JUDGE LYNCH—HIS COURT.JUDGE LYNCH—HIS COURT.JUDGE AND JURY. SHERIFF. ATTORNEY. LOAFER. CLERK. DEPUTY SHERIFF.
An' then the thievin' rascal cursed,An' threw his life away,He said, "Just pony out your worst,Your best would be foul play."Then judge he frowned an awful frown,An' snapped this sentence short,"Jones, twitch the rope, an' write this down,Hung for contempt of court!"
Sharp 8 next morning saw us on the road leading east of town, the two dogs with us, and a young one additional, the property of a resident sportsman. Our last acquisition joined us on the run, and kept on it all day, going over the ground with the speed of a greyhound, his fine nose, however, giving him better success than his reckless pace would have indicated.
Three miles from town, or half way between it and Tecumseh, our party left the wagon, with direction for it to follow the road, while we scouted along on a parallel, following the river bank.
The Kaw stretched eastward, broad and shallow, with numerous sand bars, and along its edges grew the scarlet sumach and some stunted bushes, and between these and the corn a high, coarse bottom grass, with intervals at every hundred yards or so apart of a shorter variety, like that on a poor prairie. Among the bushes, there was no grass whatever, and yet the birds seemed indifferently to frequent one spot equally with another.
In less than ten minutes after leaving the wagon, all the dogs were pointing on a barren looking spot,thinly sprinkled with scrubby bushes not larger than jimson-weeds. They were several yards apart, so that each animal was clearly acting on his own responsibility.
If it puzzled us the day before to discover any signs of game under their noses, it certainly did so now. There was apparently no place of concealment for any object larger than a field-mouse. The bushes were wide apart, and the soil between was a loose sand. Around the roots of the scrubs, it is true, a few thin, wiry spears of grass struggled into existence, but these covered a space not larger than a man's hand, and it seemed preposterous to imagine that they could be capable of affording cover. That three dogs were pointing straight at three bushes was apparent, but we could see nothing in or about the latter calling for such attention.
Shamus, who had accompanied us, wished to know if the twigs were witch hazels, because, if so, three invisible old beldames might be taking a nap under them, after a midnight ride. "But, then," said Dobeen, "the dog's hairs don't stand on end as they always do in Ireland when they see ghosts and witches." We believe that our worthy cook was really disappointed in not discovering any stray broomsticks lying around. These, he afterward informed us, could not be made invisible, though their owners should take on airy shapes unrecognizable by mortal eyes.
Muggs had suggested urging the dogs in, but the party, wiser from yesterday's experience, desired a ground shot, if it could be secured. The Professoradjusted his lens, and decided to make a personal inspection around the roots of the bush immediately in front of him.
Carefully the sage bent over the suspicious spot, and almost fell backward as, with a whiz and a dart, half a dozen quails flew out, brushing his very nose. Instantly every bush sent forth its fugitives. A flash of feathered balls, and they were all gone. Such whizzing and whirring! it was as if those scraggy bushes weremitrailleuses, in quick succession discharging their loads.
Only one gun had gone off, but that so loudly that our ears rung for several seconds. Mr. Colon had accidentally rammed at least two, perhaps half a dozen, loads into one barrel, and the gun discharged with an aim of its own, the butt very low down. Two birds fell dead. But alas for our Nimrod! Colon stood with one hand on his stomach undecided whether that organ remained or not. On this point, however, he was fully re-assured at the supper-table that night, and in all our after experience, we never knew that gun to have the least opportunity for going off, except when at its owner's shoulder, and he perfectly ready for it.
The two birds were now submitted to the party for inspection. They were fine specimens of the American quail, more properly called by those versed in quailology, the Bob White. This bird is very plentiful throughout Kansas, and just before the shooting season commences, in September, will even frequent the gardens and alight on the houses of Topeka. They "lay close" before a dog, take flightinto air with a quick, whirring dart, and their shooting deservedly ranks high. They are very rapid in their movements upon the ground, often running fifty or seventy-five yards before hiding. When this takes place, so closely do they huddle that it is seldom more than the upper bird that can be seen. "Green hunters" sometimes pause, trying to discover the rest of the covey before firing, and experience a great and sudden disgust when the single bird which they have disdained suddenly develops into a dozen flying ones.
