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diff --git a/old/passf10.txt b/old/passf10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc207de --- /dev/null +++ b/old/passf10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4150 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Passing of the Frontier +by Emerson Hough + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + + +Title: The Passing of the Frontier, A Chronicle of the Old West + +Author: Emerson Hough + +This Book, Volume 26 In The Chronicles Of America Series, Allen +Johnson, Editor, Was Donated To Project Gutenberg By The James J. +Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's University; Thanks To Alev Akman. + + +THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER, A CHRONICLE OF THE OLD WEST + +BY EMERSON HOUGH + +New Haven: Yale University Press +Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. +London: Humphrey Milford +Oxford University Press +1918 + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE FRONTIER IN HISTORY +II. THE RANGE +III. THE CATTLE TRAILS +IV. THE COWBOY +V. THE MINES +VI. PATHWAYS OF THE WEST +VII. THE INDIAN WARS +VIII. THE CATTLE KINGS +IX. THE HOMESTEADER +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + +THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER + +Chapter I. The Frontier In History + +The frontier! There is no word in the English language more +stirring, more intimate, or more beloved. It has in it all the +elan of the old French phrase, En avant! It carries all of the +old Saxon command, Forward!! It means all that America ever +meant. It means the old hope of a real personal liberty, and yet +a real human advance in character and achievement. To a genuine +American it is the dearest word in all the world. + +What is, or was, the frontier? Where was it? Under what stars did +it lie? Because, as the vague Iliads of ancient heroes or the +nebulous records of the savage gentlemen of the Middle Ages make +small specific impingement on our consciousness today, so also +even now begin the tales of our own old frontier to assume a +haziness, an unreality, which makes them seem less history than +folklore. Now the truth is that the American frontier of history +has many a local habitation and many a name. And this is why it +lies somewhat indefinite under the blue haze of the years, all +the more alluring for its lack of definition, like some old +mountain range, the softer and more beautiful for its own +shadows. + +The fascination of the frontier is and has ever been an undying +thing. Adventure is the meat of the strong men who have built the +world for those more timid. Adventure and the frontier are one +and inseparable. They suggest strength, courage, +hardihood--qualities beloved in men since the world +began--qualities which are the very soul of the United States, +itself an experiment, an adventure, a risk accepted. Take away +all our history of political regimes, the story of the rise and +fall of this or that partisan aggregation in our government; take +away our somewhat inglorious military past; but leave us forever +the tradition of the American frontier! There lies our comfort +and our pride. There we never have failed. There, indeed, we +always realized our ambitions. There, indeed, we were efficient, +before that hateful phrase was known. There we were a melting-pot +for character, before we came to know that odious appellation +which classifies us as the melting-pot of the nations. + +The frontier was the place and the time of the strong man, of the +self-sufficient but restless individual. It was the home of the +rebel, the protestant, the unreconciled, the intolerant, the +ardent--and the resolute. It was not the conservative and tender +man who made our history; it was the man sometimes illiterate, +oftentimes uncultured, the man of coarse garb and rude weapons. +But the frontiersmen were the true dreamers of the nation. They +really were the possessors of a national vision. Not statesmen +but riflemen and riders made America. The noblest conclusions of +American history still rest upon premises which they laid. + +But, in its broadest significance, the frontier knows no country. +It lies also in other lands and in other times than our own. When +and what was the Great Frontier? We need go back only to the time +of Drake and the sea-dogs, the Elizabethan Age, when all North +America was a frontier, almost wholly unknown, compellingly +alluring to all bold men. That was the day of new stirrings in +the human heart. Some strange impulse seemed to act upon the soul +of the braver and bolder Europeans; and they moved westward, nor +could have helped that had they tried. They lived largely and +blithely, and died handsomely, those old Elizabethan adventurers, +and they lie today in thousands of unrecorded graves upon two +continents, each having found out that any place is good enough +for a man to die upon, provided that he be a man. + +The American frontier was Elizabethan in its quality--childlike, +simple, and savage. It has not entirely passed; for both +Elizabethan folk and Elizabethan