"Out from Hays, sirs?" she continued, after apause. "I left there yesterday. Dick and I camped last night. We must be home when the men come in from work this eve. Up, Rave!" and she struck the mustang a cruel blow, from which he jumped with quivering muscles, only to be violently curbed. For the first time she had just noticed our guide, and sat for an instant with her wild eyes eating a way to his heart. Then she turned again to us.
"Sirs, you must aid me. Some say the Cheyennes killed my husband, and others there be who think Abe there did it. More shame to me who has to tell it, but the two had a fight about a woman, some months gone. It was just after pay-day, and husband was drunk; otherwise he'd never have bothered his head about any girl but the one he married.
"There were blows and black eyes, and being a rough man's quarrel, it ended with hand-shaking. My man came home, and we sat by the fire that night, and I took no notice that he'd been wrong, but spoke of our old home in Ohio, and asked him wouldn't he go back there when the contract was finished. And he put his hand on mine, and says: 'Sis, if the cuts and fills on the next mile work to profit, we'll go home.' Just then there came a hiss from the door at our backs, and husband turned sharp and quick. There was a knot-hole in the planks, and its round black mouth, gaping from out in the night at us, had spit the sound into our ears. Husband he rose and went to the door, and fell back dying, with an arrow in his breast. Some said it was a Cheyenne, and others said Abe did it. There were lots of Indian bows in camp, and Cheyennes don'tkill for the love of it, but only to steal. I'm going to ask them, if I can catch them, did they do it, and if not, I know who did. I've a bow, Abe, and an arrow too, and I hope his blood isn't on your hands."
"I didn't do it, Ann. I don't shoot no man in the dark," replied our hostler guide, with a sullen defiance, which among that class stands equally well for innocence or guilt. We looked at the two, as they sat for an instant facing each other. The picture was a weird one—a wildcat, fronting the object of its chase, but undecided whether to spring or not. We felt that the dark maniac had been hovering around us, and that this meeting was not altogether accidental. Her disordered brain was yet undecided in which direction vengeance lay, and, like a tigress, she was watching and waiting.
Our policy developed, on the instant, into a non-committal and a safe one. As she wheeled her horse, and left us without a word, we remarked to our guide that crazy folks were often suspicious of their best friends.
"That's so," he replied, and rode off to urge on the wagons. We shrank from the idea of living with a murderer, and acquitted him of the crime on the spot.
We are moving out over the grand, illimitable plain again. Reader, ride with us awhile by the side of that big bison bull, which we have just stirred up from his noonday dream. You see his broad nostrils, reddish just under the dark skin at the end, and sensitive as the nose of a pointer. They have caught the air which we tainted, while passing for a moment across the breeze.
ONE OF OUR SPECIMENS.
He has seen nothing, and we are still invisible, but he does not stop to look behind. "Escape for your life!" has been as plainly telegraphed from nose to brain, as it could be by eyes or mouth. We were so far off and well hidden then, that those active tell-tales, sound and sight, could play no part in this alarm. But the sentinel nerves of smell fled back from their post on the frontier, with the cry of "Man!" and the beast of the wilderness thinks only of flight. Powerful for defense against the rest of the animal creation, he is coward on the instant before its king.
Away he goes, right into the teeth of the wind, which he knows will tell him of any other foes ahead. Lumber along, old fellow, in your ponderous gallop,—the reader and I are on your path. Our saddle girths have been tightly drawn, the holster pistols are nestled snug at hand, in their cases on either side of the saddle-horn, while across its front lies the light Henry carbine, with a shoulder-strap attaching it to our person, should we drop the gun for the pistol. Thus we ride with twenty-four shots before reloading, at the service of our trigger-finger; the carbine carries twelve, the pistols each a half-dozen.
How warm we have become. Our hearts are as high up as they can get, bumping away at the throat-valves, as if they wished to get out and see what it is that has called their reserves into action.
There is a muskish taint in the air, from the game ahead. Put in your spurs, comrade; don't spare. Get up beside him quickly as possible. Once there, the horses will easily stick. A stern chase disheartensthe pursuer, encourages the pursued. Look out for that creek! See how the buffalo takes its steep bank—a plunge headlong, which sends the dust up in clouds. Now, as we check and turn into a ford, he is going up the opposite side.
Another hundred yards, and we are close beside him. The long tongue is hung out, and his head lies low down, as he plunges steadily forward, diverging ever so little as we press up opposite his fore-shoulders. That was a bad shot, my friend, barely missing your horse's head. Shooting at full gallop is like drawing straight lines while being shaken.
Some of our bullets are telling; you can hear them crack on his hide. There is a red spot now, not bigger than the point of one's finger, opposite a lung, and drops of blood trickle, with the saliva, from his jaws. Half a score of balls have been pelted into his big body, and he is bleeding internally. Now the blood comes thicker, and little clots of it drop down. He slows up—there is danger; look well to your seat!
That was a narrow escape, comrade. The bull suddenly whirled on his forefeet for a pivot, and your horse's chest, which was brushing his hind-quarters, grazed the black horns as they dipped for a plunge. The pony's swerve barely saved you both.
