CHAPTER XV.
THE ARMAMENT AND EXPERIENCE OF A GERMAN HERDMASTER—A STAGE-COACH ON THE PLAINS—THE PARTY IN THE COACH—THE ONLY COLONEL I MET IN THE UNITED STATES—THE COLONEL’S WIFE—A COLORADO HERDMASTER—A PHILADELPHIAN GRADUATE—TWO JOCOSE DENVER STORE-KEEPERS—ADVANTAGE OF HAVING ONE’S RIFLE IN THE COACH—A CALIFORNIAN’S ACCOUNT OF A SKIRMISH WITH INDIANS—MANNERS AND LIFE AT A HOUSE ON THE PLAINS—A LADY OF THE PLAINS—AMERICAN SOCIETY JUDGES MEN FAIRLY—BETWEEN SHYENNE AND DENVER.
THE ARMAMENT AND EXPERIENCE OF A GERMAN HERDMASTER—A STAGE-COACH ON THE PLAINS—THE PARTY IN THE COACH—THE ONLY COLONEL I MET IN THE UNITED STATES—THE COLONEL’S WIFE—A COLORADO HERDMASTER—A PHILADELPHIAN GRADUATE—TWO JOCOSE DENVER STORE-KEEPERS—ADVANTAGE OF HAVING ONE’S RIFLE IN THE COACH—A CALIFORNIAN’S ACCOUNT OF A SKIRMISH WITH INDIANS—MANNERS AND LIFE AT A HOUSE ON THE PLAINS—A LADY OF THE PLAINS—AMERICAN SOCIETY JUDGES MEN FAIRLY—BETWEEN SHYENNE AND DENVER.
While I was waiting for the Denver coach, and watching the changing scene, a German, with whom I had had some conversation in the railway car for the two previous days, arrived at the coach-office. We were both to start at the same time by stage—he for 1,200 miles over the mountains; I to coast along the mountains to Denver, the point at which I proposed entering them. On meeting him he held out his hand, saying, ‘Well, I see we have both got safe through the night. But,’ he added, ‘I was prepared for them if anyone had meddled with me, I had sixteen bullets ready.’ As he said this, he drew aside his coat to show me his eight-shooting revolver hanging at his back; and then putting his hands into his breeches pockets, took from each a small four-shooter. This gentleman told me that he was doing very well as a stock-keeper in Oregon and Idaho; that he had had Durham cattle driven and carried by rail fromNew York to these Pacific States, more than 3,000 miles, in which journey, of course, they had crossed the prairies and the Rocky Mountains. He knew all the Pacific coast well, having been in the States of California, Washington, or Oregon; in British Columbia, and in Sitka. Of British Columbia he thought nothing ever could be made, as there was no agricultural land in the colony. At Cariboo everything, even to flour, cost a dollar per pound. The Indians about Sitka were the largest men he had ever seen; few were less than six feet in height or 200 pounds in weight. I never met with one of this description of settlers who belonged to any branch of the Latin race; they are all Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians, or Germans.
In a Coach on the Plains.
The coach started at seven o’clock, with six fine horses. There was no postilion for the leaders, as was customary in our coaching days. The driver divided the reins between both hands, and off we started at a gallop. Perhaps some of the Shyennese, who witnessed our dashing departure, would not have been sorry to have left the place with us. The coach was full. It was constructed (but without the befitting capacity) to carry nine persons inside and three outside. Experience only can enable one to comprehend how much packing and squeezing and contriving are requisite for arranging nine persons in a space barely sufficient for six. You must imagine a coach a size larger than our old stages; and when three persons have been jammed into the front, and as many into the back seat, a bench is let down from the side which reaches from door to door—and on this three more persons, to speak ironically, are accommodated.Though it was mid-winter, I should have liked my neighbours all the better had they been a little further off. What then must be the effects of such proximity on an American summer-day, with the thermometer on the roof of the coach at 120°, and a cloud of prairie dust pouring in at the window? If one of these Western coaches—destined for its whole existence to work on the plains and mountains, and never to pass over a furlong of made road, could have been exhibited in London and Paris in ’62 and ’67, people on this side would have been astonished at the strength of their springs, and of the whole of their construction.
