Down the Yellowstone Part 7

CHAPTER II

LIVINGSTON TWENTY YEARS AFTER

The train on which I journeyed from the Park to Livingston was a bit late in getting started for some reason, as a consequence of which it was trying to make up the lost time all the way. It was a decidedly rough pa.s.sage, especially on the curves through the rocky walls of "Yankee Jim's Canyon." Even so, however, I reflected that the careening observation car was making a lot better weather of it than did the old _Kentucky Mule_ twenty years before.

Although past the crest of its spring rise by nearly a fortnight, the Yellowstone was considerably higher than the early May stage at which I ran it before. Even glimpsed from the train the Canyon impressed me as having a lot of very rough water--much too rough for a small open boat to run right through. With frequent landing and careful lining, however, it looked quite feasible; indeed, on arrival at Livingston I learned that a couple of men had worked through with a light canoe the previous Sunday. Letting down with a line over the bad places, they took about an hour for the pa.s.sage of the roughest two miles of the Canyon. My jaunt through in and about the _Mule_ was not clocked. Although the liveliness of the action made it seem longer, I doubt if it was much over ten minutes. Nevertheless I was quite content not to have to chance it again, especially as a trial trip for a new type of boat.

Livingston is located at the bend where the Yellowstone, after running north from the Park for fifty miles, breaks from the mountains and begins its long easterly course to the Missouri through a more open valley. This was the point at which Captain Clark, temporarily separated from Lewis on their return journey from the mouth of the Columbia, first saw the upper Yellowstone. He had, of course, pa.s.sed its mouth when proceeding westward by the Missouri the previous year. It was now his purpose to explore the whole length of such of the river as flowed between this point and the Missouri, making rendezvous with Lewis at some point below its mouth. Clark had come from the Three Forks of the Missouri with pack-train, but with the intention of building boats and taking to the river just as soon as trees large enough for their construction could be found. Searching every flat for suitable boat-timber, the party proceeded down the north bank of the river, probably pretty well along the route followed by General Gibbon seventy years later in the campaign against the Sioux which culminated to the Custer Ma.s.sacre on the Little Big Horn.

The previous fall, rapid by rapid, I had run the lower Columbia in the wake of Lewis and Clark. Now I was turning into the trail of the Pathfinders again, this time their home trail. One of the things that I had been antic.i.p.ating above all others was the delight of following that trail to its end, which also had been its beginning--St. Louis. I knew that there was going to be something of Lewis and Clark for me in every mile of the twenty-five hundred--yes, and of many another who had followed in their path. I was not to be disappointed. I only hope I am not going to be boring in telling a little about it. I trust not too much so. Darn it, a man can't be expected to write about bootleggers, and "white mule" and home-brew and ultra-modern inst.i.tutions all the time. Lewis and Clark and the other pioneers of the North-west have always meant a lot to me. I simply can't help mentioning them now and again--but I'll try and strike a balance in the long run.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_By Haynes, St. Paul_

GATE OF THE MOUNTAINS, YELLOWSTONE RIVER]

There was a real thrill in the tablet erected by the D. A. R. near the Livingston railway station commemorating the pa.s.sing of Captain Clark.

Perhaps there will be no fitter place for me to acknowledge to the Daughters of the Revolution my grat.i.tude for many another thrill of the same kind similar monuments of theirs gave me all the way to the end of my journey. Now it was the defence of the stockade at Yankton that was celebrated, now a station of the Pony Express or a crossing of the Santa Fe Trail in Missouri, now a post on some old Indian road at Natchez. Always they were modest and fitting, and always they winged a thrill. I have never met any live Daughters of the Revolution to recognize them, but I am sure from what they have done to make the river way pleasant that they must be eminently kindly folk, like the philanthropists who erect drinking fountains for man and beast and the Burmans who put out little bird-houses in the trees.

Livingston had changed a lot since I had seen it last--that was plain before my train had swung round the long bend and pulled up at the station. The ball ground was gone--pushed right across the river by the growth of the town. Many old landmarks were missing, and the main street, lined with fine new modern buildings, had s.h.i.+fted a whole block west. The shade trees had grown until they arched above the clean, cool streets, now paved from one end of the town to the other. Even the cottonwoods by the river towered higher and bulked bigger with the twenty new rings that the pa.s.sing years had built out from their hearts.