Now he stands sullen, glaring at us. The wounds look like little points of red paint, put deftly on his shaggy hide. They bleed inwardly, just crimsoning the brown hair at their mouths. The large eyes roll and swell with pain and fury. He is measuring our distance.
See him blow the blood from his nostrils. Thedrops scatter like red-hot shot around him, seeming to hiss in globules of fury, as they spatter upon the dry grass. Bladder-like bubbles sputter in ebb and flow, from the red holes over his lungs. Tiny doors, for death's messengers to have entered in at.
What a marvel of size and ferocity he looks. Only our horse's legs stand between us and disembowelment. Down drops the head into battery again, and his rush would knock us over like nine-pins, did we stay to receive it. But bison charges are short ones. Our animals spring away, and he stops. Signs of grogginess are coming on him. How he hates to feel his knees shake, straightening them out with a jerk, as we thought he was just going down.
But at last gradually and gracefully he sinks, doubling his legs under him, and resting on his belly. There is still no flurry, or motion of any kind denoting pain. Unconquerable to the death, he suddenly falls on his side, the limbs stiffen, and he is dead.
Twine your hands in the long beard, and in the mane. How he shames the lion, for whom he could furnish coats half a dozen times over. What switches of hair those black fetlocks would make. Was there ever another so big a bison?
Wondering over this, we lie down on the prostrate bulk, and wait for the wagon.
"CREASING" WILD HORSES—MUGGS DISAPPOINTED—A FEAT FOR FICTION—HORSE AND MONKEY—HOOF WISDOM FOR TURFMEN—PROSPECTIVE CLIMATIC CHANGES ON THE PLAINS—THE QUESTION OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION—WANTON SLAUGHTER OF BUFFALO—AMOUNT OF ROBES AND MEAT ANNUALLY WASTED—A STRANGE HABIT OF THE BISON—NUMEROUS BILLS—THE "SNEAK THIEF" OF THE PLAINS.
"CREASING" WILD HORSES—MUGGS DISAPPOINTED—A FEAT FOR FICTION—HORSE AND MONKEY—HOOF WISDOM FOR TURFMEN—PROSPECTIVE CLIMATIC CHANGES ON THE PLAINS—THE QUESTION OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION—WANTON SLAUGHTER OF BUFFALO—AMOUNT OF ROBES AND MEAT ANNUALLY WASTED—A STRANGE HABIT OF THE BISON—NUMEROUS BILLS—THE "SNEAK THIEF" OF THE PLAINS.
While we were at breakfast one morning, the guide ran in to say that the herd of wild horses which we had seen on Silver Creek, were feeding toward us, a mile away. I left the table to obtain a view of them, and by Abe's advice carried my rifle, as he suggested that we might "crease" one of them. This feat consists in hitting the upper edge of the bones of the neck with a bullet, the blow striking so high up that it will momentarily paralyze, without fracturing. We had read of it often in tales of Western daring, where the hero mounted the prostrate steed, and, upon its return to consciousness, escaped on its back from numberless difficulties and hosts of Indians.
A short distance out from camp, we turned and saw Muggs following us with a saddle and bridle on his arm. He had suffered grievous wrong at the heels of his mule, and was bent on possessing himself ofone of our creased horses. After creeping, with almost infinite caution, within seventy-five yards, we succeeded in placing our bullets exactly where we intended, thereby knocking down two victims, who at once became insensible—and no wonder, for their bones were as effectually fractured as if they had been struck with a sledge-hammer. Muggs' faith in the theory of creasing, however, was unbounded. Up he ran and buckled on the saddle, and got one foot in the stirrup, ready to swing himself into the seat, when the animal rose.
After waiting about ten minutes, our Briton concluded that a dead horse was poor riding, and left us with a very emphatic statement that, in his opinion, capturing a mount with a rifle was "another blarsted Hamerican lie, you know!"
I afterward conversed with several plainsmen about the merits of "creasing," and found that their attempts had invariably ended in the same way as ours had done. The feat may have been possible with smooth-bore rifles, in the hands of those remarkable hunters of old, who were able to shoot away the breath of a pigeon, and hit the eye of a flying hawk; but with breech-loaders I unhesitatingly pronounce creasing an utter impossibility. The achievement sounds well in theory, but, like much else of popular Western lore is somewhat impracticable when fairly tested. I have an idea that the principal market value of "creased" horses in the future, as in the past, will be derived from furnishing creatures of romance with fearful rides. For this purpose, a cracked skeleton would be as apt as a sound one, to carry therider into many of the scenes with which these tales are wont to harrow our souls.
While crawling up on the herd, we took its census very carefully. I was a little surprised to find there were but twenty-five horses, all told. They were apparently a little larger than the wild ones of Texas, and had bushy manes and tails, and their step was remarkably firm and elastic. They were exceedingly timid creatures, raising their heads constantly, to gaze around. One very interesting circumstance connected with the herd was that among these wild horses we noticed two strangers; one, a feeble old buffalo bull, expelled from his tribe, and seeking their aid against the wolves, and the other, the black pacing stallion.
