. They didn't explain why they had shot the horse full of arrows, but I have always been of the opinion they intended to waylay and kill us if they could.

We reached Salmon River late in the afternoon and camped for the night. Next morning we took our picks, shovels and pans and went out to look for gold and found it. By noon when we gathered back at the camp every man was satisfied to make permanent camp and remain a while. We were the first in this immediate section of the country. Other parties were farther up the river and still others farther down the river, but we found no evidences at all that any white men had ever been in this particular place. We seemed to have a way of getting in ahead. We were in the lead across the plains, among the first to reach Sacramento, about the first at Shasta City, and Trinity River, and actually the first on Salmon River. We were not there long, however, until others began to come in, and in a short time all the available locations for placer mining were taken. We remained some six weeks, as I recollect, on Salmon River and panned out quite a quantity of gold; enough to pay us well for the trip but hardly as much as we anticipated we would get when we left home, after hearing the reports that came to us. Still we were satisfied and now that we all had good health, had no complaint to make. Some one who came into our camp on Salmon River brought the word that our brothers were coming across the plains from Missouri, and would get in sometime in September. We decided to go back and meet them, so we broke camp and went back to Shasta City. Here we loaded our plunder into our own wagons which had been left during our absence, and after procuring our cattle from Redding's Ranch—so fat and sleek we could hardly recognize them, we set out down Sacramento River. The trip was made without incident. It was the dry season of the year. There was plenty of game, plenty for the cattle to eat, and no trouble about fording the river. While we were in camp one night at Knight's Landing, I put a sack of dried beef which we called "jerky," under the back part of my pillow to make sure the coyotes would not get it. In this I was mistaken, for sometime that night a coyote came up and helped himself and we had no jerky for breakfast. My slumbers were not disturbed in the least by the burglar.

A little farther down the Sacramento River, while in camp one night, we were all awakened by an unusual noise. The camp fire was burning dimly and afforded enough light for us to see, not twenty yards away, a huge grizzly bear. He was sniffing around picking up scraps of meat and bone which we had thrown away. There was a good deal of quiet excitement in the camp over the discovery of this guest, but fortunately everybody had sense enough to keep still. The old fellow prowled about the camp for a long time. Sometimes he would get right up by the fire and then we had a good look at him. He paid no attention to us at all. Apparently didn't know we were in the neighborhood. At least if he knew it, he didn't let on. By and by, after satisfying himself that there were no more scraps, he walked slowly away and we could hear him rattling the bushes and crushing the dead limbs and sticks that lay upon the ground for a long distance. It was not until he had been out of hearing for quite a long time that anybody dared to speak, and then our first words to each other were of congratulation. We hadn't had very much experience with grizzly bears at that time and didn't know but what the old fellow might have attempted to piece out his meal on one of us. We were glad enough when he decided to go and hunt up some more bones and scraps and let us alone.