Death Valley in \'49 by William Lewis Manly

W >> William Lewis Manly >> Death Valley in \'49

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35

It may be interesting to describe how we were dressed to enter on this
winter campaign. We wore moccasins of our own make. I had a buckskin
jumper, and leggins that came up to my hips. On my head a drab hat that
fitted close and had a rim about two inches wide. In fair weather I went
bare-headed, Indian fashion. I carried a tomahawk which I had made. The
blade was two inches wide and three inches long--the poll two inches
long and about as large round as a dime; handle eighteen or twenty
inches long with a knob on the end so it would not easily slip from the
hand. Oiled patches for our rifle balls on a string, a firing wire, a
charger to measure the powder, and a small piece of leather with four
nipples on it for caps--all on my breast, so that I could load very
rapidly. My bed was a comfort I made myself, a little larger than usual.
I lay down on one side of the bed and with my gun close to me, turned
the blanket over me. When out of camp I never left my gun out of my
reach. We had to be real Indians in custom and actions in order to be
considered their equals. We got our food in the same way they did, and
so they had nothing to ask us for. They considered themselves the real
kings of the forest.

We now determined to move camp, which proved quite a job as we had to
pack everything on our backs; which we did for ten or fifteen miles to
the bank of a small stream where there were three pine trees, the only
ones to be found in many miles. We made us a canoe of one of them. While
we were making the canoe three Indians came along, and after they had
eaten some of our good venison, they left us. These were the first we
had seen, and we began to be more cautious and keep everything well hid
away from camp and make them think we were as poor as they were, so they
might not be tempted to molest us.

We soon had the canoe done and loaded, and embarked on the brook down
stream. We found it rather difficult work, but the stream grew larger
and we got along very well. We came to one place where otter signs
seemed fresh, and stopped to set a trap for them. Our dog sat on the
bank and watched the operation, and when we started on we could not get
him to ride or follow. Soon we heard him cry and went back to find he
had the trap on his fore foot. To get it off we had to put a forked
stick over his neck and hold him down, he was so excited over his
mishap. When he was released he left at full speed and was never seen by
us after.

When we got well into the pine woods we camped and cached our traps and
provisions on an island, and made our camp further down the stream and
some little distance from the shore. We soon found this was very near a
logging camp, and as no one had been living there for a year, we moved
camp down there and occupied one of the empty cabins. We began to set
dead-fall traps in long lines in many different directions, blazing the
trees so we could find them if the snow came on. West of this about ten
miles, where we had killed some deer earlier, we made a A-shaped cabin
and made dead falls many miles around to catch fishes, foxes, mink and
raccoons. We made weekly journeys to the places and generally staid
about two nights.

One day when going over my trap lines I came to a trap which I had set
where I had killed a deer, and saw by the snow that an eagle had been
caught in the trap and had broken the chain and gone away. I followed on
the trail he made and soon found him. He tried to fly but the trap was
too heavy, and he could only go slowly and a little way. I fired and put
a ball in him and he fell and rolled under a large log on the hillside.
As I took the trap off I saw an Indian coming down the hill and brought
my gun to bear on him. He stopped suddenly and made signs not to shoot,
and I let him come up. He made signs that he wanted the feathers of the
bird which I told him to take, and then he wanted to know where we
slept. I pointed out the way and made him go ahead of me there, for I
did not want him behind me. At camp he made signs for something to eat,
but when I showed him meat he shook his head. However he took a leg of
deer and started on, I following at a good distance till satisfied that
he would not come back.

We had not taken pains to keep track of the day of the week or month;
the rising and setting of the sun and the changes of the moon were all
the almanacs we had. Then snow came about a foot deep, and some days
were so cold we could not leave our camp fire at all. As no Indians
appeared we were quite successful and kept our bundle of furs in a
hollow standing tree some distance from camp, and when we went that way
we never stopped or left any sign that we had a deposit there.

Some time after it was all frozen up solid, some men with two yoke of
oxen came up to cut and put logs in the river to raft down when the ice
went out. With them came a shingle weaver, with a pony and a small sled,
and some Indians also. We now had to take up all of our steel traps, and
rob all our dead-falls and quit business generally--even then they got
some of our traps before we could get them gathered in. We were now
comparatively idle.