When we fired, the survivors were off on the instant, and the manner in which their clean hoofs struck the earth, and spurned it, was truly worth seeing. No heaves either, it was plain to see, had ever troubled those full chests. We caught sight of the herd awhile after, on a ridge four miles away, and they were still running at full speed. These were the only wild horses we saw on our trip. In fact, but two or three small droves are believed to exist on the plains, as the great mass of the shaggy-maned thousands, children of those old Spanish castaways, swarm nearer the Pacific.
So timid and fleet are these horses that none of them have ever been captured except during the early spring. They are then poor, and, by hard spurring, can be ridden down. At other times their bottom, and the advantage of having no weight to carry, insuretheir safety. It is quite probable, however, that a systematic pursuit, of the kind practiced in Texas, might prove successful at any season of the year.
I gazed at our two victims with less satisfaction than at any thing I had ever killed. Shooting horses, dear reader, is a good deal like shooting monkeys. They are both too intimately associated with man to be made food for his powder. One is a very true and faithful servant, and the other, if we may believe Mr. Darwin, was once his ancestor.
In examining the two handsome bodies lying there, I noticed one fact to which I should have liked to draw the attention of the whole learned fraternity of blacksmiths, who mutilate horses, the world over. The hoofs were as solid and as sound as ivory, without a crack or wrong growth of any sort. And why? Turning them up, the secret lay exposed; for there, filling the cavity within—a sponge of life-giving oil—was the frog entire, just as Nature made and kept it. Its business was to feed and moisten the hoof, and this it had done perfectly. No blacksmith had ever gouged it out with his knife, and robbed it anew at every shoeing.
It is noticeable that the equine race, in its wild state, has none of the ills of the species domesticated. The sorrows of horse-flesh are the fruits of civilization. By the study and imitation of Nature's methods, we could greatly increase the usefulness of these valuable servants, and remove temptation from the paths of many men who lead blameless lives, except in the single matter of horse-trades. It maywell be queried, perhaps, whether even the patient man of Uz, had he been laid up by a runaway colt instead of boils, could have resisted the temptation to trade it off upon Bildad the Shuhite, when that individual came to condole with him.
As we journeyed onward, we found the soil ever the same, in depth and strength equal to an Illinois prairie. The old cretaceous ocean, and the great lakes, certainly left it rich in deposits. When its surface shall have been broken by the plow, and the water-fall absorbed instead of shed off, the plains will resemble, in appearance and products, any other prairie country. The amount of moisture annually passing over them, in storm-clouds that burst further east, is abundantly sufficient to make the tract very fertile. It is a well established fact in relation to climatic influences, that moisture attracts moisture; and in this region the dry ground, with its few shallow streams, has now no claim upon the summer clouds. The tough buffalo grass has put a lock-jaw on the plain. It can drink nothing from the floods of the rainy season. But pry open the hungry mouth with the plowshare, and the earth will drink greedily. The moisture then absorbed, given up through the agency of capillary attraction, will draw the showers of summer, as they are passing over. Already a marked change has taken place over a portion of the plains, and crops have been grown as far west as Fort Wallace.
The subject of spontaneous generation, I may remark in this connection, became a very interesting one to our party. Wherever the soil has been disturbed,wild sun-flowers spring suddenly into existence. The "grading camps" of the railroads were followed by belts of these self-asserting annuals. The first garden-patch cultivated at Fort Wallace had weeds and insects similar to those that infest gardens elsewhere. In some cases hundreds of miles of barren plain intervened between the spots where the seeds germinated, and the nearest points where other plants of the same variety grew. Neither birds or wind could have carried the seeds in such quantities. Is the theory true that germs fall down to us from other planets? Or, do not the plains offer a strong argument on behalf of spontaneous generation?
Another matter on which the plains appealed to us strongly, pertained to the wanton destruction of its wild cattle. During the year 1871, about fifty thousand buffalo were killed on the plains of Kansas and Colorado alone. Of this number, it will be correct to estimate that about one-third were shot for their robes, as many more for meat, and sixteen thousand or so for sport. Each buffalo could probably have furnished five hundred pounds of meat and tallow, the quantity of the latter being small. When killed for food, only the hind quarters and a small portion of the loin are saved, in all perhaps two hundred pounds. The hides of these are sacrificed, the skin being cut with the quarters, and left on them for their protection. The profits of this great slaughter would, therefore, be about 16,500 robes and 3,300,000 pounds of meat; the waste over 33,000 robes, and probably not less than 20,000,000 pounds of meat.In this computation, the vast herds which range further north are not included. There, however, the waste is comparatively small, as the red man is in the habit of saving the greater portion of the flesh and robes. Of the above twenty million pounds of meat left to rot in the sun, and taint the air of the plains, the greater proportion would furnish sweeter and more nourishing food to the poor classes of our cities than the beef which they are able to obtain.
Let this slaughter continue for ten years, and the bison of the American continent will become extinct. The number of valuable robes and pounds of meat which would thus be lost to us and posterity, will run too far into the millions to be easily calculated. All over the plains, lying in disgusting masses of putrefaction along valley and hill, are strewn immense carcasses of wantonly slain buffalo. They line the Kansas Pacific Railroad for two hundred miles.