We were full inside, and two of the outside places were occupied. The party was composed of eight gentlemen and three ladies. First came a good-humoured jovial colonel, the only colonel I met in the United States, where I must have made the acquaintance of not far short of fifty generals. He had long been on the Indian frontier, and had conducted many an expedition against them. His professional warfare being now over, he had taken to gold-mining and trading in the mountains. As he lived somewhere up on the Laramie plains, he laid his account with having a few more brushes with his old dusky friends before the time came, not now far distant, when their name would only stand for what once had been. He was still in the prime of life, as everybody is in the West. He had one child—nobody has more in the United States. There was nothing characteristic in these particulars; nor, perhaps, was there in his practice of carrying with him in his journeys a wickered magnum, and two kegs of whisky. Their contents were of different degrees of proof, andof different qualities, adapted to the varying circumstances and different hours of the day. Strength was the special merit of the magnum, which was intended for after-dinner use. It was regarded as a liqueur, or stomachic. The qualities of one keg made it suitable for the early part of the day; the qualities of the other fitted it for the evening. But it did not appear that the Colonel carried about the magnum and two kegs for his own especial benefit; for whenever we stopped for a meal, and sometimes only when horses were changed, if the interval seemed a long one, the keg with the black hoops, or the keg with the green hoops, or the magnum was taken from the boot, and everybody near was invited to ‘take a drink.’ Even the man who was changing the horses was not omitted. Could it be that the Colonel was one of the proprietors of the coach, and therefore desirous of making things as pleasant as possible to the passengers? This could not be the case, for the names of Wells and Fargo, the great American coaching firm, were on the panels. The true explanation, I believe, was that on the surface—that the Colonel had a heart as large as his head was strong, and that heaven itself would be no heaven to him if he could not share it with his friends—his friends being all those with whom at the moment he happened to be in contact. There was another point, besides that of being content with the rank of Colonel, in which he was unlike his countrymen, and that was his English aversion to the inside of a coach.
The Colonel’s wife acted as cicerone of the country to the inside passengers. She knew the names of all the conspicuous mountains, and how far off theywere; what accidents had ever happened on the route, and where there had been Indian fights, down to the one of last summer.
Next in prominence came a Colorado herdmaster, and his sister, whom he was taking from her home in Pennsylvania to keep house for him on the plains, at a place called the Garden of the Gods. Everyone contributed what he could to make the day pass agreeably, and this gentleman’s contributions consisted in scraps of poetry and little high flown speeches suggested by the sights and occurrences of the moment.
There was also a lady who had made seventeen voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific (I suppose with her husband), and was now returning from a visit to her relations in the State of New York. Her husband was the owner of a mine in the mountains. Whenever called upon she was ready with a song.
The seat next to her was occupied by a well-informed and gentlemanly man. He was a Philadelphian, and had graduated at some American university. I collected that he was going to the mountains to look after some mines in which he was interested.
Two Denver storekeepers (but as town is here construed into city, so is storekeeper into merchant) completed our party. Their forte was that style of humour which is known as American. For instance, apropos to a conversation on the long-sightedness some people are said to acquire on the plains, Mr. A. asks Mr. B., ‘Whether he can see that fly on the top of that chimney?’ Mr. B. replies, ‘I am not quite sure I can see it, but I can hear it scratching its head.’ Mr. A. having been silent for some timeis supposed to have been asleep: Mr. B. therefore requests him ‘to repeat the remark he had just been making.’ To this sally he replies, ‘If there is anything I have said which I shall hereafter have reason to regret, I am glad of it.’
One of these two storekeepers had a literary turn, and was in the habit of giving lectures in Denver and the mining towns in the mountains, where I saw several of his posters on the walls. He informed me that he had then in the press a humorous poem entitled ‘Life in Colorado.’
