Seventy Years on the Frontier Part 13

"Yes," he said, "I was a pony express rider in 1860, and went out with Bol Roberts (one of the best men that ever lived), and I tell you it was no picnic. No amount of money could tempt me to repeat my experience of those days. To begin with, we had to build willow roads (corduroy fas.h.i.+on) across many places along the Carson River, carrying bundles of willows two and three hundred yards in our arms, while the mosquitoes were so thick it was difficult to discern whether the man was white or black, so thickly were they piled on his neck, face, and hands.

"Arriving at the Sink of the Carson River, we began the erection of a fort to protect us from the Indians. As there were no rocks or logs in that vicinity, the fort was built of adobes, made from the mud on the sh.o.r.es of the lake. To mix this mud and get it the proper consistency to mold into adobes (dried brick), we tramped around all day in it in our bare feet. This we did for a week or more, and the mud being strongly impregnated with alkali (carbonate of soda), you can imagine the condition of our feet. They were much swollen, and resembled hams.

Before that time I wore No. 6 boots, but ever since then No. 9s fit me snugly.

"This may, in a measure, account for Bob Haslam's selection of a residence in Chicago, as he helped us make the adobes, and the size of his feet would thereafter be less noticeable there than elsewhere.

"We next built a fort of stone at Sand Springs, twenty-five miles from Carson Lake, and another at Cold Springs, thirty-seven miles east of Sand Springs.

"At the latter station I was a.s.signed to duty as a.s.sistant station-keeper, under Jim McNaughton. The war against the Piute Indians was then at its height, and we were in the middle of the Piute country, which made it necessary for us to keep a standing guard night and day.

The Indians were often seen skulking around, but none of them ever came near enough for us to get a shot at them, till one dark night, when I was on guard, I noticed one of our horses p.r.i.c.k up his ears and stare. I looked in the direction indicated and saw an Indian's head projecting above the wall.

"My instructions were to shoot if I saw an Indian within shooting distance, as that would wake the boys quicker than anything else; so I fired and missed my man.

"Later on we saw the Indian camp-fires on the mountain, and in the morning saw many tracks. They evidently intended to stampede our horses, and if necessary kill us. The next day one of our riders, a Mexican, rode into camp with a bullet hole through him from the left to the right side, having been shot by Indians while coming down Edwards Creek, in the Quakenasp bottom. This he told us as we a.s.sisted him off his horse.

He was tenderly cared for, but died before surgical aid could reach him.

"As I was the lightest man at the station, I was ordered to take the Mexican's place on the route. My weight was then 100 pounds, while now I weigh 230. Two days after taking the route, on my return trip, I had to ride through the forest of quakenasp trees where the Mexican had been shot. A trail had been cut through these little trees, just wide enough to allow horse and rider to pa.s.s. As the road was crooked and the branches came together from either side, just above my head when mounted, it was impossible to see ahead more than ten or fifteen yards, and it was two miles through the forest.

"I expected to have trouble, and prepared for it by dropping my bridle reins on the neck of the horse, put my Sharp's rifle at full c.o.c.k, kept both spurs into the flanks, and he went through that forest like a 'streak of greased lightning.'

"At the top of the hill I dismounted to rest my horse, and looking back, saw the bushes moving in several places. As there were no cattle or game in that vicinity, I knew the movements must be caused by Indians, and was more positive of it when, after firing several shots at the spot where I saw the bushes moving, all agitation ceased. Several days after that, two United States soldiers, who were on their way to their command, were shot and killed from the ambush of those bushes, and stripped of their clothing, by the red devils.

"One of my rides was the longest on the route. I refer to the road between Cold Springs and Sand Springs, thirty-seven miles, and not a drop of water. It was on this ride that I made a trip which possibly gave to our company the contract for carrying the mail by stage-coach across the plains, a contract that was largely subsidized by Congress.

"One day I trotted into Sand Springs covered with dust and perspiration.