Following ordinary sporting parties for an hour after they have commenced smiting the borders of a herd, stop by a few of the monsters that they leave behind, in pools of blood, upon the grass; draw your hunting-knife across the fat hind-quarters, and see how the cuts reveal depths of sweet, nourishing meat, sufficient to supply two hundred starving wretches with an abundant dinner; then if your humanity does not tempt to a shot at the worse than pot-hunters in front, God's bounties have indeed been thrown away upon you.
By law, as stringent in its provisions as possible, no man should be suffered to pull trigger on a buffalo, unless he will make practical use of the robeand the meat. What would be thought of a hunter, in any of the Western States, who shot quails and chickens and left them where they fell? Every citizen, whether sportsman or not, would join in outcry against him. Another matter which the law should regulate relates to the protection of the buffalo cows until after the season when they have brought forth their young. The calf will thrive, though weaned by necessity at a very early age, and the season for shooting cows, although short, would be amply long enough to comport with the chances of future increase.
Probably the most cruel of all bison-shooting pastime, is that of firing from the cars. During certain periods in the spring and fall, when the large herds are crossing the Kansas Pacific Railroad, the trains run for a hundred miles or more among countless thousands of the shaggy monarchs of the plains. The bison has a strange and entirely unaccountable instinct or habit which leads it to attempt crossing in front of any moving object near it. It frequently happened, in the time of the old stages, that the driver had to rein up his horses until the herd which he had startled had crossed the road ahead of him. To accomplish this feat, if the object of their fright was moving rapidly, the animals would often run for miles.
When the iron-horse comes rushing into their solitudes, and snorting out his fierce alarms, the herds, though perhaps a mile away from his path, will lift their heads and gaze intently for a few moments toward the object thus approaching them with a roar which causes the earth to tremble, and envelopedin a white cloud that streams further and higher than the dust of the old stage-coach ever did; and then, having determined its course, instead of fleeing back to the distant valleys, away they go, charging across the ridge over which the iron rails lie, apparently determined to cross in front of the locomotive at all hazards. The rate per mile of passenger trains is slow upon the plains, and hence it often happens that the cars and buffalo will be side by side for a mile or two, the brutes abandoning the effort to cross only when their foe has merged entirely ahead. During these races the car-windows are opened, and numerous breech-loaders fling hundreds of bullets among the densely crowded and flying masses. Many of the poor animals fall, and more go off to die in the ravines. The train speeds on, and the scene is repeated every few miles until Buffalo Land is passed.
Another method of wanton slaughter is the stalking of the herds by men carrying needle-guns. These throw a ball double the weight of the ordinary carbine, and the shot is effective at six hundred yards. Concealed in ravines, the hunter causes terrible havoc with such weapons before the herd takes flight. We were never guilty of ambushing after those two days on the Saline, and of those occasions we were heartily ashamed ever afterward.
Five picturesFive pictures for the consideration of Uncle Samuel, suggestive of a game law to protect his comb-horns, buttons, tallow, dried beef, tongues, robes, ivory-black, bone-dust, hair, hides, etc.
One specialty of the plains that deserves mention, and quite as remarkable as its brutes and plants, though of rather more modern origin, is its numerous Bills. Of these, we became acquainted, before our trip was ended, with the following distinct specimens: Wild Bill, Buffalo Bill, California Bill,Rattlesnake Bill, and Tiger Bill, the last named being, as one of our men who had played with him remarked, the "dangererest on 'em all." We also heard of a Camanche Bill and an Apache Bill, but these celebrities it was not our fortune to meet.
I can not dismiss the peculiar characters of the plains without again paying tribute to that unapproachable thief, the cayote. Let no party of travelers leave any thing exposed in camp lighter than an anvil. We lost, in one night, at the hands—or rather the jaws—of these slinking sneak-thieves of the plains, a boot, a pair of leather breeches, and a half-quarter of buffalo calf, besides some smaller articles.
A LIVE TOWN AND ITS GRAVE-YARD—HONEST ROMBEAUX IN TROUBLE—JUDGE LYNCH HOLDS COURT—MARIE AND THE VINE-COVERED COTTAGE—THE TERRIBLE FLOODS—DEATH IN CAMP AND IN THE DUG-OUT—WAS IT THE WATER WHICH DID IT?—DISCOVERY OF A HUGE FOSSIL—THE MOSASAURUS OF THE CRETACEOUS SEA—A GLIMPSE OF THE REPTILIAN AGE—REMINISCENCES OF ALLIGATOR-SHOOTING—THEY SUGGEST A THEORY.
A LIVE TOWN AND ITS GRAVE-YARD—HONEST ROMBEAUX IN TROUBLE—JUDGE LYNCH HOLDS COURT—MARIE AND THE VINE-COVERED COTTAGE—THE TERRIBLE FLOODS—DEATH IN CAMP AND IN THE DUG-OUT—WAS IT THE WATER WHICH DID IT?—DISCOVERY OF A HUGE FOSSIL—THE MOSASAURUS OF THE CRETACEOUS SEA—A GLIMPSE OF THE REPTILIAN AGE—REMINISCENCES OF ALLIGATOR-SHOOTING—THEY SUGGEST A THEORY.
