ALASKAN LOVERS—SEALING THE CONTRACT.ALASKAN LOVERS—SEALING THE CONTRACT.
ALASKAN GAME OF OLD SLEDGE.ALASKAN GAME OF OLD SLEDGE.
All this, and much more, probably equally true, we had picked up of Alaskan history, and at one time our chests had been packed for a voyage on the Harpoon; but at the final council the west carried itagainst the north, and our steps were directed toward the setting sun, instead of the polar star.
The expedition afforded unexcelled facilities for seeing Buffalo Land. It was composed of good material, and pursued its chosen path successfully, though under difficulties which would have turned back a less determined party.
None of our company, I trust, will consider it an unwarrantable license which recounts to others the personal peculiarities and mistakes about which we joked so freely while in camp. It was generally understood, before we parted, that the adventures should be common stock for our children and children's children. Why should not the great public share in it also?
Let the reader place before him a checker-board, and allow it to represent Kansas, whose shape and outline it much resembles; the half nearest him will stand for the eastern or settled portion of the State, of which the other half is embraced in Buffalo Land proper. It is with the latter that we have first to do, as with it we first became acquainted.
Our party entered the State at Kansas City, and took the cars for Topeka, its capital. During our morning ride through the valley of the Kaw, memory went backward to the years when "Bleeding Kansas" was the signal-cry of emancipation. When gray old Time, a decade and a half ago, was writing the history of those bright children of Freedom, the united sisterhood, a virgin arm reached over his shoulder, and a fair young hand, stained with its own life-blood,wrote on the page toward which all the world was gazing, "I am Kansas, latest-born of America. I would be free, yet they would make me a slave. Save me, my sisters!" The great heart of our nation was sorely distressed. Conscience pointed to one path—Policy, that rank hypocrite, to another.
And so it was that the young queen, with her grand domain in the West, struggled forward to lay her fealty at the feet of our great mother, Liberty. She made a body-guard of her own sons, and their number was quickly swelled by brave hearts from the north, east, and west. The new territory, begging admission as a State, became a battle-ground. Slavery had reached forth its hand to grasp the new State and fresh soil, but the mutilated member was drawn back with wounds which soon reached, corrupted and destroyed the body. In this land of the Far West a nation of young giants had been suddenly developed, and Kansas was forever won for freedom.
But there was yet another enemy and another danger. Westward, toward Colorado, the savage's tomahawk and knife glittered, and struck among the affrighted settlements.Ad Astra per Aspera, "to the stars through difficulties," the State exclaims on the seal, and to the stars, through blood, its course has been.
Those old pages of history are too bloody to be brought to light in the bright present, and we purpose turning them only enough to gather what will be now of practical use. Kansas suffered cruelly, and brooded over her wrongs, but she has long since struck hands with her bitterer foe. Most of the "BorderRuffians" ripened on gallows trees, or fell by the sword, years ago. A few, however, are yet spared, to cheer their old age by riding around in desolate woods at midnight, wrapped in damp nightgowns, and masked in grinning death-heads. Although the mists of shadow-land are chilling their hearts, yet those organs, at the cry of blood, beat quick again, like regimental drums, for action.
The Kaw or the Kansas River, the valley of which we were traversing, is the principal stream of the State—in length to the mouth of the Republican one hundred and fifty miles, and above that, under the name of Smoky Hill, three hundred miles more.
The "Smoky Hill trail" is a familiar name in many an American home. It was the great California path, and many a time the demons of the plain gloated over fair hair, yet fresh from a mother's touch and blessing. And many a faint and thirsty traveler has flung himself with a burst of gratitude on the sandy bed of the desolate river, and thanked the Great Giver of all good for the concealed life found under the sand, and with the strength thus sucked from the bosom of our much-abused mother, he has pushed onward until at length the grand mountains and great parks of Colorado burst upon his delighted vision.
About noon we arrived at Topeka, the capital, well situated on the south bank of the river, having a comfortable, well-to-do air, which suggests the quiet satisfaction of an honest burgher after a morning of toil. The slavery billow of agitation rolled even thus far from beyond the border of the state. Armed menrode over the beautiful prairies, some east, some west—one band to transplant slavery from the tainted soil of Missouri, another to pluck it up.
A small party of Free State men settled upon this beautiful prairie. South flowed the Waukarusa, south and east the Shunganunga, and west and north the Kaw or Kansas. Here thrived a bulbous root, much loved by the red man, and here lazy Pottawatomies gathered in the fall to dig it. In size and somewhat in shape, it resembled a goose egg, and had a hard, reddish brown shell, and an interior like damaged dough. The Indian gourmands ate it greedily and called it "Topeka." From the two or three families of refugee Free State men the town grew up, and from the Indian root it took its name. Its christening took place in the first cabin erected, and it is reported that a now prominent banker of the town stood sponsor, with his back against the door, refusing any egress until the name of his choice was accepted. It is even affirmed that one opposing city founder was pulled back by his coat-tail from an attempted escape up the wide chimney.
"WAUKARUSA.""WAUKARUSA."
"TOASTS HIS MOCCASINED FEET BY THE FIRE.""TOASTS HIS MOCCASINED FEET BY THE FIRE."