There was a new Post Office and a new railway station. The latter was a handsome, sizable structure, well worthy of the important junction which it served. And yet that station wasn't quite so sizable as certain of the local boosters would have people think. Here, verbatim, is what I read of it in the local Chamber of Commerce publication:

"The Northern Pacific pa.s.senger depot, which is the largest and handsomest structure of the kind on the transcontinental line between its terminals, domiciles a large number of general and division officers and covers 100 miles East, and more than that distance West on two lines and the branch railway North from this city and also the line running South." Very likely that word _covers_ is intended to refer to the jurisdiction of the officials housed in the building, but if that sentence were to be taken literally there is no doubt that the Grand Central, Liverpool Street, the _Gare du Nord_ and a few score more of the world's great terminals might be chucked under those hundred-mile easterly and westerly wings of the Livingston station and never be found again.

Which reminds me that Kipling also found the natives making some pretty big claims for Livingston. Something over thirty years previous to my latest visit he had stopped there over-night on his way to the Yellowstone. He describes it as a little cow-town of about two thousand.

Exhausting its resources in a short stroll, he wandered off among the hills, narrowly to avoid being stepped upon by a herd of stampeding horses. He returned to the town to find it was the night before the Fourth of July, with much carousing and large talking going on. His final comment was: "They raise horses and minerals around Livingston, but they behave as though they raised cherubims with diamonds in their wings."

But this is not the Livingston of the present day, nor even the Livingston that I loved so well twenty years syne. Yes, even then almost the only ruffians and carousers were the imported ball players and editors and "Calamity Jane." The natives were very modest, gentle folk, just as they are today. And they raised several things besides horses and minerals--yea, even cherubims. I remember that distinctly, for it was one named "Bunny," who worked in the telephone office, that knitted me a purple tie which I kept for years--for a trunk-strap. It stretched and stretched and stretched, but never weakened or faded. Expressmen and other vulgar people used to think there was a bride in my party on account of that purple ribbon. Bless your heart, "Bunny!" You'll never know until you read this confession how much besides that rough, red neck of mine you snared in the loop of your purple tie.

The Livingston _Enterprise_ had grown with the town--that was evident from a glance at the first copy to fall into my hands. Quite a metropolitan daily it was, with a.s.sociated Press service, sporting page and regular boiler-plate Fas.h.i.+on Hint stuff from the _Rue de la Paix_.

The Editor, too, was a considerable advance--at least sartorially--over the one I remembered. Phillips proved a mighty engaging chap, though, and didn't seem a bit ashamed over having had me for a predecessor.

People spoke of him to me as an energetic civic and temperance worker, declaring that he had been indefatigable in his efforts to put down drink all over Park County. They called his vigorous editorials on these subjects "Phillipics." They were noted for their jolt.

I modestly a.s.sured him that I couldn't claim to have done a lot for temperance during the time I sat in his chair, but that I _had_ taken an active interest in civic reform. And then, darn him! he took down the year 1901 from the _Enterprise_ file. I had forgotten all about that.

Well, we found a number of columns of right pert comment on local men, women and events and many square feet of baseball write-ups that Phillips seemed highly tickled over; but of civic reform editorials, not a one. Or not quite so bad as that perhaps. It may be that a trenchant leader las.h.i.+ng the munic.i.p.al council for neglecting to build a certain badly needed sidewalk would come in that cla.s.s. It was a sidewalk to the baseball grounds. How well I remember the inspiration for that vitriolic attack on the City Fathers! "Bunny" lost a French-heeled slipper in the Yellowstone gumbo while mincing out to the Helena game and swore she would never appear at the Park again unless it could be done without getting muddied to her knees. "Bunny" was very outspoken for a cherubim.

In those days it took an outspoken girl to mention anything between her shoe-tops and her pompadour.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_By Haynes, St. Paul_

WHERE CUSTER FELL]

I liked Editor Phillips so well that I forthwith asked him to join me for my first day's run down the river. He said he was highly complimented, but that there were a number of reasons why he would not be able to accept. The only one of these I recall was that the water was far _too loosely packed_ between Livingston and Big Timber. Western editors are always picturesque, and Phillips was one of the best of his kind. He mentioned two or three others who might be induced to join me for a day or two. One of these was Joe Evans, curio dealer and trapper.

