Part 7

The superintendent of this division, Mr. Fuller, had a narrow escape day before yesterday. He was riding his mule along our road, utterly unconscious of danger, when a herd of buffalo north of the road were stampeded by an emigrant train, and set off full gallop in a south-westerly direction, as usual. A slight ridge hid them from Mr. F.’s sight till their leader came full tilt against his mule, knocking him down, and going over him at full speed. Mr. F. of course fell with the dying mule, and I presume lay very snug by his side while the buffaloes made a clear sweep over the concern—he firing his revolver rapidly, and thus inducing many of the herd to shear off on one side or the other. He rose stunned and bruised, but still able to make his way to the station—with an increased respect for buffalo, I fancy, and a disposition to give them a reasonably wide berth hereafter. But he has gone out this morning in quest of the mired coach, and our waiting for his return gives me this chance to write without encroaching on the hours due to sleep.

Two nights ago, an immense herd came down upon a party of Pike’s Peakers camped just across the creek from this station, and, (it being dark) were with difficulty prevented from trampling down tents, cattle, and people. Some fifty shots were fired into them before they could be turned. And now our station-master has just taken his gun to scare them off so as to save our mules from a stampede.

But the teams have returned with the missing coach, and I must break off and pack to go on.

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STATION, 15, PRAIRIE-DOG CREEK, _May 31, evening_.

We have made fifty-five miles since we started about nine this morning, and our present encampment is on a creek running to the Republican, so that we have bidden a final adieu to Solomon’s Fork, and all other affluents of the Smoky Hill branch of the Kansas. We traveled on the “divide” between this and the northern branch of the Kansas for some miles to-day, and finally came over to the waters of that stream (the Republican), which we are to strike some eighty miles further on. We are now just half way from Leavenworth to Denver, and our coach has been a week making this distance; so that with equal good fortune we may expect to reach the land of gold in another week. The coaches we met here to-night have been just a week on the way, having (like us) lost a day, but not, like us, by high water: their bother was with wild Indians—Arapahoes mainly—whom they report to be in great numbers on our route—not hostile to us, but intent on begging or stealing, and stopping the wagons peremptorily till their demands are complied with. They are at war with the Pawnees, and most of their men are now on the war-path; their women and children are largely camped around the Express Company’s Stations, living as they best may. The Pawnees, I believe, are mainly or entirely south of our road. The Arapahoes boast of triumphs and slaughters which I am tempted to hope, have been or will be reciprocated. Indian wars with each other are, in our day, cruel and cowardly plundering forays, fitted to excite only disgust.

As we left Station 14 this morning, and rose from the creek bottom to the high prairie, a great herd of buffalo were seen in and around our road, who began to run first north, then south, many standing as if confused and undecided which course to take, and when at last they all started southward, we were so near them that our driver stopped his mules to let the immense impetuous herd pass without doing us any harm. Our sportsman’s Sharp was not loaded at the time; it afterward was, and fired into a herd at fair distance, but I did not see anything drop. After this, they were seen in greater or less numbers on the ridges and high prairie, mainly south of us, but they either kept a respectful distance or soon took one. We have not seen one for the last twenty-five miles; but they are now considerably further this way than they were a few days since; and as every foot of the way thus far, and (I hear) further, is carpeted with buffalo-grass, not here eaten down, and as buffalo-paths and other evidences that this is their favorite feeding-ground are everywhere present, I presume they will be here in the course of a week. But enough of them. And let me here proffer my acknowledgments to sundry other quadrupeds with whom I have recently formed a passing acquaintance.

The prairie-wolf was the first of these gentry to pay his respects to us. He is a sneaking, cowardly little wretch, of a dull or dirty white color, much resembling a small, short-bodied dog set up on pretty long legs. I believe his only feat entitling him to rank as a beast of prey consists in sometimes, when hard pressed by hunger, digging out a prairie-dog and making a meal of him. His usual provender is the carcass—no matter how putrid—of any dead buffalo, mule, or ox that he may find exposed on the prairies. He is a paltry creature.