The other had strong sporting proclivities, and never went a journey by coach or rail without his sixteen-shooter rifle in his hand, for the chance of an antelope, or wolf, or whatever might cross his path. The year before last he had found, on this very road and coach, his practice of never moving unaccompanied by his rifle of use. A party of about a hundred Indians came down from the hills yelling, and firing on the coach. The gentlemen who were in it—they were all armed—got out to meet them, as they could do little when huddled together inside, and the horses and driver would soon have been shot. After the second volley, the driver finding that the Indians were not scared, got scared himself, and insisted on their all getting into the coach again, and his being allowed to drive off. They got in, leaving two of their number dead. The Indians followed for some little distance, and killed one more. The gentleman who told us this incident of travelling in summer on the plains—in winter the Indians are never troublesome—received in the skirmish a wound from an Indian bullet, in the back of his left hand. Theball passed through, shattering the bone. The hole remains as a memento of the day.
Californian Sixteen-shooters.
Such are the kind of persons one meets in a coach on the plains; and such is the way in which they while away the time.
On my return from the Rocky Mountains we found a Californian waiting for the train at North Platte. He had just come over the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges in a sleigh, in mid-winter. For the greater part of the way he had been alone. One of his feet was frostbitten. He was a little man, but appeared capable of daring anything, and of going through a great deal. His eye was quick, and very unlike that of men bred in towns or quiet farms. At this very point, many years ago, he had tried to carry his waggons across the Platte when the waters were out, and the river ten miles wide; but, having failed in the attempt, he had gone up the stream till he headed the freshet. His rifle was never out of his hand. I asked him, seeing that the barrel was somewhat short, at what distance it would kill an antelope. ‘It was not made,’ he said, ‘for antelope hunting, but it would kill one at eight hundred yards. It was the rifle used against the Indians. It was a sixteen-shooter.’ I asked him if it had ever been used in that way. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a few years ago the Indians were very troublesome, and thirty of us went out after them with these sixteen-shooters. They came on to meet us. There were four hundred of them, all mounted. At the first volley we fired, many of their saddles were emptied; still they persevered in attacking us, for a day and a night; but as they always had to retire to reload, and we had not,we had a great advantage over them. At last, when we had killed eighty of them, and they had killed nine of us, we got towards morning upon the top of a hill, where there was a kind of natural breastwork of rock, and they could not approach us without being exposed to our fire: they then gave up the game, and drew off. These sixteen-shooters cost in California forty dollars; but mine has so long been my companion day and night, and has so often saved my life, that I would not take any money for it.’ As he said this he turned it round, to see if there was any speck of dirt or rust upon it, handling it gently as if he loved it.
Manners on the Plains.
Perfect ease and equality, without any obtrusiveness or vulgar assumption, appeared to me to be the true characteristics of the manners of the plains. I spent a day and night at a solitary house where the proprietor combined the two employments of cattle-breeding and inn-keeping. I happened to be at the time the only guest. The accommodation was not bad. It consisted of a large room, used for smoking and for the bar; of a better furnished room for meals; and of a drawing-room, properly belonging to the mistress of the house, but into which favoured guests were invited. I here found several files of local and American papers, and among them the ‘London Illustrated News.’ The herdsmen of the proprietor took their meals with the guests. Before sitting down they always washed their hands and faces, and combed their hair. There was nothing at all disagreeable in their conversation or manners. They spoke good English, as all Americans do, and were unconstrained, as all Americans are. I had noticed on theprevious evening that they had remarkably good appetites, and at breakfast, the next morning, I ‘made a note’ of what it took to satisfy the broadest-shouldered and hungriest-looking of the party. First, he called for beefsteak: the lad in waiting brought him about a pound, with a little dish of fried potatoes. This he soon disposed of. He then called for sausages. His next plate was ham and eggs. This was followed by a dish of slap-jacks, a kind of pancake eaten with butter and syrup. He finished with a dish of dried apples stewed. This was at half-past six in the morning. At the same hour in the evening, he would have much the same kind of supper, and at noon much the same kind of dinner. But these men live out of doors, and chiefly in the saddle, galloping over a plain four thousand feet above the level of the sea, with a very bracing and invigorating climate. The lady of the house had been well brought up in New England, and her manners were pleasing. She had no help, and did all the cooking herself. They had an only child, then just five years old, but whom—for children are very forward here—one might have taken for seven. His chief amusement, while I was here, was catching the pigs and dogs with an Indian lasso made of buckskin.