Our fourth day's travel from Silver Creek brought us to Sheridan, our secondary base of operations, so to speak, and only fourteen miles east of the Colorado border. We found the town a very lively one, notwithstanding that the grave-yard, beautifully located in a commanding position overlooking the principal street, was patronized to a remarkable extent. The place had built itself up as simply the temporary terminus of the Pacific Railroad. Soon after our visit it moved westward, and at last accounts but one house remained to mark its former site.
The shades of night had just settled over the town upon the evening of our arrival, when Abe, our hostler-guide, came running to us with information that "Honest Rombeaux," another of our hostlers, was being hung by some of the citizens. The locality which had been selected for this little diversion was a railroad trestle a short distance below thetown. We were already acquainted with the penchant our Sheridanites had for hanging people. Thirty or more graves on the neighboring hill had been pointed out before sundown, as those of persons who had fallen under sentence from Judge Lynch. In the expressive language of the citizen who volunteered the information, there had been "thirty funerals, and not one nateral death." Now that Judge Lynch had opened court at our own door, we proposed to raise the question of jurisdiction.
Armed, at once, we set off for a rescue, and, stumbling through the darkness, had gone only a hundred yards or so, when we met the lynchers returning. At their head, with a very dirty piece of rope around his neck, walked our hostler, trembling all over, and chattering broken English rapidly, in mingled fright and anger. The leader of the party told us that the evidence not being quite sufficient for hanging, an extra session of court had been called to be held immediately, and as having some interest in the case, we were invited to seats on the jury. The trial, we were further informed, was to be held in Rombeaux's own house. This last was a new surprise, for reasons to be explained presently. Rombeaux had been with us ever since leaving Hays, and had gained his title of "Honest" from a particularly faithful discharge of duty.
To him had been intrusted the supplies for hired men and horses. Three of the Mexicans he had severally thrashed for stealing. Once, in the night, on Silver Creek, we had heard a rattling at the medicine-chest, and trembling for our limited stock ofspirits, stole forth to catch the culprit. On his knees by the open box was Rombeaux, replacing the brandy-bottle, and we feared that he, too, had become a thief. But just then, on the still air, came words of thanks to the Virgin Mary, for having enabled him to awake in time to frighten away the robber. Nor was this all; in the fierceness of his indignation, we beheld him sally forth immediately afterward, and kick a sleeping Mexican out of his blankets, on suspicion. Thereupon, we went back to bed with implicit faith in Rombeaux, which had followed us ever since.
Had he not told us, moreover, of a vine-covered cottage in France, where pretty Marie watched and waited until her lover could earn dowry sufficient to match hers? It was the old story. A maiden fair tarried in Europe, while a true knight ransacked foreign lands for fame and fortune; and long since had all of us, save Sachem, exhausted our stock of spare change to hasten the reunion.
Passing some of the lowest and most flashy-looking saloons in the place, we entered a ravine, and soon stopped before a "dug-out." So much was it the work of excavation, that the dirt roof was level with the earth above, and the door seemed to open directly into the bank. We knocked, and were answered promptly by a fat, gayly dressed French woman. This was Rombeaux's wife, and here was Rombeaux's house. What a Marie and vine-clad cottage these!
Without delay the trial commenced, the Frenchman and his wife occupying places in the center, andthe court seated on boxes, barrels, and the bed. The evidence taken that night in the cabin was substantially the following:
Two years before Jules Pigget, a native of France, accompanied by his young wife, appeared on the railroad below, and solicited work. They both found ready employment, and lived below Hays, in a dug-out, happy and prosperous. Within a year came another Frenchman, our present Honest Rombeaux. Across the water, he and Jules had been rival suitors for Marie's hand; yet strangely enough, the newcomer was welcomed by the young couple, and took up his abode with them. Matters prospered with all three, and soon Jules was to be appointed tank-tender on the road. That year came the great rain-storm, when so many families in Western Kansas and Texas were drowned. Hundreds of people were living in dug-outs, rude excavations in the banks of streams, with the roof on a level with the bank above, but the room itself entirely below high-water mark—a style of dwelling which, as no great rise had occurred in years, had become quite popular among new-comers.
On the night of the great flood people went to bed as usual. The streams had risen but little. At midnight the rain fell heavily; the firm surface of the plains shed the waters like a roof; streams rose ten feet in an hour, and the foaming currents, roaring like cataracts, came down with the force of mighty tidal waves. Many dwellers in the dug-outs sprang from their beds into water, to find egress by the doors impossible, and were fortunate if they succeeded in escapingthrough the chimneys or roofs. Whole families were drowned. Fort Hays, at the fork of Big Creek, and supposed to be above high-water, was inundated, six or eight soldiers being swept away, while the remainder were obliged to seek safety on the roofs of the stone barracks. Large numbers of mules, picketed on the adjacent bottoms, were drowned. Their picket-pins fast in the earth, the animals were swept from their feet by the rising waters, and towed under by the firmly-held lariats. Emigrants encamped on the bottom heard the roar of the flood; with no time to harness, they seized the tongues of their wagons themselves, but the rising tide gained on them too rapidly, and they were glad to save life at the expense of oxen and goods. The horrors of that night are indescribable, and, to crown all, they took place amid a darkness that was total. Above, was the roar of waters descending; below, the answering roar of the floods, as they rolled madly onward, carrying in their strong arms the wreck of farms, and corpses by the score.
