Seventy Years on the Frontier Part 10

The following are to-day the sole survivors of the Jayhawk party of 1849:

John B. Colton, Kansas City, Mo.

Alonzo G. Clay, Galesburg, Ill.

Luther A. Richards, Beaver City, Neb.

Charles B. Mec.u.m, Perry, Iowa.

Urban P. Davidson, Derby, Wyo.

John Groscup, Cahto, Cal.

L. Dow Stevens, San Jose, Cal.

Rev. J. W. Brier and Mrs. J. W. Brier, Lodi City, Cal.

Harrison Frans, Baker City, Ore.

Thomas Shannon, Los Gatos, Cal.

The last reunion of the Jayhawkers was held at the home of Col. John B.

Colton of Kansas City, Mo., just forty-four years after the arrival of the party upon the Pacific Slope.

Of the eleven survivors there were but four able to be present, but the absent ones responded to their invitations with their photographs and letters of good will.

Among the invited guests to meet these old heroes were Col. W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), Col. Frank Hatton of the Was.h.i.+ngton _Post_, General Van Vliet, Capt. E. D. Millet (an old ranger), and the writer, who wishes the remnant of the little hero band may yet live to enjoy a score more of such delightful meetings.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MIRAGES.

About September 1, 1848, on my way from Independence, Mo., to Santa Fe, N. M., I met some of the soldiers of General Donaldson's regiment returning from the Mexican War on the Hornather or dry route, lying between the crossing of the Arkansas and Cimarron. It was about noon when we met. I saw them a considerable distance away. They were on horseback, and when they first appeared, the horses' legs looked to be from fifteen to eighteen feet long, and the body of the horses and the riders upon them presented a remarkable picture, apparently extending into the air, rider and horse, forty-five to sixty feet high. This was my first experience with mirage, and it was a marvel to me.

At the same time I could see beautiful clear lakes of water, apparently not more than a mile away, with all the surroundings in the way of bulrushes and other water vegetation common to the margin of lakes. I would have been willing, at that time, to have staked almost anything upon the fact that I was looking upon lakes of pure water. This was my last experience of the kind until I was returning later on in the season, when one forenoon, as my train was on the march, I beheld just ahead the largest buffalo bull that I ever saw. I stopped the train to keep from frightening the animal away, took the gun out of my wagon, which was in front, and started off to get a shot at the immense fellow, but when I had walked about eighty yards in his direction, I discovered that it was nothing more nor less than a little coyote, which would not have weighed more than thirty pounds upon the scales.

The person who imagines for a minute that there is nothing in the great desert wastes of the Southwest but sand, cacti, and villainous reptiles is deluded. It is one of the most common fallacies to write down these barren places as devoid of beauty and usefulness. The rhymester who made Robinson Crusoe exclaim, "Oh, solitude, where are the charms that sages have seen in thy face?" never stood on a sand-dune or a pile of volcanic rock in this Southwestern country just at the break of day or as the sun went down, else the rhyme would never have been made to jingle.

To one who has never seen the famous mirages which Dame Nature paints with a lavish hand upon the horizon that bounds an Arizona desert, it is difficult to convey an intelligent portrait of these magnificent phenomena. And one who has looked upon these incomparable transformation scenes, the t.i.tanic paintings formed by nature's curious slight-of-hand, can never forget them. They form the memories of a lifetime.

Arizona is rich in mirage phenomena, which, owing to the peculiar dryness of the atmosphere, are more vivid and of longer duration than in other parts. The variety of subjects which from time to time have been presented likewise gives them an unusual interest. Almost every one who has lived in the Territory any length of time, and one who has merely pa.s.sed through, especially on the Southern Pacific Route, is familiar with the common water mirage which appears at divers places along the railroad. The most common section in which this phenomenon may be seen is between Tucson and Red Rock, and through the entire stretch of the Salton Basin from Ogilby to Indio.

Here in the early morning or in the late afternoon, if the atmospheric conditions be right, lakes, river, and lagoons of water can be seen from the train windows. Ofttimes the s.h.i.+mmering surface is dotted with tiny islands, and the shadows of umbrageous foliage are plainly seen reflected in the supposed water; yet an investigation shows nothing but long rods of sand-drifts or saline deposits.

Animals as well as men are deceived by these freaks of the atmosphere.

Many instances are recorded where whole bands of cattle have rushed from the grazing grounds across the hot parched plains in pursuit of the constantly retreating water phantom, until they perish from exhaustion, still in sight of running brooks and surging springs. Prior to the advent of the railroad through this region, when overland pa.s.sengers pa.s.sed by on the old Yuma road to San Diego, scores of adventurous spirits perished in chasing this illusive phantom. It is said that one entire company of soldiers was thus inveigled from the highway and perished to a man.

One of the most interesting sights of this cla.s.s is to be seen almost any time of the year in Mohave County, down in the region of the Big Sandy. Here for leagues upon leagues the ground is strewn with volcanic matter and basalt. It is one of the hottest portions of the continent, and except in the winter months it is almost unendurable by man or beast.

At a point where the main road from the settlements on the Colorado to Kingman turns toward the east, there are a number of volcanic b.u.t.tes. At these b.u.t.tes just before sunrise the famous cantilever bridge which spans the Colorado River near the Needles, seventy miles distant, is plainly visible, together with the moving trains and crew. The train has the appearance of being perhaps an eighth of a mile distant, and every motion on board, the smoke, the escaping steam, are as natural and vivid as though not a hundred yards away.

At this same point huge mountains are seen to lift themselves up bodily and squat down again in the highway. Near these b.u.t.tes, which are known as the Evil Ones, away back in the sixties a small force of cavalry was making its way from Fort Yuma to Fort Whipple. Owing to the extreme heat during the day, and as a further precaution against the hostile Indians, they were obliged to march at night, finding shelter in some mountain canon during the day.