The old Indian love of commemorating events by significant names is well illustrated in Kansas. One example may be given here. Waukarusa once opposed its swollen tide to an exploring band of red men. Now, from time beyond ken, the noble savage has been illustrious for the ingenuity with which he lays all disagreeable duties upon the shoulders of the patient squaw. He may ride to their death, in free wild sport, the bison multitudes; but their skinsmust be converted into marketable robes, and the flesh into jerked meat, by the ugly and over-worked partner of his bosom. While she pins the raw hide to earth, and bends patiently over, fleshing it with horn hatchet for weary hours, the stronger vessel, his abdominal recesses wadded with buffalo meat, toasts his moccasined feet by the fire, fills his lungs with smoke from villainous killikinick, and muses soothingly of white scalps and happy hunting grounds.
Ox-like maiden, happy "big injun!" you both belong to an age and a history well nigh past, and let us rejoice that it is so.
But to return to the band long since gathered into aboriginal dust whom we left pausing on the banks of the Waukarusa. "Deep water, bad bottom!" grunted the braves, and, nothing doubting it, one loving warrior pushed his wife and her pony over the bank to test the matter. From the middle of the tide the squaw called back, "Waukarusa" (thigh deep), and soon had gained the opposite bank in safety. Then and there the creek received its name, "Waukarusa."
We procured a remarkable sketch, in the well known Indian style of high art, commemorative of this event. It has always struck us that the savage order of drawing resembles very much that of the ancient Egyptian—except in the matter of drawing at sight, with bow or rifle, on the white man.
A CHAPTER OF INTRODUCTIONS—PROFESSOR PALEOZOIC—TAMMANY SACHEM—DOCTOR PYTHAGORAS—GENUINE MUGGS—COLON AND SEMI-COLON—SHAMUS DOBEEN—TENACIOUS GRIPE—BUGS AND PHILOSOPHY—HOW GRIPE BECAME A REPUBLICAN.
A CHAPTER OF INTRODUCTIONS—PROFESSOR PALEOZOIC—TAMMANY SACHEM—DOCTOR PYTHAGORAS—GENUINE MUGGS—COLON AND SEMI-COLON—SHAMUS DOBEEN—TENACIOUS GRIPE—BUGS AND PHILOSOPHY—HOW GRIPE BECAME A REPUBLICAN.
When permission was given me to draw upon the journal of our trip for such material as I might desire, it was stipulated that the camp-names should be adhered to. A company on the plains is no respecter of persons, and titles which might have caused offense before starting were received in good part, and worn gracefully thenceforward.
Our leader, Professor Paleozoic, ordinarily existed in a sort of transition state between the primary and tertiary formations. He could tell cheese from chalk under the microscope, and show that one was full of the fossil and the other of the living evidences of animal life. A worthy man, vastly more troubled with rocks on the brain than "rocks" in the pocket.
Learning had once come near making him mad, but from this sad fate he was happily saved by a somewhat Pickwickian blunder. While in Kansas, some years since, he penetrated a remote portion of the wilderness, where, as he was happy in believing, none but the native savage, or, possibly, the primeval man, could ever have tarried long enough to leave any sign behind. Imagine his astonishment anddelight, therefore, when from the tangled grass he drew an upright stone, with lines chiseled on three sides and on the fourth a rude figure resembling more than any thing else one of those odd fictions which geologists call restored specimens. On a ledge near were huge depressions like foot-prints. They were foot-prints of birds, no doubt, and quite as perfect as those found in more favored localities, and from which whole skeletons had been constructed by learned men.
Both specimens were forwarded to, and at the expense of, noted savans of the East. Our professor called the pillar from the tangled grass an altar raised by early races to the winds. The short lines, he suggested, designated the different points of the compass, while the rude figure was intended for Boreas. Our scientists toward the rising sun met the boxes at the depot, paid charges, and careful draymen bore them to the expectant museum.
One hour after, seven wise men might have been seen wending their way sorrowfully homeward, with hands crossed meditatively under their coat-tails, and pocket vacuums where lately were modern coins. Government clearly had a case against our professor. Science decided that he had removed a stone telling in surveyors' signs just what section and township it was on. The figure which he had imagined a heathen idea of Boreas was the fancy of some surveyor's idle moment—a shocking sketch of an impossible buffalo. Whether the bird-tracks had a common origin, or were hewn by the hatchets of the red man, is a point still under discussion.
A worthy man, as before remarked, was the professor, full of knowledge, genial in camp, and, having rubbed his eye-tooth on a section stone, geological authority of the highest order. When the professor said a particular rock belonged to the cretaceous formation, one might safely conclude that no modern influences had been at work either on that rock or in that vicinity. That question was settled.
Next came Tammany Sachem, our heavy weight and our mystery. Before joining our party, he had been a New York alderman, noted for prowess in annual aldermanic clam-bakes at Coney Island. He was wont to exhibit a medal, the prize of such a tournament, on which several immense clams were racing to the griddle, for the honor of being devoured by the city fathers.
A green-ribbed hunting coat traversed his rotundity, which had the generous swell of a puncheon. His face was reddish, and his nose like a beacon-light against a sunset sky. When you thought him awake, he was half asleep; when you thought him asleep, he was wide awake. A look of extreme happiness always beamed on his face when misfortunes impended. Per contra, successes made him suspicious and morose. New York aldermen have always been a puzzle to the nation at large. Perhaps our friend's facial contradictions, put on originally as one of the tricks of the trade, had become chronic from long usage. We have since learned that the sachems of Tammany laugh the loudest and joke the most freely when under affliction.