But the gray-wolf—who is also a denizen of the prairies—(I think we have seen at least a dozen of the species to-day)—is a scoundrel of much more imposing caliber. He delights to lurk around the outskirts of a herd of buffalo, keeping out of sight and unsuspected in the ravines and creek-timber, so far as possible; and wo to the unlucky calf that strays (which he seldom does) outside of the exterior line of defence formed by the bulls. If very large and hungry, the gray-wolf will sometimes manage to cut a cow off from the herd, and, interposing between her and her companions, detain or drive her further away, until she is beyond the hope of rescue, when her doom is sealed. His liveliest hope, however, is that of finding a buffalo whom some hunter has wounded, so that he cannot keep up with the herd, especially should it be stampeded. Let him once get such a one by himself, and a few snaps at his hamstrings, taking excellent care to keep out of the way of his horns, insures that the victim will have ceased to be a buffalo, and become mere wolf-meat before another morning.

It is impossible for a stranger to the prairies to realize the impudence of these prairie-lawyers. Of some twenty of them that I have seen within the last two days, I think not six have really run from us. One that we saw just before us, two hours ago, kept on his way across the prairie, stopping occasionally to take a good look at us, but not hurrying himself in the least on our account, though for some minutes within good rifle range. Once to-day, our superintendent sent a ball after one who was making very deliberate time away from us, hitting him in a quarter where the compliment should have expedited his movements; but it did not seem to have that effect. It is very common for these wolves to follow at night a man traveling the road on a mule, not making any belligerent demonstrations, but waiting for whatever may turn up. Sometimes the express-wagons have been followed in this way, but I think that unusual. But this creature is up to any thing wherein there is a chance for game.

The prairie-dog is the funny fellow of these parts—frisky himself, and a source of merriment to others. He dens in villages or towns, on any dry, grassy ground—usually on the dryest part of the high prairie—and his hole is superficially a very large ant-hill, with the necessary orifice in its center. On this ant-hill sits the proprietor—a chunky little fellow, in size between a gray squirrel and a rabbit—say about half a woodchuck. When we approach, he raises the cry of danger—no bark at all, but something between the piping of a frog on a warm spring evening, and the noise made by a very young puppy—then drops into his hole and is silent and invisible. The holes are not very regularly placed, but some thirty feet apart; and when I say that I believe we have to-day passed within sight of at least three square miles of these holes, the reader can guess how many of these animals must exist here, even supposing that there is usually but one to each hole. I judge that there cannot be less than a hundred square miles of prairie-dog towns within the present buffalo-range.

That the prairie-dog and the owl—of a small, brown-backed, white-bellied species—do live harmoniously in the same hole I know, for I have seen it. I presume the owl pays for his lodgings like a gentleman, probably by turning in some provisions toward the supply of the common table. If so, this is the most successful example of industrial and household association yet furnished. That the rattlesnake is ever admitted as a third partner, I indignantly deny. No doubt he has been found in the prairie-dog’s home—it would be just like him to seek so cozy a nest—but he doubtless entered like a true border-ruffian, and contrived to make himself a deal more free than welcome. Politeness, or (if you please) prudence, may have induced the rightful owner to submit to a joint tenancy at will—the will of the tenant, not that of the rightful landlord—but no consent was ever given, unless under constraint of that potent logic which the intruder carries in his head, and warning whereof proceeds from the tip of his tail.

Of antelope, I have seen many, but not so near at hand as I could wish. I defer speaking of them, in the hope of a better acquaintance.

A word now of the face of the country:

For more than a hundred miles back, I have seen no stone, and think there is none, except at a great depth. Solomon’s fork, where we left its vicinity, is now a stream two rods wide, running but four to six inches of water over a bed of pure sand, at a depth of some three or four hundred feet below the high prairie level of the country. I infer that there is no rock in place for at least that depth. The subsoil of the prairies is generally a loamy clay, resting on a bed of sand. The violent though not frequent rains of this region form sheets of water, which rush down the slopes into the water-courses, which they rapidly swell into torrents, which, meeting no resistance from rocks or roots of trees, are constantly deepening or widening the ravines which run down to the creeks on every side. These gullies or gorges have originally steep, perpendicular banks, over which, in times of heavy rain, sheets of water go tumbling and roaring into the bottom of the ravines, washing down the sodden, semi-liquid banks, and sending them to thicken the waters of the Kansas and the Missouri. Thus the prairie, save some narrow, irregular ridges, or “divides,” is gradually scooped and worn into broader or narrower valleys, some of which have three or four little precipices at intervals up their sides, where they formerly had but one, and will eventually have none. For still the soil is washing away and running off to the Gulf of Mexico; and if this country should ever be cultivated, the progress of this disaster would be materially accelerated. It needs to be timbered before it can be fit for the habitation of civilized man. But still a few low cotton-woods and elms along the margins of the larger streams—not a cord of wood in all to each square mile—are all the timber that is to be seen. I hear of some poor oak on the broader streams, and an occasional white-ash, but do not see them.