We had an eventful days' sport, expending more ammunition than when among the chickens, and with more satisfactory results, as we brought in over two dozen birds. More than half of these were taken by Sachem at one lucky discharge. He saw a covey in the grass, huddled together as they generally are when not running. At these times they form a circle about as large in diameter as the hoop of a nail keg, with tails to the center and heads toward the outside. Fifteen quails would thus be a circle of fifteen heads, and a pail, could it be dropped over the covey, would cover them all. Not only is this an economy of warmth, there being no outsiders half of whose bodies must get chilled, but there is no blind side on which they can be approached, every portion of the circle having its full quota of eyes. Let skunk or fox, or other roamer through the grass, creep ever so stealthily, he will be seen and avoided by flight. Sachem aiming at the midst of such a ring, broke it up as effectually as Boutwell's discharge of bullion did that on Wall Street.
We have since found the frozen bodies of whole covies, which had gone to roost in a circle and been buried under such a heavy fall of snow that the birds could not force their way upward. Their habit is to remain in imprisonment, apparently waiting for the snow to melt before even making an effort for deliverance. Oftentimes it is then too late, a crust having formed above. A severe winter will sometimes completely exterminate the birds in certain localities.
During this first day of quail-shooting, we also saw for the first time flocks of the snow-goose. The Professor counted fifty birds on one sand bar. This variety, in its flight across the continent, apparently passes through but a narrow belt of country, being found, to the best of my knowledge, in but few of the states outside of Kansas.
Our return to the hotel was without accident, and our supper such as hungry hunters might well enjoy. After it was disposed of, we gathered around the ample stove in the hotel office, and lived over again the events of the day.
OFF FOR BUFFALO LAND—THE NAVIGATION OF THE KAW—FORT RILEY—THE CENTER-POST OF THE UNITED STATES—OUR PURCHASE OF HORSES—"LO" AS A SAVAGE AND AS A CITIZEN—GRIPE UNFOLDS THE INDIAN QUESTION—A BALLAD BY SACHEM, PRESENTING ANOTHER VIEW.
OFF FOR BUFFALO LAND—THE NAVIGATION OF THE KAW—FORT RILEY—THE CENTER-POST OF THE UNITED STATES—OUR PURCHASE OF HORSES—"LO" AS A SAVAGE AND AS A CITIZEN—GRIPE UNFOLDS THE INDIAN QUESTION—A BALLAD BY SACHEM, PRESENTING ANOTHER VIEW.
Next morning we said good-by to hospitable Topeka, and took up our westward way over the Pacific Railroad. An ever-repeated succession of valley and prairie stretched away on either hand. To the left the Kaw came down with far swifter current than it has in its course below, from its far-away source in Colorado. It might properly be called one of the eaves or water-spouts of the great Rocky Mountain water-shed. With a pitch of over five feet to the mile, its pace is here necessarily a rapid one, and when at freshet height the stream is like a mill-race for foam and fury.
At the junction of the Big Blue we found the old yet pretty town of Manhattan. To this point, in early times, water transit was once attempted. A boat of exceedingly light draught, one of those built to run on a heavy dew, being procured, freight was advertised for, and the navigation of the Kaw commenced. The one hundred miles or more to Manhattan was accomplished principally by means of the capstan, the boat being "warped" over the numberless shallows. This proved easier, of course—a trifleeasier—than if she had made the trip on macadamized roads. If her stern had a comfortable depth of water it was seldom indeed, except when her bow was in the air in the process of pulling the boat over a sand bar. The scared catfish were obliged to retreat up stream, or hug close under the banks, to avoid obstructing navigation, and it is even hinted that more than one patriarch of the finny tribe had to be pried out of the way to make room for his new rival to pass.
Once at Manhattan, the steamboat line was suspended for the season, its captain and crew deciding they would rather walk back to the Missouri River than drag the vessel there. Soon afterward, the steamer was burned at her landing, and the Kaw has remained closed to commerce ever since.
About the same time, an enterprising Yankee advocated in the papers the straightening of the river, and providing it with a series of locks, making it a canal. As he had no money of his own with which to develop his ideas into results, and could command nobody's else for that purpose, the project failed in its very inception.
Fort Riley, four miles below Junction City, is claimed as the geographical center of the United States, the exact spot being marked by a post. What a rallying point that stick of wood will be for future generations! When the corner-stone of the National Capitol shall there be laid, the orator of the day can mount that post and exclaim, with eloquent significance, elsewhere impossible, "No north, no south, no east, no west!" and enthusiastic multitudes,there gathered from the four quarters of the continent, will hail the words as the key-note of the republic.
That spot of ground and that post are valuable. I hope a national subscription will be started to buy it. It is the only place on our continent which can ever be entirely free from local jealousies. There would be no possible argument for ever removing the capital. The Kaw could be converted into a magnificent canal, winding among picturesque hills past the base of the Capitol; and then, in case of war, should any hostile fleet ever ascend the rapid Missouri, it would be but necessary for our legislators to grasp the canal locks, and let the water out, to insure their perfect safety. Imagine the humiliation of a foreign naval hero arriving with his iron-clads opposite a muddy ditch, and finding it the only means of access to our capital!