THE PROFESSOR—A REMARKABLE STONE.THE PROFESSOR—A REMARKABLE STONE.
TAMMANY SACHEM--PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE.TAMMANY SACHEM—PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE.
When I was appointed editor, the Sachem volunteeredas local reporter. Many of the items he gathered are entered in our log-book in rhyme, and to these pages some of them are transferred verbatim. In wooing the muses, our alderman certainly acted out of character. The ideal poet is thin instead of obese, and he is a reckless innovator who lays claim to any measure of the divine afflatus without possessing either a pale face, thin form, or a garret.
As to what drove a New York alderman to the society of buffaloes, we had but one explanation, and that was Sachem's own. We knew that he disliked women in every form, Sorosis and Anti-Sorosis, bitter and sweet alike. According to his statement, made to us in good faith, and which I chronicle in the same, Cupid had once essayed to drive a dart into Sachem's heart, but, in doing so, the barb also struck and wounded his liver. As his love increased, his health failed. His liver became affected in the same ratio as his heart. This was touching our alderman in a tender spot. Imagine a New York city father without digestion; what a subject of scorn he would become to his constituency! Our alderman fled from Cupid, clams, and his beloved Gotham, and sought health and buffalo on the plains of Kansas. As he remarked to us pathetically: "A good liver makes a good husband. Indigestion frightens connubial bliss out of the window. Pills, my boy, pills is the quietus of love. If you wish Cupid to leave, give him a dose of 'em. The liver, instead of the heart, is at the bottom of half the suicides."
Doctor Pythagoras in years was fifty, and in statureshort. His favorite theory was "development," and this he carried to depths which would have astonished Darwin himself. How humble he used to make us feel by digging at the roots of the family tree until its uttermost fiber lay between an oyster and a sponge! (Rumor charged him with waiting so long for diseases to develop, that his patients developed into spirits.) While he indorsed Darwin, however, he also admired Pythagoras. The latter's doctrine of metempsychosis he Darwinized. In their transmigration from one body to another, souls developed, taking a higher order of being with each change, until finally fitted to enter the land of spirits. The soul of a jack-of-all-trades was one which developed slowly, and picked up a new craft with each new body. Like Pythagoras, he remembered several previous bodies which his soul had animated, among others that of the original Rarey, who existed in Egypt some centuries before the modern usurper was born. If souls proved entirely unworthy during the probationary or human period, they were cast back into the brute creation to try it over again. To this class belonged prize-fighters, Congressmen, and the like. With them the past was a blank—an unsuccessful problem washed from the slate. The doctor had a hobby that a vicious horse was only a vicious man entered into a lower order of being. To demonstrate this he had traveled, and still persisted in traveling, on eccentric horses, for the purpose of reasoning with them. But his Egyptian lore had been lost in transmission, and his falls, kicks, and bites became as many as the moons which had passed over his head.
COLON AND SEMI-COLON.COLON AND SEMI-COLON.
DAVID PYTHAGORAS, M. D.DAVID PYTHAGORAS, M. D.
Genuine Muggs was an Englishman. The antipodes of Tammany Sachem, who would not believe any thing, Muggs swallowed every thing. He had already absorbed so much in this way that he knew all about the United States before visiting it. Given half a chance, he would undoubtedly have told the savage more about the latter's habits than the aborigine himself knew. It was positively impossible for him to learn any thing. His round British body was so full of indisputable facts that another one would have burst it. In the Presidential alphabet, from Alpha Washington to Omega Grant, he knew all of our rulers' tricks and trades, and understood better the crooked ways of the White House than our own talented Jenkins.
British phlegm incased his soul, and British leather his feet. From heel to crown he was completely a Briton. His mutton-chop whiskers came just so far, and the h's dropped in and out of his utterings in a perfectly natural way. In the Briton's alphabet, Sachem used to remark, theIis so big that it is no wonder theHis often crowded out.
Muggs was a fair representative of the average Englishman who has traveled somewhat. The eye-teeth of these persons are generally cut with a slash, and they are forever after sore-mouthed. For a maiden effort they never suck knowledge gently in, but attempt a gulp which strangles. The consequence of this hasty acquiring is a bloated condition. The partly-traveled Briton seems, at first acquaintance, full and swollen with knowledge; but shouldthe student of learning apply the prick, the result obtained will generally prove to be—gas.
Over our great country, some of the family of Muggs meet one at every turn. Often they scurry along solitarily, but occasionally in groups. In the former case they are unsocial to every body—in the latter to every body except their own party. The bliss which comes from ignorance must be of a thoroughly enjoyable nature, for the Muggses certainly do enjoy themselves. They will pass through a country, remaining completely uncommunicative and self-wrapped, and know less of it after six months' traveling than an American in two. The professor says he has met them in the lonely parks of the Rocky Mountains and in the fishing and hunting solitudes of the Canadas. If they have been an unusually long time without seeing a human being, they may possibly catch at an eye-glass and fling themselves abruptly into a few remarks. But it is in a tone which says, plainer than words, "No use in your going any further, man; I have absorbed all the beauties and knowledge of this locality."
ONE OF THE MUGGSES.ONE OF THE MUGGSES.