On that night Jules, the husband, perished. Honest Rombeaux and Marie, however, were rescued from the roof of their dwelling at daylight; and afterward, when the flood had subsided, the body of Jules was taken from the wash in the fire-place. And now came suspicion, and pointed over the shoulders of the throng gathered around; for there was an ugly wound half hidden in the dead husband's hair, and his fingers were bruised. Some men did not hesitate to say boldly that when Rombeaux escaped through the chimney, Jules stayed behind to assist his wifeout, and that when he tried to follow, he was struck on the head by his quondam rival, and, still clinging to the chimney's edge, his fingers were pounded until their hold was loosed, and the victim sucked under the roof, against which the waters were already beating. The man and woman, however, claimed that it was the whirl of the waters against pegs and logs which had disfigured the corpse. Three weeks afterward they were married.
"And now, gentlemen," said our foreman, rising from his barrel, when the evidence was all in, "the question for the jury to decide is, Was it the water that did it?"
A doubt existing in the case, we gave the prisoner its benefit; but there was murder in the air, and Rombeaux knew it. Before morning he had departed—Marie said for La Belle France, but, as the citizens generally believed, really for Texas.
The next twenty-four hours constituted a regular field-day for the Professor, being distinguished by an event which, from a scientific stand-point, was among the most important of our entire expedition. This was the discovery of a large fossil saurian, which we came upon while exploring quite in sight of Sheridan, and not more than half a mile from its eastern outskirts.
Descending the side of a deep, desolate rift in the earth, we found ourselves among unmistakable traces of violent volcanic action. The ground was strewn with black sand, and with yellow pebble-like masses, apparently impure sulphur. There were numerous round cones also, looking like diminutive craters,with edges and surface composed of bubble-like lava, the material having evidently hardened while still distended by the struggling gases. The appearance, to use a homely comparison, was somewhat that of several low pots, over the edges of which boiling molasses had poured, and then burned by the heat of the fire. Some scattered objects, which at first we took for stumps of huge trees, upon examination we found to be pillars of mud and rock, upheavals, apparently, from volcanic action, and not the work of the floods, which, in those primeval times, we knew, must have poured down the valley. They would have answered, without much difficulty, for druidical altars, had we only been in the land once inhabited by those long-bearded, blood-thirsty priests of old.
Two or three poisoned cayotes and a dead raven were lying near some bleached buffalo skulls, on which, as we presently discovered, daubs of lard mixed with strychnine had been placed, and licked off by the victims; and straightway, as genius of the scene, an unshaven, woolen-shirted little man appeared in view, busily engaged in skinning a wolf. We saluted him, and the response in French-English told us his nationality at once. We found his name to be Louis, and his proper occupation that of watchmaker. But as the pinchbeck time-pieces of the frontier did not furnish enough repairing to take up his entire time, he had many spare hours, and these he devoted to securing pelts. As buffalo were not now in the vicinity, he larded their bones, with the success of which we were eye-witnesses.
Louis was a wiry little Gaul, very positive in hisideas about every thing. An animated conversation sprang up at once between him and the Professor, and it soon became amusingly evident that his geological ideas did not entirely accord with those of the Philosopher. A sudden turn in the colloquy developed a fact of keen interest to even the most unscientific member of our party.
Pointing to the other side of the valley, Louis told us that there lay the bones of an immense snake, all turned to stone. This sudden voice from the past ages sounded in the Professor's ears like the blare of a trumpet to a warrior. He hurried us forward in the direction indicated, and, locking arms with the bloody-shirted little Frenchman, strode on in advance. I wish his class could have seen him thus traversing the desolate bed where that old sunken volcano went to sleep. We were glad that the latter was still asleep, and had never acquired the habit of snorting into wakefulness, and pelting explorers with hot rocks.
What mysteries, I have often thought, might we not discover, on looking down the throat of a healthy volcano, if some wise alchemist could only brew a dose sufficiently powerful to stop the fiery fellow's foaming at the mouth! Or, better still, if it could reach the bowels of the earth, and keep the whole system quiet, while we, puny mortals, like trichina mites, swarmed down the interior, and bored scientifically back to the crust again. Earth's veins run golden blood, and we might be gorged with that, perhaps, ere making exit into the sunshine again.
A shout from the further edge of the ravine cutshort our speculations, and called our attention to the Professor. He stood waving his slouched hat for an instant, and then bent close over the ground, in earnest scrutiny.