A painful rumor has of late obtained circulation that a band of St. Louis ku-klux, yclept capital movers, intend stealing the pole and obliterating the hole. Let us hope, however, that it is without foundation.
Before leaving Topeka, the party had purchased horses for the trip, and consigned the precious load to a car, sending a note to General Anderson, superintendent, asking that they might be promptly and carefully forwarded to Hays City, our present objective point upon the plains.
The professor, bringing previous experience into requisition, selected a stout mustang—probably as tractable as those brutes ever become. He was warranted by the seller never to tire, and he never did, keeping the philosopher constantly on the alert tosave neck and knees. It is the simple truth that, in all our acquaintance with him, that mustang never appeared in the least fatigued. After backing and shying all day, he would spend the night in kicking and stealing from the other horses.
Mr. Colon, by rare good fortune, obtained a beautiful animal, formerly known in Leavenworth as Iron Billy—a dark bay, with head and hair fine as a pointer's, limbs cut sharp, and joints of elastic. After carrying Mr. C. bravely for months, never tripping or failing, he was sold on our return to the then Secretary of State, who still owns him. More than once did Billy make his rider's arm ache from pulling at the curb, when the other horses were all knocked up by the rough day's riding. It was interesting to see him in pursuit of buffalo. He would often smell them when they were hidden in ravines, and we wholly unaware of their vicinity. Head and ears were erect in an instant, and, with nostrils expanded, forward he went, keeping eagerly in front at a peculiar prancing step which we called tiptoeing. Once in sight of the game, and the rider became a person of quite secondary importance. Billy said, as plainly as a horse could say any thing, "Iam going to manage this thing;youstick on." And manage it he did. Not many moments, at the most, before he was at the quarters of the fleeing monsters, and nipping them mischievously with his teeth. I could always imagine him giving a downright horse-laugh, his big bright eyes sparkled so when the frightened bison, at the touch, gave a switch of his tail and a swerve of alarm, and plunged more wildly forward.If the rider wished to shoot, he could do so; if not, content himself, as Mr. Colon usually did, with clinging to the saddle, and uttering numberless expostulatory but fruitless "whoa's."
Once on our trip Billy was loaned for the day to a gentleman who wished to examine a prospective coal mine. When barely out of sight of camp, Billy discovered a herd of buffalo, and, despite the vehement remonstrances of his rider, straightway charged it. The mine-seeker was no hunter, but a wise and thoroughly timid devotee of science in search of coal measures. A few moments, and the poor, frightened gentleman found himself in the midst of a surging mass of buffalo, his knees brushing their hairy sides, and their black horns glittering close around him, like an array of serried spears. He drew his knees into the saddle, and there, clinging like a monkey, lost his hat, his map of the mine, and his spectacles. He returned Billy as soon as he could get him back to camp, with expressions of gratitude that he had been allowed to escape with life, and never manifested the least desire to mount him again.
Sachem's purchase was a horse which had run unaccountably to legs. He was sixteen hands high, a trifle knock-kneed, and with a way of flinging the limbs out when put to his speed which, though it seemed awkward enough, yet got over the ground remarkably well. With the shambling gait of a camel, he had also the good qualities of one, and did his owner honest service.
Muggs bought a mule, partly because advised to do so by a plainsman, and partly because the rest ofus took horses. With true British obstinacy he paid no attention to our expostulations, and the creature he obtained was as obstinate as himself. Poor Muggs! A mule may be good property in the hands of a plainsman, but was never intended to carry a Briton.
Semi-Colon had the auction purchase, and Dobeen selected a Mexican donkey, one of the toughest little animals that ever pulled a bit. He could excel a trained mule in the feat of dislodging his rider, and had a remarkable penchant for running over persons who by chance might be looking the other way. It seemed to be his constant study to take unexpected positions, or, as Sachem phrased it, to "strike an attitude."
My mount was a stout-built old mare, recommended to me as a solid beast, on the strength of which, and wishing to avoid experiments, I made purchase at once. I found her solid indeed. When on the gallop her feet came down with a shock which made my head vibrate, as if I had accidentally taken two steps instead of one, in descending a staircase.
Could the good people of Topeka have gotten us to ride out of their town upon our several animals, it would have given them a fair idea of amardi grascavalcade in New Orleans.