It is a rare treat to see a coach delivered of Muggs at a country inn. "Hi, porter, look hout for my luggage, you know. Tell the publican some chops, rare, and lively now, and a mug of hale, and, if I can 'ave it, a room to myself." If the latter request is granted, and you are inquisitive enough to take a peep, you may see Muggs sturdily surveying himself in the glass, and giving certain satisfied pats to his cravat and waistcoat, as if to satisfy them that they covered a Briton. Could the mirror which reflectshis face also reflect his thoughts, they would read about as follows: "Muggs, you are a Briton, and this hotel must be made aware of the fact. Whatever you do, be guilty of no un-English act while in this outlandish land. Your skin is now full of knowledge, and let not other travelers, like so many mosquitoes, suck it from you. Your forefathers blessed their eyes and dropped their h's, and so must you." And perhaps by this time, if the chops have arrived, he dines in seclusion and, by so doing, loses a fund of information which his fellow-travelers have obtained by common exchange.
Again on the way, Muggs nestles in a corner of the coach and acts strictly on the defensive, indignantly withdrawing his square-toed, thick-soled English shoes, should neighboring feet attempt to hobnob with them. On a trip through Buffalo Land, however, it is difficult for one of her Britannic Majesty's subjects to maintain the national dignity. But this fact Genuine Muggs—our Muggs—evidently did not know. Had he known it, he would never have gone with us in the world.
Another of our party rejoiced in the appellation of "Colon." He obtained this title because his eccentric specialities of character several times came very near putting if not a full stop, at least the next thing to it, upon the particular page of history which our party was making. Longitudinally, Mr. Colon was all of five feet eleven; in circumference, perhaps a score or so of inches. He possessed a fair share of oddities, and what is better an equally fair one of dollars. The hemispheres of his philanthropic brainseemed equally pre-empted by philosophy and bugs. Engaging in some immense work for the amelioration of mankind, he would pursue it with ardor, dwell upon it with unction, and then suddenly leave it, half finished, to capture a rare spider. Philosophy and Entomology had constant combat for Colon, and victory tarried with neither long enough for the seat of war to be cultivated and blossom with any luxuriance. At the time he joined our party one of his grandest charitable projects had lately died in a very early period of infancy, entirely supplanted in his affections for the time being by the prospect of a chase after Brazilian insects. During our journey it was no uncommon thing for us to see his thin form all covered with bugs and reptiles, which had crawled out of the collecting boxes carried in his pockets. If this meets our friend's eye, let him bear no malice, but reflect, in the language of his own invariable answer to our remonstrances, "It can't be helped." Should the public parade of his faults be disagreeable, he can suffer no more from them now than we did in the past, and may perhaps call them into closer quarters for the future.
Mr. Colon's son, of two years less than a score, we dubbed Semi-colon, as being a smaller edition, or to be exact, precisely one-half of what the senior Colon was. So perfect was the concord of the two that the junior had fallen into a chronic and to us amusing habit of answering "Ditto" to the senior's expressions of opinion. Divide the father's conversation by two, add an assent to every thing, and the result, socially considered, would be the son. It may readily be seen,therefore, why the professor for short should call him, as he nearly always did, "Semi."
Shamus Dobeen, our cook and body-servant, according to his own account, was the child of an impoverished but noble Irish family. Indeed, we doubt if any Irishman was ever promoted from shovel laborer to body-servant without suddenly remembering that he was "descinded" from a line of kings. At the time Shamus was added to the population of Ireland, the patrimonial estate had dwindled down to a peat bog. As this soon "petered out," Shamus went from the exhausted moor into the cold world. He had been by turns expelled patriot, dirt disturber on new railroads, gunner on a Confederate cruiser, and high private in a Union regiment. The position of gunner he lost by touching off a piece before the muzzle had been run out, in consequence of which part of the vessel's side went off suddenly with the gun. Captured, he readily became a Union soldier, and could, without doubt, have transformed himself into a Cheyenne, or a Patagonian, had occasion for either ever required.
While in Topeka, our party made the acquaintance of Tenacious Gripe, a well-known Kansas politician, and who attached himself to us for the trip. Every person in the State knew him, had known him in territorial times, and would know him until either the State or he ceased to be.
Flung headlong from somewhere into Kansas during the "border ruffian" period, he would probably have passed as rapidly out of it had he been allowed to do so peaceably. But as the slavery party endeavoredto push him, he concluded to stick. At that particular time, he was a moderate Democrat or conservative Republican, and consequently had no particular principles. But the slavery party supposed he had, and to them accordingly he became an object of suspicion. They assumed the aggressive, and he at once resolved into a staunch Republican. Had the latter first struck him, he would have been as staunch a Democrat. And Gripe has never known how near he came to being the latter. The Republicans had just decided to order him out of the state as a border ruffian spy, when the Democrats took action and did so for his not being one. Those were troublous times. He went to the front at once in the antislavery ranks, and has stayed there ever since. Sore-headed men are apt to become famous. There were those in our late war who were kicked by adversity into the very arms of Fame.
Our friend had been in both the upper and lower houses of the State Legislature, and had rolled Congressional logs, moreover, until he was hardly happy without having his hands on one.
SHAMUS DOBEEN—HIS CARD.SHAMUS DOBEEN—HIS CARD.
HON. T. GRIPE (BEATIFIED).HON. T. GRIPE (BEATIFIED).
THE TOPEKA AUCTIONEER—MUGGS GETS A BARGAIN—CYNOCEPHALUS—INDIAN SUMMER IN KANSAS—HUNTING PRAIRIE CHICKENS—OUR FIRST DAY'S SPORT.