Until these loggers came we did not know exactly where we were situated,
but they told us we were on the Lemonai river, a branch of the
Wisconsin, and that we could get out by going west till we found the
Mississippi river and then home. We hired the shengle man with his pony
to take us to Black River, farther north which we reached in three days,
and found a saw mill there in charge of a keeper. Up the river farther
we found another mill looked after by Sam Ferguson. Both mills were
frozen up. The Indians had been here all winter. They come from Lake
Superior when the swamps froze up there, to hunt deer, till the weather
gets warm, then they returned to the Lake to fish.

Of course the presence of the Indians made game scarce, but the mill men
told us if we would go up farther into the marten country they thought
we would do well. We therefore made us a hand sled, put some provisions
and traps on board, and started up the river on the ice. As we went the
snow grew deeper and we had to cut hemlock boughs for a bed on top of
the snow. It took about a half a cord of wood to last us all night, and
it was a trouble to cut holes in the ice to water, for it was more than
two feet thick. Our fire kindled on the snow, would be two or three feet
below on the ground, by morning. This country was heavily timbered with
cedar, or spruce and apparently very level.

One day we saw two otters coming toward us on the ice. We shot one, but
as the other gun missed fire, the other one escaped, for I could not
overtake it in the woods. We kept on up the river till we began to hear
the Indians' guns, and then we camped and did not fire a gun for two
days, for we were afraid we might be discovered and robbed, and we knew
we could not stay long after our grub was gone. All the game we could
catch was the marten or sable, which the Indians called _Waubusash_. The
males were snuff color and the female much darker. Mink were scarce, and
the beaver, living in the river bank, could not be got at till the ice
went out in the spring.

We now began to make marten traps or dead-falls, and set them for this
small game. There were many cedar and tamarack swamps, indeed that was
the principal feature, but there were some ridges a little higher where
some small pines and beech grew. Now our camp was one place where there
was no large timber caused by the stream being dammed by the beaver.
Here were some of the real Russian Balsam trees, the most beautiful in
shape I had ever seen. They were very dark green, the boughs very thick,
and the tree in shape like an inverted top. Our lines of trips led for
miles in every direction marked by blazed trees. We made a trap of two
poles, and chips which we split from the trees. These were set in the
snow and covered with brush, We sometimes found a porcupine in the top
of a pine tree. The only signs of his presence were the chips he made in
gnawing the bark for food. They never came down to the ground as we saw.
They were about all the game that was good to eat. I would kill one,
skin it and drag the carcass after me all day as I set traps, cutting
off bits for bait, and cooking the rest for ourselves to eat. We tried
to eat the marten but it was pretty musky and it was only by putting on
plenty of salt and pepper that we managed to eat them. We were really
forced to do it if we remained here. We secured a good many of these
little fellows which have about the the best fur that is found in
America.

We were here about three weeks, and our provisions giving out and the
ice becoming tender in the swamp were two pretty strong reasons for our
getting out, so we shouldered our packs of fur and our guns and, getting
our course from a pocket-compass, we started out. As we pushed on we
came to some old windfalls that were troublesome to get through. The
dense timber seemed to be six feet deep, and we would sometimes climb
over and sometimes crawl under, the fallen trees were so thickly mixed
and tangled.

Mr. Buck got so completely tired that he threw away his traps. We
reached our starting place at O'Neil's saw-mill after many days of the
hardest work, and nearly starved, for we had seen no game on our trip.
We found our traps and furs all safe here and as this stream was one of
the tributaries of the Mississippi, we decided to make us a boat and
float down toward that noted stream. We secured four good boards and
built the boat in which we started down the river setting traps and
moving at our leisure. We found plenty of fine ducks, two bee trees, and
caught some cat-fish with a hook and line we got at the mill. We also
caught some otter, and, on a little branch of the river killed two
bears, the skin of one of them weighing five pounds. We met a keel boat
being poled up the river, and with the last cent of money we possessed
bought a little flour of them.