And so, our camp equipage and live stock following by freight, the express rolled us forward toward the great plains. So far along our route we had seen but few Indians, and those civilized specimens, such as straggle occasionally through the streets of Topeka. The Indian reservations in Kansas are at some distanceapart, and their inhabitants frequently exchange visits. The few whom we had seen consisted of Osages, Kaws, Pottawatomies, and Sioux, all equally dirty, but the last affecting clothes more than the others, and eschewing paint. The members of this tribe, generally speaking, have good farms and are worth a handsome average per head. At the time of our visit they were expecting a half million dollars or so from Washington, and were soon to become American citizens. One privilege of this citizenship struck us as very peculiar. By the State law, as long as an Indian is simply an Indian, he can buy no whisky, and is thus cruelly debarred from the privilege of getting drunk, but once a voter, he can luxuriate in corn-juice and the calaboose, as well as his white brother. What a travesty upon American civilization and politics!
Muggs was prejudiced against the Osages, having been induced by one of them to invest in a bow and arrows, "for the Hinglish Museum, you know." On pulling for a trial shot, one end of the bow went further than the arrow, and the cord, warranted to be buffalo sinew, proved to be an oiled string.
Sachem declared that he had found Muggs returning the wreck to the Indian with the following speech: "O-sage, little was your wisdom to court thus the wrath of a Briton. Take with the two pieces this piece of my mind. That your noble form may be removed soon to the 'appy 'unting ground, where bow trades are not allowed, is the prayer of your patron, Muggs."
UNNATURALIZED.UNNATURALIZED.
NATURALIZED.NATURALIZED.
Mr. Colon asked Tenacious Gripe to explain thecondition of the Native Americans in Kansas. The orator kindly consented and thereupon discoursed as follows:
"The Indians of Kansas are divided into the wild and the tame. Both alike cover their nakedness with bright handkerchiefs, old shirts, military coats, and many-hued ribbons. The principal difference in point of dress is in the method of procuring it. Among those tribes which are at peace with the government, the white man robs the Indian; among the wild tribes the conditions are reversed—the Indian robs the white man. In the one case the contractors and agents carry off their half million dollars or thereabouts; in the other the savage bears away a quantity of old clothes and fresh scalps. As he finds it difficult to procure sufficient of the white man's justice to satisfy the cravings of his nature, he feeds it with what he can and whenever he can of revenge. Wise men tell us, gentlemen, that revenge is sweet and justice a dry morsel. All Indians beg when they get an opportunity. The tame ones, if they find it fruitless, divert themselves by selling worthless pieces of wood with strings attached, as bows. The wild ones, in a like predicament, relieve their tedium by whacking away at our ribs with bows that amount to something. The principles actuating both classes are alike. It is simply the application which causes difficulty—in the one case an appeal with bow and arrows to our pockets, in the other to our bodies.
"All our wars with these people, gentlemen, are a result of their political economy. They believe thatthe Great Spirit provided buffalo and other game for his red children. When the white man drives these away, they understand that he takes their place as a means of sustenance, and as they have lived upon the one, so they intend to do upon the other. If the buffalo attempts to evade his duty in the premises, they kill him and take his meat; if the white man, they kill him and take his hair."
Sachem produced a roll of dirty brown paper and said that he had studied the Indian question and found two sides to it. One he could give us in a nutshell, believing that the meat of the nut had often excited the spirit of war.
Where waters sung above the sand,And torrent forced its way,Stretched out, disgusted with the land,A bearded miner lay,Prepared to strike, with willing hand,Whatever lead would pay.Echo of hoof on beaten groundRung on the desert air,Ringing a tune of gladsome soundTo miner, watching there;A paying lead, at last, he'd found—The vein a "man of hair."An instant more, and at the fordA savage chief appeared;The miner saw his goodly hoard,And tore his own good beard.(You'll always find an ox is goredWhen sheep are to be sheared.)
Dog Town—The Happy Family at Home.Dog Town—The Happy Family at Home.
An old Fable modernized."You've riled that Brook"—An old Fable modernized.
And these the words the miner said:"You've spoilt my drink, old fellow;You've riled the brook, my brother red,And, by your cheek so yellow,To-night above your sandy bedThe prairie gale shall bellow."No relatives of mine are dead,At least by Injun cunnin',But many other hearts have bled,And many eyes are runnin';For blood and tears alike are shed,Whenyougo out a gunnin'."Some slumbrin' peaceful, first they knew,They heard your horrid din—Women as well as men you slew,You bloody son of sin;I mourn 'em all, revenge 'em too,Through Adam they were kin."This having said, the miner smart,Drew bead upon the red man:They're fond of beads—it touched his heart,And Lo, behold, a dead man;Upon Life's stage he'd played his part,A gory sort of head man!Two packs of goods lay on the ground;Quoth miner, "Lawful spoil!My lucky star at last has foundAs good as gold and oil;I kinder felt that fate was boundTo bless my honest toil."Such heathen have no lawful heirs—I'll be the Probate Judge,For though they kinder go in pairs,Their love is all a fudge;I'll 'ministrate on what he wears,And leave his squaw my grudge."