customs are yet to be found in +the United States. While the half-savage civilization of the +farther West was roaring on its way across the continent--while +the day of the keelboatman and the plainsman, of the +Indian-fighter and the miner, even the day of the cowboy, was +dawning and setting--there still was a frontier left far behind +in the East, near the top of the mountain range which made the +first great barrier across our pathway to the West. That +frontier, the frontier of Boone and Kenton, of Robertson and +Sevier, still exists and may be seen in the Cumberland--the only +remaining part of America which is all American. There we may +find trace of the Elizabethan Age--idioms lost from English +literature and American speech long ago. There we may see the +American home life as it went on more than a hundred years ago. +We may see hanging on the wall the long muzzle-loading rifle of +an earlier day. We may see the spinning-wheel and the loom. The +women still make in part the clothing for their families, and the +men still make their own household furniture, their own farming +implements, their own boots. + +This overhanging frontier of America is a true survival of the +days of Drake as well as of the days of Boone. The people are at +once godly and savage. They breed freely; they love their homes; +they are ever ready for adventure; they are frugal, abstemious, +but violent and strong. They carry on still the half-religious +blood feuds of the old Scotch Highlands or the North of Ireland, +whence they came. They reverence good women. They care little for +material accumulations. They believe in personal ease and +personal independence. With them life goes on not in the slow +monotony of reiterated performance, but in ragged profile, with +large exertions followed by large repose. Now that has been the +fashion of the frontier in every age and every land of all the +world. And so, by studying these people, we may even yet arrive +at a just and comprehensive notion of what we might call the +"feel" of the old frontier. + +There exists, too, yet another Saxon frontier in a far-off +portion of the world. In that strange country, Australia, +tremendous unknown regions still remain, and the wild pastoral +life of such regions bids fair to exist yet for many years. A +cattle king of Queensland held at one time sixty thousand square +miles of land. It is said that the average size of pastoral +holdings in the northern territory of Australia is two hundred +and seventy-five thousand acres. Does this not recall the old +times of free range in the American West? + +This strange antipodal civilization also retains a curious flavor +of Elizabethan ideas. It does not plan for inordinate fortunes, +the continual amassing of money, but it does deliberately plan +for the use by the individual of his individual life. Australian +business hours are shorter than American. Routine is less +general. The individual takes upon himself a smaller load of +effort. He is restive under monotony. He sets aside a great part +of his life for sport. He lives in a large and young day of the +world. Here we may see a remote picture of our own American +West--better, as it seems to me, than that reflected in the rapid +and wholly commercialized development of Western Canada, which is +not flavored by any age but this. + +But much of the frontier of Australia is occupied by men of means +who had behind them government aid and a semi-paternal +encouragement in their adventures. The same is true in part of +the government-fostered settlement of Western Canada. It was not +so with the American West. Here was not the place of the rich man +but of the poor man, and he had no one to aid him or encourage +him. Perhaps no man ever understood the American West who did not +himself go there and make his living in that country, as did the +men who found it and held it first. Each life on our old frontier +was a personal adventure. The individual had no government behind +him and he lacked even the protection of any law. + +Our frontier crawled west from the first seaport settlements, +afoot, on horseback, in barges, or with slow wagon-trains. It +crawled across the Alleghanies, down the great river valleys and +up them yet again; and at last, in days of new transportation, it +leaped across divides, from one river valley to another. Its +history, at first so halting, came to be very swift--so swift +that it worked great elisions in its own story. + +In our own day, however, the Old West generally means the old cow +country of the West--the high plains and the lower foothills +running from the Rio Grande to the northern boundary. The still +more ancient cattle-range of the lower Pacific Slope will never +come into acceptance as the Old West. Always, when we use these +words, we think of buffalo plains and of Indians, and of their +passing before the footmen and riders who carried the phantom +flag of Drake and the Virgin Queen from the Appalachians to the +Rockies--before the men who eventually made good that glorious +and vaunting vision of the Virginia cavaliers, whose party turned +back from the