Before reaching the station I saw a number of men running toward me, all carrying rifles, and as I supposed they took me for an Indian, I stopped and threw up my hands. It seemed they had a spy-gla.s.s in camp, and recognizing me had come to the conclusion I was being run in by Piutes and were coming to my rescue.

"Bob Haslam was at the station, and in less than one minute relieved me of my mail-pouch and was flying westward over the plains. Some of the boys had several fights with Indians, but they did not trouble us as much as we expected; personally I only met them once face to face. I was rounding a bend in the mountains, and before I knew it, was in a camp of Piute Indians. Buffalo Jim, the chief, came toward me alone. He spoke good English, and when within ten yards of me I told him to stop, which he did, and told me he wanted 'tobac' (tobacco). I gave him half I had, but the old fellow wanted it all, and I finally refused to give him any more; he then made another step toward me, saying that he wanted to look at my gun. I pulled the gun out of the saddle-hock and again told him to stop. He evidently saw that I meant business, for, with a wave of his hand, he said: 'All right, you pooty good boy; you go.' I did not need a second order, and quickly as possible rode out of their presence, looking back, however, as long as they were in sight, and keeping my rifle handy.

"As I look back on those times I often wonder that we were not all killed. A short time before, Major Ormsby of Carson City, in command of seventy-five or eighty men, went to Pyramid Lake to give battle to the Piutes, who had been killing emigrants and prospectors by the wholesale.

Nearly all the command were killed in a running fight of sixteen miles.

In the fight Major Ormsby and the lamented Harry Meredith were killed.

Another regiment of about seven hundred men, under the command of Col.

Daniel E. Hungerford and Jack Hayes, the noted Texas ranger, was raised.

Hungerford was the beau ideal of a soldier, the hero of three wars, and one of the best tacticians of his time. This command drove the Indians pell-mell for three miles to Mud Lake, killing and wounding them at every jump. Colonel Hungerford and Jack Hayes received, and were ent.i.tled to, great praise, for at the close of the war terms were made which have kept the Indians peaceable ever since. Jack Hayes died several years since in Alameda, Cal. Colonel Hungerford, at the ripe age of seventy years, is hale and hearty, enjoying life and resting on his laurels in Italy, where he resides with his granddaughter, the Princess Colona.

"As previously stated, it is marvelous that the pony boys were not all killed. There were only four men at each station, and the Indians, who were then hostile, roamed all over the country in bands of 30 to 100.

"What I consider my most narrow escape from death was being shot at one night by a lot of fool emigrants, who, when I took them to task about it on my return trip, excused themselves by saying, 'We thought you was an Indian.'

"I want to say one good word for our bosses, Messrs. Russell, Majors & Waddell. The boys had the greatest veneration for them because of their general good treatment at their hands. They were different in many respects from all other freighters on the plains, who, as a cla.s.s, were boisterous, blasphemous, and good patrons of the bottle, while Russell, Majors & Waddell were G.o.d-fearing, religious, and temperate themselves, and were careful to engage none in their employ who did not come up to their standard of morality.

"Calf-bound Bibles were distributed by them to every employe. The one given to me was kept till 1881, and was then presented to Ionic Lodge No. 35, A. F. & A. M., at Leadville, Colo.

"The Pony Express was a great undertaking at the time, and was the foundation of the mail-coach and railroad that quickly followed."

During the war J. G. Kelley was commissioned by Gov. James W. Nye as captain of Company C, Nevada Infantry, and served till the end of the war, after which he resumed his old business of mining, and is still engaged in it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BATTLE OF THE BUFFALOES.

It was the afternoon of a day in early summer, along in 1859, when we found ourselves drifting in a boat down the Missouri. The morning broke with a drizzling rain, out of a night that had been tempestuous, with a fierce gale, heavy thunder, and unusually terrific lightning. Gradually the rain stopped, and we had gone but a short distance when the clouds broke away, the sun shone forth, and the earth appeared glistening with a new beauty. Ahead of us appeared, high up on the bluffs, a clump of trees and bushes.