About the first of May we reached Prairie du Chien. Here we were met
with some surprise, for Mr. Brisbois said he had heard we were killed or
lost. He showed us through his warehouses and pointed out to us the many
bales of different kinds of furs he had on hand. He told us we were the
best fur handlers he had seen, and paid us two hundred dollars in
American gold for what we had. We then stored our traps in the garret of
one of his warehouses, which was of stone, two stories and an attic, as
we thought of making another trip to this country if all went well.

We now entered our skiff again and went on down the great river till we
came to a place nearly opposite Mineral Point, when we gave our boat to
a poor settler, and with guns and bundles on our backs took a straight
shoot for home on foot. The second day about dark we came in the edge of
the town and were seen by a lot of boys who eyed us closely and with
much curiosity, for we were dressed in our trapping suits. They followed
us, and as we went along the crowd increased so that when we got to
Crum. Lloyd's tavern the door was full of boys' heads looking at us as
if we were a circus. Here we were heartily welcomed, and every body was
glad to see us, as they were about to start a company to go in search of
their reported murdered friends. It seems a missionary got lost on his
way to Prairie La Crosse and had come across our deserted cabin, and
when he came in he reported us as no doubt murdered.

I invested all of my hundred dollars in buying eighty acres of good
Government land. This was the first $100 I ever had and I felt very
proud to be a land owner. I felt a little more like a man now than I had
ever felt before, for the money was hard earned and all mine.

CHAPTER VII.

Mr. Buck and myself concluded we would try our luck at lead mining for
the summer and purchased some mining tools for the purpose. We camped
out and dug holes around all summer, getting just about enough to pay
our expenses--not a very encouraging venture, for we had lived in a tent
and had picked and shoveled and blasted and twisted a windlass hard
enough to have earned a good bit of money.

In the fall we concluded to try another trapping tour, and set out for
Prairie du Chien. We knew it was a poor place to spend money up in the
woods, and when we got our money it was all in a lump and seemed to
amount to something. Mr. Brisbois said that the prospects were very poor
indeed, for the price of fur was very low and no prospect of a better
market. So we left our traps still on storage at his place and went back
again. This was in 1847, and before Spring the war was being pushed in
Mexico. I tried to enlist for this service, but there were so many ahead
of me I could not get a chance.

I still worked in the settlement and made a living, but had no chance to
improve my land. The next winter I lived with Mr A. Bennett, hunted deer
and sold them at Mineral Point, and in this way made and saved a few
dollars.

There had been from time to time rumors of a better country to the west
of us and a sort of a pioneer, or western fever would break out among
the people occasionally. Thus in 1845 I had a slight touch of the
disease on account of the stories they told us about Oregon. It was
reported that the Government would give a man a good farm if he would go
and settle, and make some specified improvement. They said it was in a
territory of rich soil, with plenty of timber, fish and game and some
Indians, just to give a little spice of adventure to the whole thing.
The climate was very mild in winter, as they reported, and I concluded
it would suit me exactly. I began at once to think about an outfit and a
journey, and I found that it would take me at least two years to get
ready. A trip to California was not thought of in those days, for it did
not belong to the United States.

In the winter of 1848-49 news began to come that there was gold in
California, but not generally believed till it came through a U.S.
officer, and then, as the people were used to mines and mining, a
regular gold fever spread as if by swift contagion. Mr. Bennett was
aroused and sold his farm, and I felt a change in my Oregon desires and
had dreams at might of digging up the yellow dust. Nothing would cure us
then but a trip, and that was quickly decided on.

As it would be some weeks yet before grass would start, I concluded to
haul my canoe and a few traps over to a branch of the Wisconsin, and
make my way to Prairie du Chien, do a little trapping, get me an Indian
pony on which to ride to California. There were no ponies to be had at
Mineral Point. Getting a ride up the river on a passing steamboat I
reached Prairie La Crosse, where the only house was that of a Dutch
trader from whom I bought a Winnebago pony, which he had wintered on a
little brushy island, and I thought if he could winter on brush and
rushes he must be tough enough to take me across the plains. He cost me
$30, and I found him to be a poor, lazy little fellow. However, I
thought that when he got some good grass, and a little fat on his ribs
he might have more life, and so I hitched a rope to him and drove him
ahead down the river. When I came to the Bad Axe river I found it
swimming full, but had no trouble in crossing, as the pony was as good
as a dog in the water.