GRIPE'S VIEWS OF INDIAN CHARACTER—THE DELAWARES' THE ISHMAELITES OF THE PLAINS—THE TERRITORY OF THE "LONG HORNS"—TEXANS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS—MUSHROOM ROCK—A VALUABLE DISCOVERY—FOOTPRINTS IN THE ROCK—THE PRIMEVAL PAUL AND VIRGINIA.
GRIPE'S VIEWS OF INDIAN CHARACTER—THE DELAWARES' THE ISHMAELITES OF THE PLAINS—THE TERRITORY OF THE "LONG HORNS"—TEXANS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS—MUSHROOM ROCK—A VALUABLE DISCOVERY—FOOTPRINTS IN THE ROCK—THE PRIMEVAL PAUL AND VIRGINIA.
We noticed many fine rivers rolling from the northward into the Kaw, which stream we found was known by that name only after receiving the Republican, at Junction City. Above that point, under the name of the Smoky Hill, it stretches far out across the plains, and into the eastern portion of Colorado. Along its desolate banks we afterward saw the sun rise and set upon many a weary and many a gorgeous day.
All the large tributaries of the Kansas river, consisting of the Big Blue, Republican, Solomon, and Saline, came in on our right. Upon our left, toward the South, only small creeks joined waters with the Kaw, the pitch of the great "divides" there being towards the Arkansas and its feeders, the Cottonwood and Neosho.
We had now fairly entered on the great Smoky Hill trail. Here Fremont marked out his path towards the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, and on many of the highbutteswe discovered the pillars ofstone which he had set up as guides for emigrant trains, looking wonderfully like sentinels standing guard over the valleys beneath. Indeed we did at first take them for solitary herders, watching their cattle in some choice pasture out of sight.
Most of our party had expected to find Indians in promiscuous abundance over the entire State, and we were therefore surprised to see the country, after passing St. Mary's Mission, entirely free of them. Muggs asked Gripe if the American Indian was hostile to all nationalities alike, or simply to those who robbed him of his hunting-grounds. The orator replied as follows:
"Sir, the aborigine of the western plains cares not what color or flavor the fruit possesses which hangs from his roof tree. The cue of the Chinaman is equally as acceptable as hairs from the mane of the English lion. A red lock is as welcome as a black one, and disputes as to ownership usually result in a dead-lock. His abhorrence is a wig, which he considers a contrivance of the devil to cheat honest Indian industry. I would advise geologists on the plains to carry, along with their picks for breaking stones, a bottle of patent hair restorative. It is handy to have in one's pocket when his scalp is far on its way towards some Cheyenne war-pole. The scalping process, gentlemen, is the way in which savages levy and collect their poll-tax. Any person in search of romantic wigwams can have his wig warmed very thoroughly on the Arkansas or Texas borders. On the plains along the western border of Kansas, however, geologists can find a rich and comparativelysafe field for exploration. It is doubtful if the savages ever wander there again.
"Of the Indian warrior on the plains we may well say,requiescat in pace, and may his pace be rapid towards either civilization or the happy hunting ground. History shows that his reaching the first has generally given him quick transit to the second. The white man's country has proved a spirit-land to Lo, whose noble soul seems to sink when the scalping-knife gathers any other rust than that of blood, and whose prophetic spirit takes flight at the prospect of exchanging boiled puppies and dirt for the white brother's pork and beans. Very often, however, it must be said, Lo's soul is gathered to his fathers by reason of its tabernacle being smitten too sorely by corn lightning."
As Gripe paused, the Professor took up the subject in a somewhat different strain:
"We have here in this State," remarked he, "a tribe which may well be called the Indian Ishmael. Its hand is and ever has been, since history took record of it, against its brethren, and its brethren's against it. I refer to the pitiful remnant of the once great Delawares. From the shores of the Atlantic they have steadily retreated before civilization, marking their path westward by constant conflicts with other races of red men. The nation in its eastern forests once numbered thousands of warriors. Now, three hundred miserable survivors are hastening to extinction by way of their Kansas reservation.