The prairie-wind shaking the wagon so that I write in it with difficulty, bespeaks a storm at hand. Adieu!

IX. THE AMERICAN DESERT.

STATION 18, P. P. EXPRESS CO., _June 2_.

The clouds, which threatened rain at the station on Prairie-Dog Creek, whence I wrote two days ago, were dissipated by a violent gale, which threatened to overturn the heavy wagon in which my fellow-passengers and I were courting sleep—had it stood broadside to the wind, it must have gone over. It is customary, I learn, to stake down the wagons encamped on the open prairie; in the valleys of the creeks, where the company’s stations are located, this precaution is deemed superfluous. But the winds which sweep the high prairies of this region are terrible; and the few trees that grow thinly along the creek-bottoms rarely venture to raise their heads above the adjacent bluffs, to which they owe their doubtful hold on existence.

For more than a hundred miles back, the soil has been steadily degenerating, until here, where we strike the Republican, which has been far to the north of us since we left it at Fort Riley, three hundred miles back, we seem to have reached the acme of barrenness and desolation. We left this morning, Station 17, on a little creek entitled Gouler, at least thirty miles back, and did not see a tree and but one bunch of low shrubs in a dry water-course throughout our dreary morning ride, till we came in sight of the Republican, which has a little—a very little—scrubby cotton-wood nested in and along its bluffs just here; but there is none beside for miles, save a little lurking in a ravine which makes down to the river from the north. Of grass there is little, and that little of miserable quality—either a scanty furze or coarse alkaline sort of rush, less fit for food than physic. Soil there is none but an inch or so of intermittent grass-root tangle, based on what usually seems to be a thin stratum of clay, often washed off so as to leave nothing but a slightly argillaceous sand. Along the larger water-courses—this one especially—this sand seems to be as pure as Sahara can boast.

The dearth of water is fearful. Although the whole region is deeply seamed and gullied by water-courses—now dry, but in rainy weather mill-streams—no springs burst from their steep sides. We have not passed a drop of living water in all our morning’s ride, and but a few pailfuls of muddy moisture at the bottoms of a very few of the fast-drying sloughs or sunken holes in the beds of dried-up creeks. Yet there has been much rain here this season, some of it not long ago. But this is a region of sterility and thirst. If utterly unfed, the grass of a season would hardly suffice, when dry, to nourish a prairie-fire.

Even the animals have deserted us. No buffalo have been seen this year within many miles of us, though their old paths lead occasionally across this country; I presume they pass rapidly through it, as I should urgently advise them to do; not a gray-wolf has honored us with his company to-day—he prefers to live where there is something to eat—the prairie-dog also wisely shuns this land of starvation; no animal but the gopher (a little creature, between a mouse and a ground-squirrel) abounds here; and he burrows deep in the sand and picks up a living, I cannot guess how; while a few hawks and an occasional prairie-wolf (cayota) lives by picking here and there a gopher. They must find him disgustingly lean.

I would match this station and its surroundings against any other scene on our continent for desolation. From the high prairie over which we approach it, you overlook a grand sweep of treeless desert, through the middle of which flows the Republican, usually in several shallow streams separated by sandbars or islets—its whole volume being far less than that of the Mohawk at Utica, though it has drained above this point an area equal to that of Connecticut. Of the few scrubby cotton-woods lately cowering under the bluffs at this point, most have been cut for the uses of the station, though logs for its embryo house are drawn from a little clump, eight miles distant. A broad bed of sand indicates that the volume of water is sometimes a hundred-fold its present amount, though it will doubtless soon be far less than it now is. Its average depth cannot now exceed six inches. On every hand, and for many miles above and below, the country above the bluffs is such as we have passed over this morning. A dead mule—bitten in the jaw this morning by a rattlesnake—lies here as if to complete the scene. Off the five weeks old track to Pike’s Peak, all is dreary solitude and silence.