Before leaving Bennett's I had my gun altered over to a pill lock and
secured ammunition to last for two years. I had tanned some nice
buckskin and had a good outfit of clothes made of it, or rather cut and
made it myself. Where I crossed the Bad Axe was a the battle ground
where Gen. Dodge fought the Winnebago Indians. At Prairie du Chien I
found a letter from Mr. Bennett, saying that the grass was so backward
he would not start up for two or three weeks, and I had better come back
and start with them; but as the letter bore no date I could only guess
at the exact time. I had intended to strike directly west from here to
Council Bluffs and meet them there, but now thought perhaps I had better
go back to Mineral Point and start out with them there, or follow on
rapidly after them if by any chance they had already started.

On my way back I found the Kickapoo river too high to ford, so I pulled
some basswood bark and made a raft of a couple of logs, on which to
carry my gun and blanket; starting the pony across I followed after. He
swam across quickly, but did not seem to like it on the other side, so
before I got across, back he came again, not paying the least attention
to my scolding. I went back with the raft, which drifted a good way down
stream, and caught the rascal and started him over again, but when I got
half way across he jumped and played the same joke on me again. I began
to think of the old puzzle of the story of the man with the fox, the
goose and a peck of corn, but I solved it by making a basswood rope to
which I tied a stone and threw across, then sending the pony over with
the other end. He staid this time, and after three days of swimming
streams and pretty hard travel reached Mineral Point, to find Bennett
had been gone two weeks and had taken my outfit with him as we first
planned.

I was a little troubled, but set out light loaded for Dubuque, crossed
the river there and then alone across Iowa, over wet and muddy roads,
till I fell in with some wagons west of the Desmoines River. They were
from Milwaukee, owned by a Mr. Blodgett, and I camped with them a few
nights, till we got to the Missouri River.

I rushed ahead the last day or two and got there before them. There were
a few California wagons here, and some campers, so I put my pony out to
grass and looked around. I waded across the low bottom to a strip of dry
land next to the river, where there was a post office, store, and a few
cabins. I looked first for a letter, but there was none. Then I began to
look over the cards in the trading places and saloons, and read the
names written on the logs of the houses, and everywhere I thought there
might be a trace of the friends I sought. No one had seen or knew them.
After looking half a day I waded back again to the pony--pretty blue. I
thought first I would go back and wait another year, but there was a
small train near where I left the pony, and it was not considered very
safe to go beyond there except with a pretty good train. I sat down in
camp and turned the matter over in my mind, and talked with Chas. Dallas
of Lynn, Iowa, who owned the train. Bennett had my outfit and gun, while
I had his light gun, a small, light tent, a frying pan, a tin cup, one
woolen shirt and the clothes on my back. Having no money to get another
outfit, I about concluded to turn back when Dallas said that if I would
drive one of his teams through, he would board me, and I could turn my
pony in with his loose horses; I thought it over, and finally put my
things in the wagon and took the ox whip to go on. Dallas intended to
get provision here, but could not, so we went down to St. Jo, following
the river near the bluff. We camped near town and walked in, finding a
small train on the main emigrant road to the west. My team was one yoke
of oxen and one yoke of cows. I knew how to drive, but had a little
trouble with the strange animals till they found I was kind to them, and
then they were all right.

This was in a slave state, and here I saw the first negro auction. One
side of the street had a platform such as we build for a political
speaker. The auctioneer mounted this with a black boy about 18 years
old, and after he had told all his good qualities and had the boy stand
up bold and straight, he called for bids, and they started him at $500.
He rattled away as if he were selling a steer, and when Mr. Rubideaux,
the founder of St. Jo bid $800, he went no higher and the boy was sold.
With my New England notions it made quite an impression on me.

Here Dallas got his supplies, and when the flour and bacon was loaded up
the ferryman wanted $50 to take the train across. This Dallas thought
too high and went back up the river a day's drive, where he got across
for $30. From this crossing we went across the country without much of a
road till we struck the road from St. Jo, and were soon on the Platte
bottom.