As we drew near, a sudden caprice seized us, and shooting our boat up on the shelving bank, we secured it, and then climbed the steep embankment.

We intended to knock around in the brush a little while, and then resume our trip. A fine specimen of an eagle caught our eye, perched high up on the dead bough of a tree.

Moving around to get a good position to pick him off with my rifle, so that his body would not be torn, I caught sight through an opening of the trees of an immense herd of buffaloes, browsing and moving slowly in our direction. We moved forward a little to get a better view of the herd, when the eagle, unaware to us, spread his pinions, and when we looked again for him he was soaring at a safe distance from our rifles.

We were on the leeward side of the herd, and so safe from discovery, if we took ordinary precaution, among the trees. It was a fine spectacle which they presented, and, what was more, we were in just the mood to watch them. The land undulated, but was covered for many acres with minute undulations of dark-brown shoulders slowly drifting toward us. We could hear the rasping sound which innumerable mouths made chopping the crisp gra.s.s. As we looked, our ears caught a low, faint, rhythmical sound, borne to us from afar.

We listened intently. The sound grew more distinct, until we could recognize the tread of another herd of buffaloes coming from an opposite direction.

We skulked low through the undergrowth, and came to the edge of the wooded patch just in time to see the van of this new herd surmounting a hill. The herd was evidently spending its force, having already run for miles. It came with a lessening speed, until it settled down to a comfortable walk.

About the same time the two herds discovered each other. Our herd was at first a little startled, but after a brief inspection of the approaching ma.s.s, the work of clipping the gra.s.s of the prairies was resumed. The fresh arrivals came to a standstill, and gazed at the thousands of their fellows, who evidently had preempted their grazing grounds. Apparently they reached the conclusion that that region was common property, for they soon lowered their heads and began to shave the face of the earth of its green growths.

The s.p.a.ce separating the herds slowly lessened. The outermost fringes touched but a short distance from our point of observation. It was not like the fringes of a lady's dress coming in contact with the lace drapery of a window, I can a.s.sure you. Nothing so soft and sibilant as that. It was more like the fringes of freight engines coming in contact with each other when they approach with some momentum on the same track.

The powerful bulls had unwittingly found themselves in close proximity to each other, coming from either herd. Suddenly shooting up from the sides of the one whose herd was on the ground first, flumes of dirt made graceful curves in the air. They were the signals for hostilities to commence. The hoofs of the powerful beast were a.s.sisted by his small horns, which dug the sod and tossed bunches that settled out of the air in his s.h.a.ggy mane.

These belligerent demonstrations were responded to in quite as defiant a fas.h.i.+on by the late arrival. He, too, was an enormous affair. We noticed his unusual proportions of head. But his shoulders, with their great manes, were worth displaying to excite admiration and awe at their possibilities, if they could do nothing more.

Unquestionably the two fellows regarded themselves as representative of their different herds, the one first on the ground viewing the other as an interloper, and he in his turn looking upon the former as reigning, because no one had the spirit to contest his supremacy and show him where he belonged. They sidled up near each other, their heads all the while kept low to the ground, and their eyes red with anger and rolling in fiery fury. This display of the preliminaries of battle drew the attention of an increasing number from either herd. At first they would look up, then recommence their eating, and then direct their attention more intensely as the combatants began to measure their strength more closely. And when the fight was on they became quite absorbed in the varying fortunes of the struggle.

At last the two huge fellows, after a good deal of circ.u.mlocution, made the grand rush. I reckon it would be your everlasting fortune if one of you college fellows who play football had the force to make the great rush which either one of these animals presented. The collision was straight and square. A crash of horns, a heavy, dull thud of heads. We thought surely the skull of one or the other, or possibly both, was crushed in. But evidently they were not even hurt.