I am not quite sure whether it was Phillips or some one else who recommended "Buckskin Jim" Cutler as the best hand with a boat on the upper river. It took some groping in my memory to place the name, but finally I found it pigeon-holed as that of the man "Yankee Jim" had spoken of in the same connection twenty years before. I had in mind trying to get in touch with Cutler, but gave up the idea the moment I discovered Pete Holt, former Government Scout and my first guide through the Yellowstone, holding down the job of Chief of Police of Livingston.

Holt's furious pace on ski had resulted in my leaving jagged fragments of cuticle on most of the trees and much of the crust along the Yellowstone Grand Tour. Here was a chance to lead a measure or two of the dance myself. Pete had ideas of his own about the looseness with which the water was packed below Livingston, but was too good a sport to let that interfere with my pleasure. Indeed, he even went out of his way to make his trip official. Two people--a man and a woman--had been drowned in the Yellowstone the previous week. He ordered himself to go in search of them in my boat, hiring Joe Evans, with his canvas canoe, to accompany us as scout and pilot. The arrangement was ideal. Joe knew the best channel--so I took it for granted,--which would leave me nothing to do but trail his wake and manage my new and untried boat.

Holt's hundred and eighty pounds in the stern would give that ballast just where I needed it. The lack of serious responsibilities would give us a chance for a good old yarn while, watching my chances, I could pick favourable riffles and pay back my friend in his own coin the debt of twenty years standing.

It was a great disappointment to find no one of my old baseball team-mates still in Livingston. Jack Mjelde, Captain and second-baseman, had been killed in an electrical accident. That was a typically capricious trick of Fate. As I recall things now, Jack--a family man with a real job, and a legitimate resident of Livingston--was about the most worth preserving of the lot of us. Ed Ray had dropped in and out of town on brake-beams every now and then, and so had two or three others.

Paddy Ryan, pitcher and the gentlest mannered of us all, was believed to be still a bar-keeper--somewhat surrept.i.tiously of course. Riley, the never more than semi-Keeley-cured catcher, had last been heard of over Missoula way, and looking rather fit now that there was a more or less closed season on his favourite quarry--mauve mice.

And so it went. A score or more of old-timers who had seen me play turned up at the hotel, but only one of these brought a real thrill.

That was a husky chap of about thirty, who said he had been admitted to the park once for retrieving a home-run I had swatted over the fence in a game against Anaconda. "Gosh, how you could line 'em out, boy,"

volunteered some one, and grunts of a.s.sent ran back and forth through the crowd. That was all very nice, of course; but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I could have been quite sure that none of them had been present the time we played Red Lodge on Miner's Union Day. This was the morning after the Fireman's Ball of the night before. I believe I could _see_ the ball all right. Indeed, that was just the trouble. I saw too many b.a.l.l.s and couldn't swing my bat against the right one. I struck out three times running. The fourth time up I connected for a mighty wallop, but only to get put out through starting for third base instead of first!

Pete Nelson, Sheriff of my former visit and now State Game Warden, called for me at the hotel and together we strolled down the old main street to the river. We had dubbed it "The-Street-That-is-Called-Straight." Just why I fail to remember, but probably some of us wanted to show his biblical learning. Riley, the Keeley-ed catcher, confessed it never had looked straight to him, and there were times--especially late on the nights we had won games--that I had doubts on that score myself. But if there had been crooks in or upon it in the old days, time had ironed them out. I especially called Nelson's attention to the Northern Pacific station at one end of the vista, the nodding cottonwoods at the other, and the glaring new concrete pavement, stretching straight as a white ribbon, connecting them up.

Pete Nelson sadly called my attention to the manner in which all the gay old palaces of carousal had been converted, and said he reckoned that perhaps every one that had patronized them had undergone the same change. I was also sad, but less optimistic than Pete respecting the increasing purpose of the ages. As we leaned on the rail of the river bridge and gazed at the swift green current I tried to recall those lines of Stevenson's which began:

"Sing me a song of a boy that is gone-- Ah, could that lad be I!"

and which conclude:

"All that was good, all that was fair, All that was me is gone."