THE TOPEKA AUCTIONEER—MUGGS GETS A BARGAIN—CYNOCEPHALUS—INDIAN SUMMER IN KANSAS—HUNTING PRAIRIE CHICKENS—OUR FIRST DAY'S SPORT.
We had three or four days to spend in Topeka, as it was there that we were to purchase our outfit for the buffalo region. With the latter purpose in view, we were wandering along Kansas Avenue the next morning, when a horseman came furiously down the street, shouting, at the top of his lungs, "Sell um as he wars har!" Semi hastily retreated behind Mr. Colon, thinking it might be a Jayhawker, while the professor adjusted his glasses.
Muggs said the individual reminded him of the famous charge at Balaklava. Muggs had never seen Balaklava, but other Englishmen had, which answered the same purpose.
The equestrian proved to be a well-known auctioneer of Topeka, who may be discovered at almost any time tearing through the streets on some spavined or bow-legged old cob, auctioneering it off as he goes. His favorite expression is, "I'll sell um as he wars har." What particular selling charm lies concealed in this announcement even Gripe could not tell. Sachem thought that possibly he had been brought up at some exposed frontier post, where, on account of Indian prejudices, wearing hair is a rare luxury.To say there that a man was still able to comb his own scalp-lock denoted an extraordinary state of physical perfection. Expressions of praise for humans are often applied to horses, and so, perhaps, the one in question. "I have heard," quoth our alderman, in support of this assertion, "Fitz say of a belle, at a charity ball, what a 'bootiful cweature;' and I have heard him, the day after, in his stable, say the same thing of his horse."
That horse-auction was a sight worth seeing. The crowd collected most thickly on the corner of Kansas Avenue and Sixth Street, and before it the cob came to a stand. And it was a stand—as stiff and painful as that of a retired veteran put on dress parade. The limbs would have had full duty to perform in supporting the carcass alone, which had evidently been in light marching order for years past. The additional weight of the auctioneer must certainly have proved altogether too much, had not the horse heard, for the first time, of the wonderful qualities with which he was still endowed.
Seeing a whole corner, with gaping mouths, swallowing the statement that he was only six years old, reduced by hard work, and could, after three months grass, pull a ton of coal, he would have been a thankless horse indeed, which could not strain a point, or all his points, for such a rider.
"SPERIT, GENTLEMEN!""SPERIT, GENTLEMEN!"
And so, when the spurs suddenly rattled against his ribs, the old skin full of bones gave a snort of pain, which the auctioneer called "Sperit, gentlemen!" and away up the broad avenue he rolled, at a speed which threatened to break the rider's neck, and hisown legs as well. His tail having been cut short in youth, and retrimmed in old age, the outfit made but a sorry figure going up the street. The Professor said it suggested the idea of some fossil vertabra, with a paint brush attached to its end, running away with a geological student.
After the return and cries for more bids, Muggs must have winked at the auctioneer—possibly, to slyly telegraph him the fact that in "Hengland" they were up to such games. At least the auctioneer so declared, and advancing the price one dollar in accordance therewith, finally knocked the brute down to him. Then the British wrath bubbled and boiled. The auctioneer was inexorable. Muggshadwinked, and that was an advanced bid, according to commercial custom the land over. Articles were often sold simply by the vibration of an eyelash, and not a word uttered.
The Professor remarked that in law winks would doubtless be accepted as evidence. It was a recognized principle of the statutes that he who winked at a matter acquiesced in it, and indeed such signals were often more expressive than words. Sachem sustained this point, and added further that he had known many a man's head broken on account of an injudicious wink.
The crowd, with almost unanimous voice, pronounced the auctioneer right and Muggs wrong.
"Me take the brute!" exclaimed the indignant Briton; "why he can 'ardly stand up long enough to be knocked down. Except in France, he could be put to no earthly use whatever. 'Is knees knock togetherin an ague quartette, and 'is tail—look at it! It's hincapable of knocking a fly off; looks more like flying off hitself!" Muggs further declared the sale was an attempt on the owner's part to evade the health officer, who would have been around, in a couple of days, to have the carcass removed.
The auctioneer waxed belligerent, the crowd noisy, and Muggs, like a true Englishman, secured peace at the price of British gold. The horse was on his hands, having barely escaped being on the town, and an enthusiastic crowd of urchins escorted the purchase to a livery stable. Muggs christened the animal Cynocephalus, and soon afterward sold him to Mr. Colon, who was of an economical turn, for the use of his son Semi.
"I have heard," said the thoughtful father, "that the buffalo grass of the plains is very nourishing. All that the poor steed needs is care and fat pastures. Semi can give him the former, and over the latter our future journey lies. I have also learned that what is especially needed in a hunting horse is steadiness, and this quality the animal certainly possesses."
From some months' acquaintance with the purchase, we can say that Cynocephalus was steady to a remarkable degree. We are firmly persuaded that a heavy battery might have fired a salute over his back without moving him, unless, possibly, the concussion knocked him down.
Our first hunting morning, the second day preceding our hegira westward, came to us with a clear sky, the sun shedding a mellow warmth, and the airfull of those exhilarating qualities which our lungs afterward drank in so freely on the plains. Indian summer, delightful anywhere, is especially so in Kansas.