"A number of their best warriors have been employed as scouts by the government, when administeringwell merited chastisement to other murdering bands. The Delawares, I have often thought, are like blood-hounds on the track of the savages of the plains. They take fierce delight in scanning the ground for trails and the lines of the streams for camps. There is something strangely unnatural in the wild eyes of these Ishmaelites, as they lead the destroyers against their race, and assist in blotting it from the face of the continent. Themselves so nearly joined to the nations known only in history, it is like a plague-stricken man pressing eagerly forward to carry the curse, before he dies, to the remainder of his people."
The valleys of the Saline, Solomon, and Smoky Hill, as we passed them in rapid succession, seemed very rich and were already thickly dotted with houses. This is one of the best cattle regions of the state, and vast herds of the long-horned Texan breed covered the prairies. We were informed that they often graze throughout the entire winter. As early in the spring as the grass starts sufficiently along the trail from Texas to Kansas, the stock dealers of the former State commence moving their immense herds over it. The cattle are driven slowly forward, feeding as they come, and reach the vicinity of the Kansas railroads when the grass is in good condition for their summer fattening. As many as five hundred thousand head of these long horns have been brought into the State in a single season. Some are sold on arrival and others kept until fall, when the choicest beeves are shipped East for packing purposes, or into Illinois for corn feeding. The latter is the case when theyare destined eventually for consumption in Eastern markets, grass-fed beef lacking the solid fatness of the corn-fed, and suffering more by long transportation.
This very important trade in cattle, when fully developed, will probably be about equally divided between southern and central Kansas, each of which possesses its peculiar advantages for the business. While the valley of the Arkansas has longer grass, and more of it, the dealers in the Kaw region claim that their "feed" is the most nutritious. My own opinion, carefully formed, is that both sections are about equally good, and that the whole of western Kansas, with Colorado, will yet become the greatest stock-raising region of the world. The climate is peculiarly favorable. Two seasons out of three, on an average, cattle and sheep can graze during the winter, without any other cover than that of the ravines and the timber along the creeks.
The herders who manage these large bodies of cattle are a distinctive and peculiar class. We saw numbers of them scurrying along over the country on their wild, lean mustangs, in appearance a species of centaur, half horse, half man, with immense rattling spurs, tanned skin, and dare-devil, almost ferocious faces. After an extensive acquaintance with the genus Texan, and with all due allowance for the better portion of it, I must say, as my deliberate judgment, that it embraces a larger number of murderers and desperadoes than can be found elsewhere in any civilized nation. A majority of these herders would think no more of snuffing out a life than ofsnuffing out a candle. Texas, in her rude solitude, formerly stretched protecting arms to the evil doers from other states, and to her these classes flocked. She offered them not a city but a whole empire of refuge.
Just beyond Brookville, two hundred miles from the eastern border of Kansas, our road commenced ascending the Harker Bluffs, a series of sandstone ridges bordering on the plains.
On our left, Mushroom Rock was pointed out to us, a huge table of stone poised on a solitary pillar, and strangely resembling the plant from which it is named. As the professor informed us, we were on the eastern shore of a once vast inland ocean, the bed of which now forms the plains. Sachem thought the rock might be a petrified toad-stool, on a scale with the gigantic toads which hopped around in the mud of that age of monsters. The professor thought it was fashioned by the waters, in their eddyings and washings.
Subsequent examinations showed this entire region to be one of remarkable interest to the geologist. A few miles east of Mushroom Rock, near Bavaria, as we learned from the conductor, human foot-prints had been discovered in the sandstone. The professor, who had long ascribed to man an earlier existence upon earth than that given him by geology, was greatly excited, and at his earnest request, when the down train was met, we returned upon it to Bavaria.
MUSHROOM ROCK.MUSHROOM ROCK,On Alum Creek, near Kansas Pacific R. R.—From a Photograph.
INDIAN ROCK.INDIAN ROCK, on Smoky Hill River, Kansas—From a Photograph.
That place we found to consist of two buildings, each serving the double purpose of house and store,the track running between them. Two sandstone blocks, each weighing several hundred pounds, lay in front of one of the stores, and there, sure enough, impressed clearly and deeply upon their surface were the tracks of human feet. They had been discovered by a Mr. J. B. Hamilton on the adjacent bluffs.
There was something weird and startling in this voice from those long-forgotten ages—ages no less remote than when the ridge we were standing upon was a portion of a lake shore. The man who trod those sands, the professor informed us, perished from the face of the earth countless ages before the oldest mummy was laid away in the caves of Egypt; and yet people looked at the shriveled Egyptian, and thought that they were holding converse with one who lived close upon the time of the oldest inhabitant. They wrested secrets from his tomb, and called them very ancient. And now this dweller beside the great lakes had lifted his feet out of the sand to kick the mummy from his pedestal of honor in the museum, as but a being of yesterday, in comparison with himself.