Rockfish Gap after laying claim in the name of King +George on all the country lying west of them, as far as the South +Sea! + +The American cow country may with very good logic arrogate to +itself the title of the real and typical frontier of all the +world. We call the spirit of the frontier Elizabethan, and so it +was; but even as the Elizabethan Age was marked by its contact +with the Spanish civilization in Europe, on the high seas, and in +both the Americas, so the last frontier of the American West also +was affected, and largely, deeply, by Spanish influence and +Spanish customs. The very phraseology of range work bears proof +of this. Scores of Spanish words are written indelibly in the +language of the Plains. The frontier of the cow-range never was +Saxon alone. + +It is a curious fact also, seldom if ever noted, that this Old +West of the Plains was very largely Southern and not Northern on +its Saxon side. No States so much as Kentucky and Tennessee and, +later, Missouri--daughters of Old Virginia in her +glory--contributed to the forces of the frontiersmen. Texas, +farther to the south, put her stamp indelibly upon the entire +cattle industry of the West. Visionary, impractical, restless, +adventurous, these later Elizabethan heroes--bowing to no yoke, +insisting on their own rights and scorning often the laws of +others, yet careful to retain the best and most advantageous +customs of any conquered country--naturally came from those +nearest Elizabethan countries which lay abandoned behind them. + +If the atmosphere of the Elizabethan Age still may be found in +the forgotten Cumberlands, let us lay claim to kinship with +yonder roystering heroes of a gallant day; for this was ever the +atmosphere of our own frontier. To feel again the following +breezes of the Golden Hind, or see again, floating high in the +cloudless skies, the sails of the Great Armada, was the privilege +of Americans for a double decade within the memory of men yet +living, in that country, so unfailingly beloved, which we call +the Old West of America. + + + +Chapter II. The Range + +When, in 1803, those two immortal youths, Meriwether Lewis and +William Clark, were about to go forth on their great journey +across the continent, they were admonished by Thomas Jefferson +that they would in all likelihood encounter in their travels, +living and stalking about, the mammoth or the mastodon, whose +bones had been found in the great salt-licks of Kentucky. We +smile now at such a supposition; yet it was not unreasonable +then. No man knew that tremendous country that lay beyond the +mouth of the Missouri. + +The explorers crossed one portion of a vast land which was like +to nothing they had ever seen--the region later to become the +great cattle-range of America. It reached, although they could +know nothing of that, from the Spanish possessions on the south +across a thousand miles of short grass lands to the present +Canadian boundary line which certain obdurate American souls +still say ought to have been at 54 degrees 40 minutes, and not +where it is! From the Rio Grande to "Fifty-four forty," indeed, +would have made nice measurements for the Saxon cattle-range. + +Little, however, was the value of this land understood by the +explorers; and, for more than half a century afterwards, it +commonly was supposed to be useless for the occupation of white +men and suitable only as a hunting-ground for savage tribes. Most +of us can remember the school maps of our own youth, showing a +vast region marked, vaguely, "The Great American Desert," which +was considered hopeless for any human industry, but much of which +has since proved as rich as any land anywhere on the globe. + +Perhaps it was the treeless nature of the vast Plains which +carried the first idea of their infertility. When the first +settlers of Illinois and Indiana came up from south of the Ohio +River they had their choice of timber and prairie lands. Thinking +the prairies worthless--since land which could not raise a tree +certainly could not raise crops--these first occupants of the +Middle West spent a generation or more, axe in hand, along the +heavily timbered river-bottoms. The prairies were long in +settling. No one then could have predicted that farm lands in +that region would be worth three hundred dollars an acre or +better, and that these prairies of the Mississippi Valley would, +in a few generations, be studded with great towns and would form +a part of the granary of the world. + +But, if our early explorers, passing beyond the valley of the +Missouri, found valueless the region of the Plains and the +foothills, not so the wild creatures or the savage men who had +lived there longer than science records. The buffalo then ranged +from the Rio Grande to the Athabaska, from the Missouri to the +Rockies, and beyond. No one seems to have concluded in those days +that there was after all slight difference between the buffalo +and the domestic ox. The native cattle, however, in untold +thousands and millions, had even then proved beyond peradventure +the sustaining and strengthening nature of the grasses of