Speaking of rattlesnakes—I hasten to retract the skepticism avowed in a former letter as to the usual and welcome residence of these venomous serpents in the prairie-dog’s burrow. The evidence of the fact is too direct and reliable to be gainsayed. A credible witness testifies that he and others once undertook to drown out a prairie-dog in his domicil, and, when sufficient water had been rapidly poured in, out came a prairie-dog, an owl, and a rattlesnake all together. In another case, a tremendous rain raised a creek so that it suddenly overflowed a prairie-dog town, when the general stampede of prairie-dogs, owls, and rattlesnakes was a sight to behold; It is idle to attempt holding out against facts; so I have pondered this anomaly until I think I clearly comprehend it. The case is much like that of some newspaper establishments, whose proprietors, it is said, find it convenient to keep on their staff “a broth of a boy” from Tipperary, standing six feet two in his stockings and measuring a yard or more across the shoulders, who stands ready, with an illegant brogue, a twinkle in his eye, and a hickory sapling firmly grasped in his dexter fist, to respond to all choleric, peremptory customers, who call of a morning, hot with wrath and bristling with cowhide, to demand a parley with the editor. The cayota is a gentleman of an inquiring, investigating turn, who is an adept at excavation, and whose fondness for prairie-dog is more ardent than flattering. To dig one out and digest him would be an easy task, if he were alone in his den, or with only the owl as his partner; but when the firm is known or strongly suspected to be Prairie-Dog, Rattlesnake & Co., the cayota’s passion for subterranean researches is materially cooled. The rattlesnake is to the concern what the fighting editor is to the journalistic organizations aforesaid. And thus, while my faith is enlarged, is my reason satisfied.

A word now on the antelope. I liked him when I first saw him, days ago; I then wished for a better acquaintance, which wish has since been gratified; and since I dined with him (that is, off of him) my esteem has ripened into affection. Of the many antelopes I have seen, I judge a majority considerably larger than the deer of our eastern forests—not so tall nor (perhaps) so long, but heavier in body, while hardly less swift or less graceful in motion. He is the only animal I have seen here that may justly boast of either grace or beauty. His flesh is tender and delicate—the choicest eating I have found in Kansas. Shy and fleet as he is, he is the chief sustenance at this season of the Indians out of the present buffalo-range. An old hunter assures me that, with all his timidity, he is easily taken by the knowing. To follow him is absurd; his scent is too keen, his fear too great; but go upon a high prairie, to a knoll or swell whence you can overlook fifteen or twenty square miles; there crouch in a hollow or in the grass, and hoist your handkerchief, or some red, fluttering scarf on a light pole, which you wave gently and patiently in the air; soon the antelope, if there be one within sight, perceives the strange apparition: his curiosity is excited; it masters his caution; he makes toward the strange object, and keeps drawing nearer and nearer till he is within fifteen or twenty rods. The rest requires no instruction.

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STATION 21, _June 3_, (evening), 1859.

Since I wrote the foregoing, we have traveled ninety miles up the south branch of the Republican (which forks just above Station 18) and have thus pursued a coarse somewhat south of west. In all these ninety miles, we have passed just two live streams making in from the south—both together running scarcely water, enough to turn a grindstone. In all these ninety miles, we have not seen wood enough to make a decent pigpen. The bottom of the river is perhaps half a mile in average width; the soil in good part clay and covered with a short, thin grass; the bluffs are naked sand-heaps; the rock, in the rare cases where any is exposed, an odd conglomerate of petrified clay with quartz and some specks that resemble cornelian. Beside this, in some of the bluffs, where clay overlies and is blended, under peculiar circumstances, with the sand below it, a sort of rock seems to be formed or in process of formation. Water is obtained from the apology for a river, or by digging in the sand by its side; in default of wood, _corrals_ (cattle-pens) are formed at the stations by laying up a heavy wall of clayey earth flanked by sods, and thus excavating a deep ditch on the inner side, except at the portal, which is closed at night by running a wagon into it. The tents are sodded at their bases; houses of sods are to be constructed so soon as may be. Such are the shifts of human ingenuity in a country which has probably not a cord of growing wood to each township of land.

Six miles further up, this fork of the Republican emerges from its sandy bed, in which it has been lost for the twenty-five miles next above. Of course, it loses in volume in passing through such a land of drouth. Probably thirty times to-day we have crossed the broad sandy beds of creeks running down from the high prairies—creeks which in winter and early spring are sweeping torrents, but now are wastes of thirsty sand. Thus has it been for ninety miles—thus is it for many miles above and I presume many also below. The road from Leavenworth to Denver had to be taken some fifty miles north of its due course to obtain even such a passage through the American Desert; on a direct line from the head of Solomon’s Fork, it must have passed over some two hundred miles of entire absence of wood and water.