Shortly after daybreak, as they were preparing to go into camp, a whole legion of painted devils appeared on their front and hardly a quarter of a mile distant. The troops were thrown into confusion, and an order was immediately given to break ranks, and every man concealed himself behind the rocks, awaiting the attack which all felt must necessarily end in ma.s.sacre.

For some minutes the Indians were seen to parley and gesticulate with each other, but they gave no signs of having noticed their hereditary foe. The unhappy troopers, however, were not kept in suspense long. As the great red disk of the day began to mount slowly up over the adjoining mountains, the redskins vanished as noiselessly and as suddenly as they had appeared.

Used as they were to treachery, and fearing some uncanny trick, the soldiers maintained their position throughout the long hot day, nor did they attempt to move until late in the night. Some weeks later it was learned from captives that on that very morning a band of nearly one thousand Chinhuevas and Wallapais were lying in wait for this same command but ninety miles up the river, expecting the soldiers by that route.

The most remarkable of all the mirages which have been witnessed in Arizona, at least by white man's eyes, was seen some years ago by an entire train-load of pa.s.sengers on the Southern Pacific Railroad, near the small eating station of Maricopa, thirty-five miles below Phoenix.

The train was due at the eating station at 6.30 A. M.

At 6.15 o'clock it stopped at a small water-tank a few miles east.

During this stop the trainmen and such of the pa.s.sengers as were awake were amazed to see spring out of the ground on the sky a magnificent city. The buildings were of the old Spanish and Morisco architecture, and were mostly adobe. s.p.a.cious court-yards lay before the astonished lookers-on, filled with all varieties of tropical fruits and vegetation.

Men and women clothed in the picturesque garbs of Old Spain were seen hurrying along the narrow, irregular streets to the princ.i.p.al edifice, which had the appearance of a church. Had the astonished spectators been picked up bodily and landed in one of the provincial towns of Seville or Andalusia, they would not have seen a more dazzling array of stately senoras and laughing black-eyed _muchachas_ of the land of forever _manana_.

But the vision lasted much less time than it takes to write of the strange occurrence. It vanished as mysteriously as it came. Of course all of the hysterical women fainted. That is one of woman's prerogatives, in lieu of an explanation.

This phenomenon remained unsolved for two or three years. About that time, after the mirage was seen, a young civil engineer who was among the witnesses was engaged on the Gulf coast survey from the headwaters below Yuma to Guaymas. In the course of his labors he found himself at the old Mexican pueblo of Altar, and there he saw the original of the picture in the sky seen three years before near Maricopa Station. The distance, as a buzzard flies, from Maricopa to Altar is more than a hundred miles.

The native tribes are very superst.i.tious concerning the mirage, and when one is once observed, that locality receives a wide berth in the future.

In the secluded Jim-Jam Valley of the San Bernardino Mountains there are the most marvelous mirages known to the world. The wonderful mirages of the Mojave Desert have been talked about a great deal, and they are ent.i.tled to all the prominence they have had. But those of the Jim-Jam Valley are far more wonderful than these.

It is called Jim-Jam Valley because of the strange things seen there, and I defy any man, however sound of mind he may be, to go in there and not think he has "got 'em" before he gets out.

This valley is about twenty-five miles long by fifteen miles wide. It is uninhabited. It is bordered by the main San Bernardino range on the east, and by a spur of the Sierra Magdalenas on the west. There is no well-defined trail through the heart of it. The valley is a desert. The surrounding mountains are terribly serrated and cut up. The peaks are jagged. Altogether the surroundings are weird and forbidding.

Leaving Fisk's ranch on the trail at the foot of the Sierra Magdalenas, you climb an easy grade to Dead Man's Pa.s.s, the entrance to the valley.

Go in, and pretty soon you see lakes, and running rivers, and green borders, and flying water-fowl. Willows spring up here and there, and in the distance you see water-lilies.

What you behold contrasts finely with the rugged mountains, and you are charmed with it, and go on thinking you have struck an earthly paradise.

Indian camps appear in view, and little oarsmen propel fantastic crafts upon the waters. Advancing still farther, dimly outlined forms may be seen, and the pantomime reminds you of a strange hobgoblin dance.

Sometimes a storm brews in the valley, and then the scene is all the more terrible. Forked lightning blazes about, and strange, uncouth animals, differing from any you have ever read about, are to be seen there.

These phenomena are seen for a stretch of about fifteen miles, up and down the middle of the valley princ.i.p.ally, and they have been viewed by a great many people. They can not understand why the forms of the mirage, if such it may be called, are so much more strange there than on the Mojave Desert.

Everybody is in awe of the valley, and there are mighty few men, however nervy they may be ordinarily, who care to go there a second time.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FIRST STAGE INTO DENVER.

In the winter of 1858, while my partner, Mr. W. H. Russell, John S.

Jones, a citizen of Pettis County, Mo., and myself were all in Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., which was about the time that the Pike's Peak excitement was at its highest pitch, Messrs. Jones and Russell conceived the idea (I do not know from which one it emanated), and concluded to put a line of daily coaches in operation between the Missouri River and Denver City, when Denver was but a few months old. They came to me with the proposition to take hold of the enterprise with them.

I told them I could not consent to do so, for it would be impossible to make such a venture, at such an early period of development of this country, a paying inst.i.tution, and urgently advised them to let the enterprise alone, for the above stated reasons. They, however, paid no attention to my protest, and went forward with their plans, bought 1,000 fine Kentucky mules and a sufficient number of Concord coaches to supply a daily coach each way between the Missouri River and Denver. At that time Leavenworth was the starting point on the Missouri. A few months later, however, they made Atchison the eastern terminus of the line and Denver the western.