From the advance guard of the winter king not a single chilling zephyr steals forward among the tarrying ones of summer. Soothing and gentle as when laden with spicy fragrance south, they here shower the whole land with sunbeams. Earth no longer seems a heavy, inert mass, but floats in that smoky, fleecy atmosphere with which artists delight so much to wrap their angels. It is as if the warmer, lighter clouds of sunny weather were nestling close to earth, frightened from the skies, like a flock of white swans, at the October howls of winter. But I never could agree with those writers who call this season dreamy. If such it be, it is surely a dream of motion. All nature appears quickened. The inhabitants of the air have commenced their southern pilgrimage, and the oldest and leading ganders may be heard croaking, day-time and night-time, to their wedge-shaped flocks their narrative of summer experiences at the Arctic circle, and their commands for the present journey.
Sachem, I find, has recorded as a discovery in natural history that geese form their flocks in wedge shape that they may easier "make a split" for the south when Nature, with her north pole, stirs up their feeding and breeding-grounds in November gales, and changes their fields of operation into fields of ice. Sachem was sadly addicted to slang phrases.
All game, I may remark, is wilder at this season of the year than earlier. If the earth is dreaming,its wild inhabitants certainly are not. Men, too, have thrown off the summer lethargy, and shave their neighbors as closely as ever. If any one thinks it a dreamy season of the year, let him test the matter practically by being a day or two behindhand with a payment.
In reply to a question, the professor told us that the smoky condition of the atmosphere was probably caused by the exhalation of phosphorus from decaying vegetation. Sachem remarked that out of twenty different objects which he had submitted for examination, and as many questions that he had asked, nine-tenths of the results contained phosphorus in some shape. It was becoming monotonous and dangerous.
While the party thus mused and speculated, we had come out into the open country, south-west of town, and were now approaching Webster's Mound, a cone-shaped hill from which we afterward obtained some excellent views. For the trip we had been supplied with two dogs, one a setter, belonging to the private secretary of the Governor, and the other a pointer, the property of a real estate dealer. The former was an ancient and venerable animal. The rheumatism was seized of his backbone and held high revel upon the juices which should have lubricated the joints. Even his tail wagged with a jerk, inclining the body to whichever side it had last swung. He was so full of rheumatism that whenever he scented a chicken the pain evoked by the excitement caused him to howl with anguish. The pointer, per contra, was hale and swift, but had lost one eye; and a shot fromthe same charge which destroyed that organ, rattled also on his left ear-drum, and that membrane no longer responded to the shouts of the hunter. On one side he could see, and not hear—on the other, hear, but not see. Nevertheless, with gestures for the left view, and shouts on the right, fair work might still be obtained. Both dogs rejoiced in the uncommon name of Rover, and both possessed that most excellent of all points in such animals, a steady point.
If any of my readers are fond of field-sports, and have not yet shot prairie-chickens over a dog, let them take their guns and hie to the West, and taste for themselves of this rare sport. With the wide prairie around him, keeping the bird in full view during its passage through the air, one can choose his distance for firing and witness the full effect of his shot. I think the brief instant when the flight of the bird is checked and it drops head-foremost to earth, is the sweetest moment of all to the hunter.
CHICKEN-SHOOTING CONTINUED—A SCIENTIFIC PARTY TAKE THE BIRDS ON THE WING—EVILS OF FAST FIRING—AN OLD-FASHIONED "SLOW SHOT"—THE HABITS OF THE PRAIRIE-CHICKEN—ITS PROSPECTIVE EXTINCTION—MODE OF HUNTING IT—THE GOPHER SCALP LAW.
CHICKEN-SHOOTING CONTINUED—A SCIENTIFIC PARTY TAKE THE BIRDS ON THE WING—EVILS OF FAST FIRING—AN OLD-FASHIONED "SLOW SHOT"—THE HABITS OF THE PRAIRIE-CHICKEN—ITS PROSPECTIVE EXTINCTION—MODE OF HUNTING IT—THE GOPHER SCALP LAW.
We had left the road and were now driving over the fine prairie skirting Webster's Mound, the grass being about a foot high and affording excellent cover. Taking advantage of its being matted so closely from the early frosts, the old cocks hid under the thick tufts and called for close work on the part of our dogs.
Back and forth across our path these intelligent animals ranged, the one fifty yards or so to our right, the other as many to our left, crossing and re-crossing, with open mouths drinking in eagerly the tainted breeze. This latter was in our favor, and both dogs suddenly joined company and worked up into it, with outstretched noses pointing to game that was evidently close ahead.
The pointer crawled cautiously, like a tiger, his spotted belly sweeping the earth, and his tail, which had been lashing rapidly an instant before, gradually stiffening. He would open his mouth suddenly, drink in a quick, deep draught of air, and, closing the jaws again, hold it until obliged to take anotherrespiration. He seemed as loath to let the scent of the chicken pass from his nostrils as a hungry newsboy is to quit the savory precincts of Delmonico's kitchen window. The setter's old bones appeared to renew their youth under the excitement, and he was as active as a retired war-horse suddenly plunged into battle.
Both dogs came simultaneously to a point—tails curved up and rigid, each body motionless as if cut in marble and one forepaw lifted. No wonder so many men are wild with a passion for hunting. Kind Providence smiles upon the legitimate sport from conception to close, and gives us aposéto start with fascinating to any lover of the beautiful, whether hunter or not. But one must not pause to moralize while dogs are on the point, or he will have more philosophy than chickens.