At La Porte, a city of three or four houses, a lady of prepossessing appearance got into the coach. The wife of the Colonel I have mentioned shook hands with her; and we had some pleasant conversation about the society of the plains and mountains. She was very decided in her preference for it over that of cities. She thought that life in old settled districts was mere existence and not life. She talked of thedelights of camping out, and of long excursions of fifty or eighty miles on horseback. At La Park the Colonel handed her out of the coach. Supper was soon announced, and we took our places at the table, when the lady who had been conversing so pleasantly in the coach appeared behind my chair and asked me, in an easy and well-mannered way, what I would take. I saw now that she was the landlady of the little roadside inn at which we had stopped, and that she did the waiting herself. She supplied everybody with what they required, changed the plates, filled the glasses and cups, and brought whatever was wanted, all the time talking much as the mistress of a house would talk to her guests.
But though perfect equality is the first principle of Western life, yet the superiority of refinement and mental cultivation is fully recognised, and everybody readily defers to them. This, however, is only done on the condition that there is no assumption on the part of the person himself. To pretend to a superiority to others,—what we call, to give yourself airs,—is in American society, whether it be in the East or the West, an unpardonable offence; it is the sin against equality, which is never forgiven in this world, and which every true American trusts will not be forgotten in the next. Only leave it to them to discover your merits, and you will have no reason to complain of want of appreciation. They are a people who measure others much more fairly than we do.
From Shyenne to Denver.
The City of Denver.
The track from Shyenne to Denver lies along the foot of the mountains, and is about one hundred and ten miles in length. On your left is the boundless plain; on your right are the mountains, rising suddenlylike a wall out of the plain. The first range is either scantily clothed with pine forests, or shows only the naked dark-coloured rock. Behind and above this is the snowy dividing ridge, which, however, in summer and autumn, has snow only on its highest peaks. In some places the lower range is of a bright red, as if the mountain were faced with red brick. From the picturesque point of view, the defect of the mountains is that they keep too much to the straight line. This is not observed when you get among them, but it is very perceptible from the plain, into which no outlying hills, or spurs, obtrude on this route. St. Vrain and Burlington are the most important places you pass. Each of them appears to have a population of three or four hundred souls: they are only separated from each other by a stream. But it is sufficient to render the land on its banks capable of cultivation; and this, in a region where there is so little land that can be made to produce anything except prairie grass, is sufficient to account for the existence of the two places. The other cities along the route are only wooden public-houses, where the coach changes horses, and at some of which it is arranged that the passengers shall have something to eat. It is to the credit of the landlords of these cities on the plains, that what they provide for their guests is good of its kind, which cannot be said of any one of the purveyors for the five hundred miles of railway between Shyenne and Omaha. At St. Vrain the outer range sinks so low that you are able to look into the valleys of the snowy dividing ridge. Fortunately, in the midst of this exposed part stands Long’s Peak, the highest point of the chain. As seen from the plain, itappears to be a three-peaked mountain, and each of its three peaks has the appearance of being accessible. On enquiry at St. Vrain, I was told that there was a good path for pedestrians, and even for mules, to the foot of the mountain, and that it had been frequently scaled. The mountain to the south of Long’s Peak appears to have a precipitous face of some thousands of feet on its side towards the Peak; and there is distinctly visible, lying between the two, a green park. A park in the language of the mountains is a large expanse of level grass-clad land up among the hills. There are many of them in this range. They are always well watered, and abundantly stocked with game. This park and this peak are, by the path I have just mentioned, forty-five miles distant from St. Vrain. The depression of the outer hills which admits them to view continues for about twelve miles.