the +Plains. + +Now, each creature, even of human species, must adjust itself to +its environment. Having done so, commonly it is disposed to love +that environment. The Eskimo and the Zulu each thinks that he has +the best land in the world: So with the American Indian, who, +supported by the vast herds of buffalo, ranged all over that +tremendous country which was later to be given over to the white +man with his domestic cattle. No freer life ever was lived by any +savages than by the Horse Indians of the Plains in the buffalo +days; and never has the world known a physically higher type of +savage. + +On the buffalo-range--that is to say, on the cattle-range which +was to be--Lewis and Clark met several bands of the Sioux--the +Mandans and the Assiniboines, the Blackfeet, the Shoshones. +Farther south were the Pawnees, the Kaws, the Otoes, the Osages, +most of whom depended in part upon the buffalo for their living, +though the Otoes, the Pawnees, the Mandans, and certain others +now and then raised a little corn or a few squashes to help out +their bill of fare. Still farther south dwelt the Kiowas, the +Comanches, and others. The Arapahoes, the Cheyennes, the Crows, +and the Utes, all hunters, were soon to come into the ken of the +white man. Of such of these tribes as they met, the youthful +captains made accounting, gravely and with extraordinary +accuracy, but without discovering in this region much future for +Americans. They were explorers and not industrial investigators. + +It was nearly half a century after the journey of Lewis and Clark +that the Forty-Niners were crossing the Plains, whither, +meanwhile, the Mormons had trekked in search of a country where +they might live as they liked. Still the wealth of the Plains +remained untouched. California was in the eyes of the world. The +great cow-range was overleaped. But, in the early fifties, when +the placer fields of California began to be less numerous and +less rich, the half-savage population of the mines roared on +northward, even across our northern line. Soon it was to roll +back. Next it worked east and southeast and northeast over the +great dry plains of Washington and Oregon, so that, as readily +may be seen, the cow-range proper was not settled as most of the +West was, by a directly westbound thrust of an eastern +population; but, on the contrary, it was approached from several +different angles--from the north, from the east, from the west +and northwest, and finally from the south. + +The early, turbulent population of miners and adventurers was +crude, lawless, and aggressive. It cared nothing whatever for the +Indian tribes. War, instant and merciless, where it meant murder +for the most part, was set on foot as soon as white touched red +in that far western region. + +All these new white men who had crowded into the unknown country +of the Plains, the Rockies, the Sierras, and the Cascades, had to +be fed. They could not employ and remain content with the means +by which the red man there had always fed himself. Hence a new +industry sprang up in the United States, which of itself made +certain history in that land. The business of freighting supplies +to the West, whether by bull-train or by pack-train, was an +industry sui generic, very highly specialized, and pursued by men +of great business ability as well as by men of great hardihood +and daring. + +Each of these freight trains which went West carried hanging on +its flank more and more of the white men. As the trains returned, +more and more was learned in the States of the new country which +lay between the Missouri and the Rockies, which ran no man knew +how far north, and no man could guess how far south. Now appears +in history Fort Benton, on the Missouri, the great northern +supply post--just as at an earlier date there had appeared Fort +Hall, one of the old fur-trading posts beyond the Rockies, Bent's +Fort on the Arkansas, and many other outposts of the new Saxon +civilization in the West. + +Later came the pony express and the stage coach which made +history and romance for a generation. Feverishly, boisterously, a +strong, rugged, womanless population crowded westward and formed +the wavering, now advancing, now receding line of the great +frontier of American story. + +But for long there was no sign of permanent settlement on the +Plains, and no one thought of this region as the frontier. The +men there who were prospecting and exploiting were classified as +no more than adventurers. No one seems to have taken a lesson +from the Indian and the buffalo. The reports of Fremont long +since had called attention to the nourishing quality of those +grasses of the high country, but the day of the cowboy had not +yet dawned. There is a somewhat feeble story which runs to the +effect that in 1866 one of the great wagon-trains, caught by the +early snows of winter, was obliged to abandon its oxen on the +range. It was supposed that, of course, the oxen must perish +during the winter. But next spring the owners were surprised to +find that the oxen, so far from perishing, had flourished very +much--indeed, were fat and