Didn't they push then? Well, I guess they did. The force would have shoved an old-fas.h.i.+oned barn from its foundations. The muscles swelled up on the thighs, the hoofs sank into the earth, but they were evenly matched.

For a moment there was a mutual cessation of hostilities to get breath.

Then they came together with a more resounding crash than before.

Instantly we perceived that the meeting of the heads was not square. The new champion had the best position. Like a flash he recognized it and redoubled his efforts to take its full advantage. The other appeared to quadruple his efforts to maintain himself in position, and his muscles bulged out, but his antagonist made a sudden move which wrenched his head still farther off the line, when he went down on his knees. That settled the contest, for his enemy was upon him before he could recover.

He was thrown aside and his flank raked by several ugly upward thrusts of his foe, which left him torn and bruised, all in a heap. As quick as he could get on his feet he limped, crestfallen, away.

The victorious fellow lashed his small tail, tossed his head, and moved in all the pride of his contest up and down through the ranks of his adversary's herd. How exultant he was! We took it to be rank impudence, and though he had exhibited some heroic qualities of strength and daring, it displeased us to see him take on so many airs on account of his victory.

But his conquest of the field was not yet entirely complete. As he strode proudly along his progress was stopped by a loud snort, and, looking aside, he saw a fresh challenge. There, standing out in full view, was another bull, a monster of a fellow belonging to his late enemy's herd. He pawed the earth with great strokes and sent rockets of turf curving high in air, some of which sifted its fine soil down upon the nose of the victor.

As we looked at this new challenger and took in his immense form, we chuckled with the a.s.surance that the haughty fellow would now have some decent humility imposed upon him. The conqueror himself must have been impressed with the formidableness of his new antagonist, for there was a change in his demeanor at once. Of course, according to a well-established buffalo code, he could do nothing but accept the challenge.

s.p.a.ce was cleared as the two monsters went through their gyrations, their tossings of earth, their las.h.i.+ngs of tail, their snorts and their low bellows. This appeared to them a more serious contest than the former, if we could judge from the length of the introductory part. They took more time before they settled down to business. We were of the opinion that the delay was caused by the champion, who resorted to small arts to prolong the preliminaries. We watched it all with the most excited interest. It had all the thrilling features of a Spanish bull-fight without the latter's degradation of man. Here was the level of nature. Here the true buffalo instincts with their native temper were exhibiting themselves in the most emphatic and vigorous fas.h.i.+on. It was the buffalo's trial of nerve, strength, and skill. Numberless as must have been these tournaments, in which the champions of different herds met to decide which was superior, in the long ages during which the buffalo kingdom reigned supreme over the vast western prairies of the United States, yet few had ever been witnessed by man. We were looking upon a spectacle rare to human eyes, and I confess that I was never more excited than when this last trial reached its climax. It was a question now whether the champion should still hold his position. It stimulates one more when he thinks of losing what he has seized than when he thinks of failing to grasp that which he has never possessed. Undoubtedly both of these animals had this same feeling, for as we looked at this latest arrival, we about concluded that he was the real leader, and not the other that limped away vanquished.

While these and other thoughts were pa.s.sing through our minds, the two mighty contestants squared and made a tremendous plunge for each other.

What a shock was that! What a report rolled on the air! The earth fairly shook with the terrific concussion of buffalo brains, and both burly fellows went down on their knees. Both, too, were on their feet the same instant, and locked horns with the same swiftness and skill, and each bore down on the other with all the power he could summon. The cords stood out like great ropes on their necks; the muscles on thighs and hips rose like huge welts. We were quite near these fellows and could see the roll of their blood-red fiery eyes. They braced and shoved with perfectly terrible force. The froth began to drip in long strings from their mouths. The erstwhile victor slipped with one hind foot slightly.

His antagonist felt it and instantly swung a couple of inches forward, which raised the unfortunate buffalo's back, and we expected every instant that he would go down. But he had a firm hold and he swung his antagonist back to his former position, where they were both held panting, their tongues lolling out.