This discovery was soon afterward extensively noticed in the newspapers, and the specimens are now in the collection made by our party at Topeka. It is but fair to say that a difference of opinion exists in regard to these imprints. Many scientific men, among whom is Professor Cope, affirm that they must be the work of Indians long ago, as the age of the rock puts it beyond the era of man, while others attribute them to some lower order of animal, with a foot resembling the human one. For my own part, after careful examination, I accept our professor'stheory, that the imprints are those of human feet. The surface of the stone has been decided by experts to be bent down, not chiseled out. Science not long ago ridiculed the primitive man, which it now accepts. It is not strange, therefore, that science should protest against its oldest inhabitant stepping out from ages in which it had hitherto forbidden him existence.
We also found on the rocks fine impressions of leaves, resembling those of the magnolia, and gathered a bushel of petrified walnuts and butternuts. There were no other indications whatever of trees, the whole country, as far as we could see, being a desolate prairie.
"Gentlemen," said the professor, "as surely as you stand on the shore of a great lake, which passed away in comparatively modern times, science stands on the brink of important revelations. We have here the evidence of the rocks that man existed on this earth when the vast level upon which you are about to enter was covered by its mass of water. The waves lapped against the Rocky Mountains on the west, and against the ridges on which you are standing, upon the east. From previous explorations, I can assure you that the buffalo now feed over a surface strewn with the remains of those monsters which inhabited the waters of the primitive world, and the grasses suck nutriment from the shells of centuries. Geology has held that man did not exist during the time of the great lakes. I assert that he did, gentlemen, and now an inhabitant of that period steps forward to confirm my position. This manwalked barefooted, and yet the contour of one of the feet, so different in shape from that of any wild people's of the present day, shows that it had been confined by some stiff material, like our leather shoes. The appearance of the big toe is especially confirmatory of this. I would call your attention, gentlemen, to the block which contains companion impressions of the right and left foot. The latter is deep, and well defined, every toe being separate and perfect. The former is shallow, and spread out, with bulged-up ridges of stone between each toe. These are exactly the impressions your own feet would make, on such a shore to-day, were the sand under the right one to be of such a yielding nature that in moving you withdrew it quickly, and rested more heavily on the other, the material under which was firmer. Your right track would spread, the mud bulging up between the toes, and forcing them out of position, and the material nearly regaining its level, with a misshapen impression upon its surface.
"You will also perceive that the sand was already hardening into rock when our ancient friends walked over it. I use the plural because, if I may venture an opinion from this hasty examination, I should say the two tracks were those of a female, the single one that of a man. From the position of the blocks they were probably walking near each other at that precise time when the new rock was soft enough to receive an impression and hard enough to retain it. You will perceive that the surface of the stone is bent down into the cavities, as that of a loaf of half-raised bread would be should you press your hand into it."
Sachem thought that the couple might have been an ancient Paul and Virginia telling their love on the shores of the old-time lake.
The Professor continued: "You notice close beside the two imprints an oval, rather deep hole in the rock, precisely like that a boy often makes by whirling on one heel in the sand."
Sachem again interrupted: "Perhaps the maiden went through the fascinating evolution of revolving her body while her mind revolved the 'yes' or 'no' to her swain's question. It might be a refined way of telling her lover that she was well 'heeled,' and asking if he was."
The Professor very gravely replied: "In those days the world had not run to slang. If one of Noah's children had dared to address him with the modern salutation of 'governor,' the venerable patriarch would have flung his child overboard from the ark. Taking your view of the case, Mr. Sachem, the whirl in the sand, which gave the lover his answer, is telling us to-day that same old story. And the coquette of that remote period caused the tell-tale walk upon the sand, which has proved the greatest geological discovery of modern times. I believe that it will be followed up and sustained by others equally as important, all tending to date man's birth thousands of years anterior to the time geology has hitherto assigned him an existence upon earth."
We spent many hours of the night in getting the rocks to the depot for shipment to Topeka, the few inhabitants of Bavaria assisting us. Soon after awestward train came along, and we were again in motion toward the home of the buffalo.