in good condition. So runs the story +which is often repeated. It may be true, but to accredit to this +incident the beginnings of the cattle industry in the Indian +country would surely be going too far. The truth is that the cow +industry was not a Saxon discovery. It was a Latin enterprise, +flourishing in Mexico long before the first of these miners and +adventurers came on the range. + +Something was known of the Spanish lands to the south through the +explorations of Pike, but more through the commerce of the +prairies--the old wagon trade from the Missouri River to the +Spanish cities of Sante Fe and Chihuahua. Now the cow business, +south of the Rio Grande, was already well differentiated and +developed at the time the first adventurers from the United +States went into Texas and began to crowd their Latin neighbors +for more room. There it was that our Saxon frontiersmen first +discovered the cattle industry. But these southern and northern +riflemen--ruthless and savage, yet strangely +statesmanlike--though they might betimes drive away the owners of +the herds, troubled little about the herds themselves. There was +a certain fascination to these rude strangers in the slow and +easeful civilization of Old Spain which they encountered in the +land below them. Little by little, and then largely and yet more +largely, the warriors of San Jacinto reached out and began to +claim lands for themselves--leagues and uncounted leagues of +land, which had, however, no market value. Well within the memory +of the present generation large tracts of good land were bought +in Texas for six cents an acre; some was bought for half that +price in a time not much earlier. Today much of that land is +producing wealth; but land then was worthless--and so were cows. + +This civilization of the Southwest, of the new Republic of Texas, +may be regarded as the first enduring American result of contact +with the Spanish industry. The men who won Texas came mostly from +Kentucky and Tennessee or southern Ohio, and the first colonizer +of Texas was a Virginian, Stephen Fuller Austin. They came along +the old Natchez Trace from Nashville to the Mississippi +River--that highway which has so much history of its own. Down +this old winding trail into the greatest valley of all the world, +and beyond that valley out into the Spanish country, moved +steadily the adventurers whose fathers had but recently crossed +the Appalachians. One of the strongest thrusts of the American +civilization thus entered the cattle-range at its lower end, +between the Rio Grande and the Red River. + +In all the several activities, mining, freighting, scouting, +soldiering, riding pony express, or even sheer adventuring for +what might come, there was ever a trading back and forth between +home-staying men and adventuring men. Thus there was an +interchange of knowledge and of customs between East and West, +between our old country and our new. There was an interchange, +too, at the south, where our Saxon civilization came in touch +with that of Mexico. + +We have now to note some fundamental facts and principles of the +cattle industry which our American cattlemen took over ready-made +from the hands of Mexico. + +The Mexicans in Texas had an abundance of small, hardy horses of +African and Spanish breed, which Spain had brought into the New +World--the same horses that the Moors had brought into Spain--a +breed naturally hardy and able to subsist upon dry food. Without +such horses there could have been no cattle industry. These +horses, running wild in herds, had crossed to the upper Plains. +La Verendrye, and later Lewis and Clark, had found the Indians +using horses in the north. The Indians, as we have seen, had +learned to manage the horse. Formerly they had used dogs to drag +the travois, but now they used the "elk-dog," as they first +called the horse. + +In the original cow country, that is, in Mexico and Texas, +countless herds of cattle were held in a loose sort of ownership +over wide and unknown plains. Like all wild animals in that warm +country, they bred in extraordinary numbers. The southern range, +indeed, has always been called the breeding range. The cattle had +little value. He who wanted beef killed beef. He who wanted +leather killed cattle for their hides. But beyond these scant and +infrequent uses cattle had no definite value. + +The Mexican, however, knew how to handle cows. He could ride a +horse, and he could rope cattle and brand them. Most of the +cattle of a wide range would go to certain water-holes more or +less regularly, where they might be roughly collected or +estimated. This coming of the cattle to the watering-places made +it unnecessary for owners of cattle to acquire ranch land. It was +enough to secure the water-front where the cows must go to drink. +That gave the owner all the title he needed. His right to the +increase he could prove by another phenomenon of nature, just as +inevitable and invariable as that of thirst. The maternal +instinct of a cow and the dependence of the calf upon its mother +gave the old rancher of immemorial times sufficient proof of +ownership in the increase of his herd. The calf would run with +its own mother and with no other cow through its first season. So +that if an old Mexican ranchero saw a certain number of cows at +his watering-places, and with them calves, he knew that all +before him were his property--or, at least, he claimed them as +such and used them. + +Still, this was loose-footed property. It might stray away after +all, or it might be driven away. Hence, in some forgotten time, +our shrewd Spaniard invented a system of proof of ownership which +has always lain at the very bottom of the organized cow industry; +he invented the method of branding. This meant his sign, his +name, his trade-mark, his proof of ownership. The animal could +not shake it off. It would not burn off in the sun or wash off in +the rain. It went with the animal and could not be eradicated +from the animal's hide. Wherever the bearer was seen, the brand +upon its hide provided certain identification of the owner. + +Now, all these basic ideas of the cow industry were old on the +lower range in Texas when our white men first drifted thither. +The cattle industry, although in its infancy, and although +supposed to have no great future, was developed long before Texas +became a republic. It never, indeed, changed very much from that +time until the end of its own career. + +One great principle was accepted religiously even in those early +and crude days. A man's cow was HIS cow. A man's brand was HIS +brand. There must be no interference with his ownership. Hence +certain other phases of the industry followed inevitably. These +cattle, these calves, each branded by the iron of the owner, in +spite of all precautions, began to mingle as settlers became more +numerous; hence came the idea of the round-up. The country was +warm and lazy. If a hundred or a thousand cows were not +collected, very well. If a calf were separated from its mother, +very well. The old ranchers never quarreled among themselves. +They never would have made in the South anything like a cattle +association; it was left for the Yankees to do that at a time +when cows had come to have far greater values. There were few +arguments in the first rodeos of the lower range. One rancher +would vie with his neighbor in generosity in the matter of +unbranded calves. Haggling would have been held contemptible. On +the lower range in the old times no one cared much about a cow. +Why should one do so? There was no market for cows--no one who +wished to buy them. If one tendered a Mexican cinquo pesos for a +yearling or a two-year-old, the owner might perhaps offer the +animal as a gift, or he might smile and say "Con mucho gusto" as +he was handed a few pieces of silver. There were plenty of cows +everywhere in the world! + +Let us, therefore, give the old Spaniard full credit alike in +picturesque romance and in the organized industry of the cow. The +westbound thrust which came upon the upper part of the range in +the days of more shrewd and exacting business methods was simply +the best-known and most published phase of frontier life in the +cow country; hence we have usually accepted it as typical. It +would not be accurate to say that the cattle industry was +basically much influenced or governed by northern or eastern men. +In practically all of its great phenomena the frontier of the old +cow-range was southern by birth and growth. + +There lay, then, so long unused, that vast and splendid land so +soon to write romantic history of its own, so soon to come into +the admiration or the wonder of a great portion of the earth--a +land of fascinating interest to the youth of every country, and a +region whose story holds a charm for young and old alike even +today. It was a region royal in its dimensions. Far on the west +it was hedged by the gray-sided and white-topped mountains, the +Rockies. Where the buffalo once lived, the cattle were to live, +high up in the foothills of this great mountain range which ran +from the Rio Grande to Canada. On the east, where lay the +Prairies rather than the Plains, it was a country waving with +high native grasses, with many brilliant flowers hiding among +them, the sweet-William, the wild rose, and often great masses of +the yellow sunflower. + +>From the Rio Grande to the Athabaska, for the greater part, the +frontier sky was blue and cloudless during most of the year. The +rainfall was not great. The atmosphere was dry. It was a cheerful +country, one of optimism and not of gloom. In the extreme south, +along the Rio Grande, the climate was moister, warmer, more +enervating; but on the high steppes of the middle range in +Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, western Nebraska, there lay the +finest out-of-doors country, man's country the finest of the +earth. + +But for the time, busy with more accustomed things, mining and +freighting and fighting and hunting and trading and trapping, we +Americans who had arrived upon the range cared little for cows. +The upper thrust of the great herds from the south into the north +had not begun. It was after the Civil War that the first great +drives