All the party had got safely to ground and were behind the dogs, with guns ready and eyes eagerly fastened on the thick grass which concealed its treasure as completely as if it had been a thousand miles below its roots, or on the opposite side of this mundane sphere in China. Not a thing was visible within fifty yards of our noses save two dogs standing motionless, with stiffened tails and eyes fixed on, and nozzles pointed toward, a spot in the sea of brown, withered grass, not ten feet away.
The Professor took out his lens, Mr. Colon let down the hammers of his gun and cocked them again, to be sure all was right, while Sachem wore a puzzled expression as if undecided whether the attitude of the dogs indicated any thing particular or not. Thegrass nodded and rustled in the light wind, but not a blade moved to indicate the presence of any living thing beneath it, while the dogs remained as if petrified.
The Professor said it was very remarkable, and wondered what had better be done next. Mr. Colon thought that the dogs were tired, and we might as well get into the wagon. Another suggested at random that we should set the dogs on, and Muggs, who had probably heard the expression somewhere, cried, "Hi, boys, on bloods!" At the words the dogs made a few quick steps forward, and on the instant the grass seemed alive with feathered forms, popping into air like bobs in shuttlecock. Such a fluttering and flying I have never seen since, when a boy, I ventured into a dove cote, and was knocked over by the rush of the alarmed inmates. From under our very feet, almost brushing our faces, the beautiful pinnated grouse of the prairies left their cover, and us also.
Every gun had gone off on the instant, and we doubt if one was raised an inch higher than it happened to be when the covey started. The Professor afterward extracted some stray shot from the legs of his boots, and the setter, which was next to Muggs, gave a cry of pain for which there was evidently other cause than rheumatism, as was demonstrated by his retirement to the rear, from which he refused to budge until we all got into the wagon, and to which he invariably retreated whenever we got out.
OUR FIRST BIRD-SHOOTING.OUR FIRST BIRD-SHOOTING.
From the midst of the birds which were soaring away, one was seen to rise suddenly a few feet abovehis comrades, and then fall straight as a plummet, and head first, to earth. It had caught some stray shot from the bombardment—Muggs claimed from his gun, but this statement the setter, could he have spoken, would certainly have disputed.
Semi-Colon brought in the game, which proved to be a fine male, with whiskers and full plumage, which must have made sad havoc among the hearts of the hens, when the old fellow was on annual dress parade in the spring. At that season of the year the cocks seek some knoll of the prairie, where the grass has been burnt or cut off, and strut up and down with ruffled feathers, uttering meanwhile a booming sound, which can be heard in a clear morning for miles. The flabby pink skin that at other seasons hangs in loose folds on his neck is then distended like a bagpipe, and he is a very different bird from the same individual in his Quaker gray and respectable summer and fall habits.
Ensconced again in the wagon, our party moved forward, the dogs, as before, examining the prairie. The professor was comparing the birds of the present and the past ages, when Muggs suddenly blasted his eyes and declared the beasts were at it again. And so they were, the setter making a good stand at some game in the grass, and the other dog, a short distance off, pointing his companion. During the remainder of the day we found many large flocks of birds, and fired away until two or three swelled noses testified how dirty our guns were.
"Fast shooting," said the professor, as we were on our way home, "is as bad as that too slow. AlthoughI am no sportsman from practice, I love and have studied the principles of it. In my father's day the rule was, when a bird rose, for a hunter to take out his snuff-box, take snuff, replace the box, aim, and fire. You may find the advice yet in some works. The shot then has distance in which to spread. With close shooting they are all together, and you might as well fire a bullet. When you have given the bird time, act quickly. The first sight is the best. Again, the first moment of flight, with most birds, is very irregular, as it is upward, instead of from you."
Dobeen begged leave to inform our "honors" that in Ireland, after a bird rose, the rule was, instead of taking snuff, to take off the boots before firing. The professor thought that such a habit related to outrunning the gamekeeper, and was intended to procure distance for the poacher rather than the bird.
Sachem stated that he had known a slow hunter once. He was a revolutionary veteran, used a revolutionary musket, and believed in revolutionary powder. He refused to do any thing different from what his fathers did, and abhorred double-barreled shotguns and percussion-caps as inventions of the devil. It was constantly, "General Washington did this," and "Our army did that," and his old head shook sadly at the innovations Young America was making. His ghost, with the revolutionary musket on its shoulder, had since been known to chase hunters, with breech-loaders, who were caught on his favorite ground after dark. "Old 1776" was great on wing-shooting, and could be seen at almost any time hobbling over the moor, firing away at snipe and water-fowl.He was one of those slow, deliberate cases, always taking snuff after the bird rose. There would be a glitter of fluttering wings as the game shot into air. Down would come the long musket, out would come the snuff-box, and the old soldier would go through the present, make ready, take snuff, take aim, and fire, all as coolly as if on parade. The old musket often hung fire from five to ten seconds, and the premonitory flash could be seen as the shaky flint clattered down on the pan. The veteran always patiently covered the bird until the charge got out. The recoil was tremendous, and the old man often went down before the bird; but such positions, he asserted, were taken voluntarily, as ones of rest. Some said that the gun had been known to kick him again after he was down.
Sachem's narration was here cut short by the dogs again pointing. This was followed by the usual bombardment, which over, the bag showed the magnificent aggregate of two chickens for the entire day's sport.