Before we slept the Professor gave us the following information: The vast plateau lying east of the Rocky Mountains, and which we were now approaching, was once covered by a series of great fresh-water lakes. At an early period these must have been connected with the sea, their waters then being quite salty, as is abundantly demonstrated by the remains of marine shells. During the time of the continental elevation these lakes were raised above the sea level, and their size very much diminished. Over the new land thus created, and surrounding these beautiful sheets of water, spread a vegetation at once so beautiful and so rich in growth that earth has now absolutely nothing with which to compare it. Amid these lovely pastures roved large herds of elephants, with the mastodon, rhinoceros, horse, and elk, while the streams and lakes abounded with fish. But the drainage toward the distant ocean continued, the water area diminished, the hot winds of the dry land drank up what remained of the lakes, and, in process of time, lo! the great grass-covered plains that we wander over delightedly to-day. What folly to suppose that such a land, so peculiarly fitted for man's enjoyment, should remain, through a long period of time, tenanted simply by brutes, and be given up to the human race only after its delightful characteristics had been entirely removed.
THE "GREAT AMERICAN DESERT"—ITS FOSSIL WEALTH—AN ILLUSION DISPELLED—FIRES ACCORDING TO NOVELS AND ACCORDING TO FACT—SENSATIONAL HEROES AND HEROINES—PRAIRIE DOGS AND THEIR HABITS—HAWK AND DOG AND HAWK AND CAT.
THE "GREAT AMERICAN DESERT"—ITS FOSSIL WEALTH—AN ILLUSION DISPELLED—FIRES ACCORDING TO NOVELS AND ACCORDING TO FACT—SENSATIONAL HEROES AND HEROINES—PRAIRIE DOGS AND THEIR HABITS—HAWK AND DOG AND HAWK AND CAT.
Next morning, as the first gray darts of dawn fell against our windows, Mr. Colon lifted up a sleepy head and gazed out. Then came that quick jerk into an upright position which one assumes when startled suddenly from a drowsy state to one of intense interest. The motion caused a similar one on the part of each of us, as if a sort of jumping-jack set of string nerves ran up our backs, and a man under the cars had pulled them all simultaneously.
We were on the great earth-ocean; upon either side, until striking against the shores of the horizon, the billows of buffalo-grass rolled away. It seemed as if the Mighty Ruler had looked upon these waters when the world was young, and said to them, "Ye waves, teeming with life, be ye earth, and remain in form as now, until the planet which bears you dissolves!" And so, frozen into stillness at the instant, what were then billows of water now stretch away billows of land into what seems to the traveler infinite distance, with the same long roll lapping against and upon distantbuttesthat the Atlantic has to-dayin lashing its rock-ribbed coasts; and whenever man's busy industry cleaves asunder the surface, the depths, like those of ocean, give back their monsters and rare shells. Huge saurians, locked for a thousand centuries in their vice-like prison, rise up, not as of old to bask lazily in the sun, but to gape with huge jaws at the demons of lightning and steam rushing past, and to crack the stiff backs of savans with their forty feet of tail.
To the south of us, and distant several miles, was the line, scarcely visible, of the Smoky Hill, treeless and desolate; on the north, the upper Saline, equally barren. As difficult to distinguish as two brown threads dividing a brown carpet, they might have been easily overlooked, had we not known the streams were there, and, with the aid of our glasses, sought for their ill-defined banks.
A curve in the road brought us suddenly and sharply face to face with the sun, just rising in the far-away east, and flashing its ruddy light over the vast plain around us. Its bright red rim first appeared, followed almost immediately by its round face, for all the world like a jolly old jack tar, with his broad brim coming above deck. It reminded me on the instant of our brackish friend, Captain Walrus; and in imagination I dreamily pictured, as coming after him, with the broadening daylight, a troop of Alaskans, their sleds laden with blubber.
The air was singularly clear and bracing, producing an effect upon a pair of healthy lungs like that felt on first reaching the sea-beach from a residenceinland. An illusion which had followed many of us from boyhood was utterly dissipated by the early dawn in this strange land. This was not the fact that the "great American desert" of our school-days is not a desert at all, for this we had known for years; it related to those floods of flame and stifling smoke with which sensational writers of western novels are wont to sweep, as with a besom of destruction, the whole of prairie-land once at least in every story. Young America, wasting uncounted gallons of midnight oil in the perusal of peppery tales of border life, little suspects how slight the foundation upon which his favorite author has reared the whole vast superstructure of thrilling adventure.
The scene of these heart-rending narratives is usually laid in a boundless plain covered with tall grass, and thedramatis personæare an indefinite number of buffalo and Indians, a painfully definite one of emigrants, two persons unhappy enough to possess a beautiful daughter, and a lover still more unhappy in endeavoring to acquire title, a rascally half-breed burning to prevent the latter feat, and a rare old plainsman specially brought into existence to "sarcumvent" him.