We found some fine strawberries at one of the camps across the country.
We found some hills, but now the country was all one vast prairie, not a
tree in sight till we reached the Platte, there some cottonwood and
willow. At the first camp on the Platte I rolled up in my blanket under
the wagon and thought more than I slept, but I was in for it and no
other way but to go on. I had heard that there were two forts, new Ft.
Kearny and Ft. Laramie, on the south side of the river, which we must
pass before we reached the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, and beyond
there there would be no place to buy medicine or food. Our little train
of five wagons, ten men, one woman and three children would not be a
formidable force against the Indians if they were disposed to molest us,
and it looked to me very hazardous, and that a larger train would be
more safe, for Government troops were seldom molested on their marches.

If I should not please Mr. Dallas and get turned off with only my gun
and pony I should be in a pretty bad shape, but I decided to keep right
on and take the chances on the savages, who would get only my hair and
my gun as my contribution to them if they should be hostile. I must
confess, however, that the trail ahead did not look either straight or
bright to me, but hoped it might be better than I thought. So I yoked my
oxen and cows to the wagon and drove on. All the other teams had two
drivers each, who took turns, and thus had every other day off for
hunting if they chose, but I had to carry the whip every day and leave
my gun in the wagon.

When we crossed Salt Creek the banks were high and we had to tie a
strong rope to the wagons and with a few turns around a post, lower them
down easily, while we had to double the teams to get them up the other
side.

Night came on before half the wagons were over, and though it did not
rain the water rose before morning so it was ten feet deep. We made a
boat of one of the wagon beds, and had a regular ferry, and when they
pulled the wagons over they sank below the surface but came out all
right. We came to Pawnee Village, on the Platte, a collection of mud
huts, oval in shape, and an entrance low down to crawl in at. A ground
owl and some prairie dogs were in one of them, and we suspected they
might be winter quarters for the Indians.

Dallas and his family rode in the two-horse wagon. Dick Field was cook,
and the rest of us drove the oxen. We put out a small guard at night to
watch for Indians and keep the stock together so there might be no delay
in searching for them. When several miles from Ft. Kearney I think on
July 3rd, we camped near the river where there was a slough and much
cottonwood and willow. Just after sundown a horse came galloping from
the west and went in with our horses that were feeding a little farther
down. In the morning two soldiers came from the fort, inquiring after
the stray horse, but Dallas said he had seen none, and they did not hunt
around among the willows for the lost animal. Probably it would be the
easiest way to report back to the fort--"Indians got him." When we
hitched up in the morning he put the horse on the off side of his own,
and when near the fort, he went ahead on foot and entertained the
officers while the men drove by, and the horse was not discovered. I did
not like this much, for if we were discovered, we might be roughly
handled, and perhaps the property of the innocent even confiscated.
Really my New England ideas of honesty were somewhat shocked.

Reaching the South Platte, it took us all day to ford the sandy stream,
as we had first to sound out a good crossing by wading through
ourselves, and when we started our teams across we dare not stop a
moment for fear the wagons would sink deep into the quicksands. We had
no mishaps in crossing, and when well camped on the other side a
solitary buffalo made his appearance about 200 yards away and all hands
started after him, some on foot. The horsemen soon got ahead of him, but
he did not seem inclined to get out of their way, so they opened fire on
him. He still kept his feet and they went nearer, Mr. Rogers, being on a
horse with a blind bridle, getting near enough to fire his Colt's
revolver at him, when he turned, and the horse, being unable to see the
animal quick enough to get out of the way, suffered the force of a
sudden attack of the old fellow's horns, and came out with a gash in his
thigh six inches long, while Rogers went on a flying expedition over the
horse's head, and did some lively scrambling when he reached the ground.
The rest of them worried him along for about half a mile, and finally,
after about forty shots he lay down but held his head up defiantly,
receiving shot after shot with an angry shake, till a side shot laid him
out. This game gave us plenty of meat, which though tough, was a
pleasant change from bacon. I took no part in this battle except as an
observer. On examination it was found that the balls had been many of
them stopped by the matted hair about the old fellow's head and none of
them had reached the skull.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35