A few moments later, and we all stood beside the huge fossil. It lay exposed, upon a bed of slate, looking very much like a seventy-foot serpent, carved in stone. Part of the remains had been taken up to the town, and spread over the bench, in the shop of Louis. From what was left, the jaws appeared to have been originally over six feet long, the sharp hooked and cone-shaped teeth being still very perfect. A few broad fragments of ribs showed that, in circumference, the animal's body had been about the size of a puncheon. We felt confident that the specimen was a very rare one, as Muggs had never seen any thing like it, even in England. It now rests in the museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"This fossil, gentlemen," said the Professor, "is that of aMosasaurus, a huge reptile which existed in the cretaceous sea. This appears to be one of the largest members of the family yet discovered, its length, as you will perceive, being over fifty feet. The species to which it belonged swarmed in immense numbers, but were surrounded by monsters even more remarkable than they. The deep which they inhabited must have been constantly lashed and torn with their fierce conflicts; for it was an age of war, and the powers of offense and defense, which the monsters of that period possessed, were terrible. Winged reptiles filled the air, in appearance more hideous than any creation of the imagination. Followingclose upon the Reptilian came the Mammalian age, and I hold that with the largest of the mammals came man, rude in tastes and uncouth in form, but even then ruling as king of the animal creation. Wielded by a strength equal to that of a gorilla, his club would dash in the skull of any beast which dare dispute dominion with him."
The text thus suggested him, the Professor then diverged into an argument on his pet theory of man's early existence.
A trivial circumstance connected with our discovery arrested my attention, and, from a sportsman's stand-point, suggested a little theory of my own. The head of the saurian rested on the basin's edge, its jaws touching, with their stony tips, the prairie, while down into the valley below stretched the body and tail. This little fact dove-tailed itself into some incidents of the past, and gave rise to quite a train of speculation.
Some years ago I hunted alligators in Mississippi. Sitting on the bank of a sluggish bayou, I would watch the surface of the water, close under which were visible the noses of countless buffalo fish, floating as one sees minnows do in glass jars. Under the hot sun all nature seemed asleep. Soon, however, a black knot, an ugly dark wart, not larger than one's two fists, would make its appearance, floating, like some charred fragment, slowly along.
To a stranger, the only suspicious circumstance would have been, that where there was no current whatever, it still continued its motion, the same as before. The experienced eye recognized this objectas the nose of an alligator, behind which, and just at the surface, as it got opposite, the ugly eyes would become visible, looking out for hogs or dogs, as they came to drink under the bank.
I never had the patience to wait for thefinaleof the scene; but had I done so, I should have beheld the knot float closer in, and, just after passing the victim, a tail would have come out of the water, and, with a curving blow forward, knocked the prize out from shore, and in front of the devourer's jaws. It was my good fortune, frequently, to send a Ballard rifle-ball into the pirate's eyes. In such cases there was usually a tremendous commotion in the water, accompanied by a strong smell of musk, and the wounded reptile would then make straight for shore, and run his head upon it. Under such circumstances, the creature always sought at least that much of dry land to die upon, seeming as anxious as man that its lamp of life should not be extinguished under water.
This monster whose remains we were now exhuming was allied to the alligator, as one of the great family of lizards, and had died in the same manner—his head on the shores of the basin, his tail in its depths. Perhaps in the convulsion of Nature which opened a path for the waters to the ocean, and drained this inland sea, the fissure in which we stood had gaped, and exhaled poisonous gases through the whirlpool its suction created. The saurian monster of that strange age felt the hungry vortex swallowing him, which meanwhile enveloped him in deadly secretions, killing before devouring. With a lastlurch through the cauldron's ebbing tide, the lizard threw himself upon its edge, and died.
Of the countless millions of saurians then existing, capricious Nature had seized upon this one, to transmute it into an imperishable monument of that extinct race. In those ages of roaring waters and hissing fires, she had clothed the bones in stone, that they might withstand the gnawing tooth of time, and thus handed them down to the wondering eyes of the Nineteenth Century. Many of the pieces, it should be said, were cracked and scarred, evidently by the action of fierce heat.
Constantly the earth is giving up these marvelous creations of the past, in comparison with which the animals of the present are tame enough. While we doubt a modern sea-serpent as impossible, we dig up fossilized marine monsters, which could easily have swallowed the biggest snake that credible sea-captain ever ran foul of.
DUG-OUT.DUG-OUT.
FROM SHERIDAN TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS—THE COLORADO PORTION OF THE PLAINS—THE GIANT PINES—ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH A BUFFALO—THINGS GET MIXED—THE LEVIATHAN AT HOME—A CHAT WITH PROFESSOR COPE—TWENTY-SIX INCH OYSTERS—REPTILES AND FISHES OF THE CRETACEOUS SEA.
FROM SHERIDAN TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS—THE COLORADO PORTION OF THE PLAINS—THE GIANT PINES—ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH A BUFFALO—THINGS GET MIXED—THE LEVIATHAN AT HOME—A CHAT WITH PROFESSOR COPE—TWENTY-SIX INCH OYSTERS—REPTILES AND FISHES OF THE CRETACEOUS SEA.
At Sheridan, we were very near the Colorado portion of the plain, which stretched on for some hundreds of miles further westward, its further line lapping the base of the Rocky Mountains. Into this territory we passed, and spent a considerable period of time in its examination, but while our experience was to us full of interest, any thing more extended than a brief summary would occupy too much space here.