I couldn't remember the part that I craved, and so fell back on:

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some divine despair Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more."

That didn't quite do, either, for Tennyson was gazing on fading fields and thinking of Autumn, and I was gazing on budding cottonwoods and thinking of Spring--Spring! And yet it was a Spring that was gone.

"Pete," I said moodily, turning a gloomy eye to the seaward-rus.h.i.+ng flood, "there's a lot of water gone under this bridge never to return, since you and I stood here last." The ex-Sheriff nodded in dreary acquiescence. "And, boy," he remarked with the weariness of the ages in his voice as he rubbed a finger up and down the bridge of a blue, cold nose that I remembered as having once glowed with all the hues of a sunset over the colour-splashed gorge of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone; "boy, water ain't the only thing that's gone never to return."

Arm in arm, as we had navigated "The-Street-That-is-Called-Straight" in ancient of days, we wended our way back town-ward through the gloom-drenched dusk. By devious ways and obscure Pete piloted, stopping every now and then to introduce me to certain friends as the boy who helped Livingston cop the state champeens.h.i.+p twenty years ago. We were treated with great deference all along the way. There was the glint of a twinkle in the ex-Sheriffian eye as Pete delivered me at the hotel.

"That was just to show you, boy, that Gilead is not yet quite drained of Balm," he said, patting me on the back. "Until they give the screw a few more turns, life in little old Livingston will not be entirely without its compensayshuns."

I had dinner and spent the evening with Pete Holt's family, and a mighty wholesome interval it was after an afternoon so wild with old regrets.

Holt had always been a teetotaler, and so, with nothing much to lose, faced an unclouded future. Whether, as Chief of Police, he has ever given those much-dreaded turns to the screws that would crush the last lees of pleasure from sanguine grapes of pain I have never heard. It made me think of Guelph and Ghibelline, this finding my old-time friends thus arrayed against one another. And good old Peter Nelson--I am wondering, when c.o.c.k-crow sounds, if he will be found denying or denied.

"Buckskin Jim" Cutler, premier river man of the upper Yellowstone, came down to Livingston the evening before the morning I had scheduled for my departure. It had been rumoured for a couple of days that he would arrive--some said to respond to a legal summons, others that he had heard I had inquired for him and was hoping to sign on with me for my river voyage. I have never been able to make sure either way. Certainly he had been summoned to court over some dispute with a neighbour, while I have never had definite a.s.surance that he had received any word of my trip. I could not have taken him far in any event, as I had no need of help once my boat was given a thorough trying out.

Cutler's arrival in Livingston was sudden and tragic, as is always the case when the Yellowstone takes a hand in real earnest. My boat had been set up in a blacksmith shop on the river, at the foot of the main street. Going down there just before dinner to make sure that everything was s.h.i.+p-shape for the start on the morrow, I found the place deserted, while there was a considerable gathering of people on the next bridge below. Starting in that direction, I met one of the helpers, breathing hard and deathly white, hurrying back to the deserted shop.

"Mighty hard luck," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed brokenly between breaths. "Man just came down past shop--in river--yelling for help. Didn't hear him till he got by. Half a minute sooner, and I could have yanked out your light boat--all set up--and picked him up. Hear they've just got him down by the next bridge--but 'fraid he's croaked. Cussed hard luck."

They were carrying a man to a waiting auto as I approached the crowd.

"Yep--drowned," I heard some one say; "but he made a h.e.l.l of a fight.

That was old 'Buckskin Jim' to the last kick--always fighting." My glimpse of the rugged face and dripping form was of the briefest, but amply rea.s.suring as to the truth of the statement I had overheard. It was the frame of a man that could put up a h.e.l.l of a fight, and the face of a man who would--a real river-rat if there ever was one.

Next morning's issue of the Livingston _Enterprise_, which bore in the lower left-hand corner of its front page a modest announcement of my departure, on its upper right-hand corner carried a prominently featured account of Jim Cutler's last run on the Yellowstone. As it contains about all I have ever been able to learn in connection with the tragic finish of a character who, in 1901 as in 1921, was recommended to me as the best river hand on the upper Yellowstone, I reproduce the latter in full herewith.