The prairie-chicken is now extinct in many of the Western States where it was once well known. Usually, during the first few years of settlement, it increases rapidly, and is often a nuisance to pioneer farmers. Perhaps, when the latter first settle in a country, a few covies may be seen; under the favorable influences of wheat and corn-fields, the dozens increase to thousands and cover the land. But with denser settlement come more guns, and, what is a far more destructive agent, trained dogs also. Under the first order of things, the farmer, with his musket,might kill enough for the home table. With double-barreled gun and keen-scented pointer, the sportsman and pot-hunter think nothing of fifty or sixty birds for a day's work. It seems almost impossible, under such a combination, for a covey to escape total annihilation.
We may suppose a couple of fair shots hunting over a dog in August, when the chickens lie close, and the year's broods are in their most delicate condition for the table. The pointer makes a stand before a fine covey hidden in the thick grass before him. The ready guns ask no delay, and, at the word, he flushes the chickens immediately under his nose. Each hunter takes those which rise before him, or on his side, and if four or less left cover at the first alarm, that number of gray-speckled forms the next moment are down in the grass, not to leave it again. If more rose, they are "marked," which means that their place of alighting is carefully noted, and, as the chicken has but a short flight, this task is easy. Meanwhile, the guns have been reloaded, the dog flushes others of the hiding birds, and so the sport goes on. The birds that get away are "marked down," and again found and flushed by the dog. Without this useful animal the chickens would multiply, despite any number of hunters. I have often seen covies go down in the grass but a few hundred yards away, yet have tramped through the spot dozens of times without raising a single bird. In twenty years this delicious game will probably be as much a thing of the past as is the Dodo of the Isle de France. At the period of our visit they werealready gathering into their fall flocks, which sometimes number a hundred or more. In these they remain until St. Valentine recommends a separation. During the colder weather of winter they seek the protection of the timber, and may be seen of mornings on the trees and fences. They never roost there, however, but pass the night hidden in the adjacent grass.
The prairie-chicken's admirers are numerous, other animals beside man being willing to dine on its plump breast. We had an illustration of this in our first day's shooting. Sometimes when we fired, the report would attract to our vicinity wandering hawks, and we found that either instinct or previous experience teaches these fierce hunters of the air that in the vicinity of their fellow-hunter, man, wounded birds may be found. One wounded chicken, which fell near us, was seized by a hawk immediately.
As we passed one or two fields, indications of gophers appeared, their small mounds of earth covering the ground. In some counties these animals formerly destroyed crops to such an extent that the celebrated "Gopher Act" was passed. This gave a bounty of two dollars for each scalp, and under it many farms yielded more to the acre than ever before or since. One of these animals which we secured resembled in size and shape the Norway rat, and, in the softness and color of its coat, was not unlike a mole. The oddest thing was its earth-pouches—two open sacks, one on either side of its head, and capable of containing each a tablespoonful or more. These the gopher employs, in his subterranean researches, forthe same purpose that his enemy, man, does a wheelbarrow. Packing them with dirt, the little fellow trudges gayly to the surface, and there cleverly dumps his load.
We reached town again, well pleased with our day's ride, and over our evening pipes discussed the results. Muggs thought our shot were too small. Sachem thought the birds were.
Colon was delighted with the new State, but believed that wing-shooting was not hisforte. He would be more apt to hit a bird on the wing if he could only catch it roosting somewhere.
Gripe, at the other end of the room, was piling Republican doctrines upon a bearded Democratic heathen from the Western border.
A TRIAL BY JUDGE LYNCH—HUNG FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT—QUAIL SHOOTING—HABITS OF THE BIRDS, AND MODE OF KILLING THEM—A RING OF QUAILS—THE EFFECTS OF A SEVERE WINTER—THE SNOW GOOSE.
A TRIAL BY JUDGE LYNCH—HUNG FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT—QUAIL SHOOTING—HABITS OF THE BIRDS, AND MODE OF KILLING THEM—A RING OF QUAILS—THE EFFECTS OF A SEVERE WINTER—THE SNOW GOOSE.
A short time after supper, Tenacious Gripe appeared with the mayor of the city, who wished to make the acquaintance of the Professor. The two august personages bowed to each other. It was the happiest moment in their respective lives, they declared. An invitation was extended us to delay our departure another day and try quail shooting. The citizens said the birds were unusually abundant, the previous winter having been mild and the summer long enough for two separate broods to be hatched, and the brush and river banks were swarming with them. As we were about to abandon the birds of the West and seek an acquaintance with its beasts, we decided, after a brief consultation, to accept the invitation and remain another day.
Among the persons present in the crowded office of the hotel, was a man from the southwestern part of the state who had lately been interested in a trial before the celebrated Judge Lynch. Sachem interviewed him, and reports his statement of the occurrence in the log book, as follows:
A stranger played me fur a fool,An' threw the high, low, jack,An' sold me the wuss piece of muleThat ever humped a back.But that wer fair; I don't complain,That I got beat in trade;I don't sour on a fellow's gain,When sich is honest made.But wust wer this, he stole the mule,An' I were bilked complete;Such thieves, we hossmen makes a ruleTo lift 'em from their feet.We started arter that 'ere pup,An' took the judge along,For fear, with all our dander up,We might do somethin' wrong.We caught him under twenty miles,An tried him under trees;The judge he passed around the "smiles,"As sort o' jury fees."Pris'ner," says judge, "now say your say,An' make it short an' sweet,An', while yer at it, kneel and pray,For Death yer can not cheat.No man shall hang, by this 'ere court,Exceptin' on the square;There's time fur speech, if so it's short,But none to chew or swear."