For the first one hundred miles, the soil deteriorated in quality, and the sage-bush made its appearance, as did also the "Adam's needle" or "Spanish bayonet." The latter makes an excellent substitute for soup, but a wretched cushion to alight upon when thrown from your horse. (I make the latter statement on the authority of Doctor Pythagoras.) Brackish water was found at intervals, and white saline crystallizations were seen along some of the streams. Although the soil was more sandy than further east, the buffalo grass was abundant and nutritious, sothat at no time had we any difficulty in finding grazing for our cattle, and the antelope that we killed were invariably in good condition. This belt of eastern Colorado proved particularly rich in fossil wealth, to the description of which we shall devote most of this chapter, and the whole of that following. In the vicinity of the Big Sandy, we found numerous lakes of clear water, surrounded by rich pasturage.
About one hundred miles west of the Kansas line, the country began gradually improving, and continued to do so until we reached the mountains. The Bijou basin, through which we passed, afforded excellent range, and contained good streams. The country swarmed with antelopes, and once we saw a herd running rapidly, which was four minutes in crossing the road.
We had fine views of Pike's Peak, at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, the atmosphere there being remarkably pure and transparent. Emigrants have often been deceived when, as their wagons crawled over the crest which we named First View, the fine old Peak burst upon their sight, and in their enthusiasm resolved to get an early start next day and reach it before another night-fall. Our guide told us that when he first crossed the plains, by the Platte route, his party camped for the night near Monument Rock. After supper, two of the men and a woman set out to cut their names in the stone, supposing it to be only a mile or so distant, but when an hour's traveling brought the rock apparently no nearer, they became discouraged and returned. Next day Monument Rock was found to be twelve miles distant from their camping-place.
When within a day's journey of the mountains, we came in sight of several tall objects standing out in bold relief upon the plain. These proved to be giant pines, thrown out, like sentinels, from the forests still far beyond and invisible. We could not resist the impulse to give the first one we came to a hearty hug; for, after so many weeks upon the treeless plain, these suggestions of mighty forests, with their mingled sheen and shadow, were indeed welcome. The mountains of Colorado, with their beautiful parks and wonderful young cities, have been so often described that our notes would prove a useless addition to a somewhat worn history, and hence we forbear taxing the reader's patience by transcribing them here.
After studying the principles of mining and irrigation, we spent in the neighborhood of one calendar month in getting views of sunrise and sunset, from all the known peaks, to the end that no future tourist might feel called upon to extend to us his kind commiseration for having lost some particular outlook, where he had been, and which he considered the best of all. To accomplish this thoroughly, we hewed paths up hitherto inaccessible mountains, and at the end of the month made a close calculation, and decided that we were a match for all such tourists for at least five years to come. We then retraced our steps to Buffalo Land, again entering the fossil belt near Fort Wallace.
One incident of our trip into Colorado deserves especial mention from having been the first, as it will probably prove the last, attempt to photograph the buffalo in his native wildness, at close quarters. Theidea was suggested in a letter which the Professor received from his Eastern friends, who thought that actual photographs of the animals inhabiting the plains would be a valuable addition to the ordinary facilities for the study of natural history. As good fortune would have it, there happened to be at Sheridan an artist, just arrived from Hays, then prospecting for a location, and him we promptly engaged. The second day out, two old buffaloes, near our road, were selected as good subjects for first views. One of these was soon killed, the other making his escape up a ravine near by. Although we had good reason to suspect that the latter had been wounded, we did not pursue him, since it was now near noon, and our artist, moreover, being of a somewhat timid disposition, had expressly stipulated that we should keep near him, not so much, he repeatedly assured us, as a body-guard for himself, as for the protection of his new camera and outfit.
The dead bull we propped into position with our guns and other supports, and while the artist carefully adjusted his instrument, Shamus began to make preparations for lunch, and Mr. Colon and Semi set out for a few minutes' pastime in catching bugs. They had been gone a full half hour, and we were just remarking their prolonged absence somewhat impatiently, when a loud cry from the nearer bank of the ravine fell on our ears, and looking around we beheld Colon senior, and ditto junior, making toward us at a tremendous rate of speed.
"Buffalo!" was all that we could catch of Semi's wild shouts, as he led the chase directly toward us, hisfather having lost several seconds in securing one of his specimen-cases, and on the instant the old bull that we had wounded an hour before hove in sight, in full charge upon the flying entomologists. As buffalo charges are short ones, he would have stopped, no doubt, in a moment or so, had not Muggs and I, the only members of our party who happened to have their guns at hand, opened fire on him, and planted another bullet between his ribs. The effect was to infuriate the old fellow tenfold, and down he came careering toward us, with what I then thought the most vicious expression of countenance I had ever seen on a buffalo's physiognomy.
The attack was so sudden, and the surprise so complete, that we were most ingloriously stampeded, and fell back in hot haste upon our reserves, the guide and teamsters, who, we knew, would be provided with weapons and in good shape to cover our retreat. The sitting for which we had made such elaborate preparations was abruptly terminated in the manner shown in the accompanying engraving.
Fortunately for the artist, the blow originally intended for him was delivered upon the legs of the instrument. His assailant being at length dispatched, the poor fellow proceeded to pick out of the ruins of his property what remained that might again be useful. He stated that his stock, as well as the subject of buffalo photographing, was "rather mixed," and that, if we would pay him for the damage done, he would return. Next morning he left us, and thus it was that science lost the projected series of valuable photographic views.