of cattle from the south toward the north began, and after +men had learned in the State of Texas that cattle moved from the +Rio Grande to the upper portions of the State and fed on the +mesquite grass would attain greater stature than in the hot coast +country. Then swiftly, somewhat luridly, there leaped into our +comprehension and our interest that strange country long loosely +held under our flag, the region of the Plains, the region which +we now call the Old West. + +In great bands, in long lines, slowly, towheaded, sore-footed, +the vast gatherings of the prolific lower range moved north, each +cow with its title indelibly marked upon its hide. These cattle +were now going to take the place of those on which the Indians +had depended for their living these many years. A new day in +American history had dawned. + + + +Chapter III. The Cattle Trails + +The customary method of studying history by means of a series of +events and dates is not the method which we have chosen to +employ in this study of the Old West. Speaking generally, our +minds are unable to assimilate a condensed mass of events and +dates; and that is precisely what would be required of us if we +should attempt here to follow the ways of conventional history. +Dates are at best no more than milestones on the pathway of time; +and in the present instance it is not the milestones but the road +itself with which we are concerned. Where does the road begin? +Why comes it hither? Whither does it lead? These are the real +questions. + +Under all the exuberance of the life of the range there lay a +steady business of tremendous size and enormous values. The +"uproarious iniquity" of the West, its picturesqueness, its +vividness--these were but froth on the stream. The stream itself +was a steady and somber flood. Beyond this picturesqueness of +environment very few have cared to go, and therefore sometimes +have had little realization of the vastness of the cowboy's +kingdom, the "magnitude of the interests in his care, or the +fortitude, resolution, and instant readiness essential to his +daily life." The American cowboy is the most modern +representative of a human industry that is second to very few in +antiquity. + +Julius Caesar struck the note of real history: Quorum pars magna +fui--"Of which I was a great part." If we are to seek the actual +truth, we ought most to value contemporary records, +representations made by men who were themselves a part of the +scenes which they describe. In that way we shall arrive not +merely upon lurid events, not alone upon the stereotyped +characters of the "Wild West," but upon causes which are much +more interesting and immensely more valuable than any merely +titillating stories from the weirdly illustrated Apocrypha of the +West. We must go below such things if we would gain a just and +lasting estimate of the times. We ought to look on the old range +neither as a playground of idle men nor as a scene of hysterical +and contorted human activities. We ought to look upon it from the +point of view of its uses to mankind. The explorers found it a +wilderness, the home of the red man and the buffalo. What were +the underlying causes of its settlement and development? + +There is in history no agency so wondrous in events, no working +instrumentality so great as transportation. The great seeking of +all human life is to find its level. Perhaps the first men +traveled by hollowed logs down stream. Then possibly the idea of +a sail was conceived. Early in the story of the United States men +made commercial journeys from the head of the Ohio to the mouth +of the Mississippi by flatboats, and came back by keelboats. The +pole, the cordelle, the paddle, and the sail, in turn helped them +to navigate the great streams which led out into the West. And +presently there was to come that tremendous upheaval wrought by +the advent of the iron trails which, scorning alike waterways and +mountain ranges, flung themselves almost directly westward across +the continent. + +The iron trails, crossing the northern range soon after the Civil +War, brought a market to the cattle country. Inevitably the men +of the lower range would seek to reach the railroads with what +they had to sell--their greatest natural product, cattle on the +hoof. This was the primary cause of the great northbound drives +already mentioned, the greatest pastoral phenomena in the story +of the world. + +The southern herds at that time had no market at their doors. +They had to go to the market, and they had to go on foot. That +meant that they must be driven northward by cattle handlers who +had passed their days in the wild life of the lower range. These +cowmen of course took their character and their customs northward +with them, and so they were discovered by those enthusiastic +observers, newly arrived by rail, whom the cowmen were wont to +call "pilgrims." + +Now the trail of the great cattle drives--the Long Trail-was a +thing of tremendous importance of itself and it is still full of +interest. As it may not easily be possible for the author to +better a description of it that was written some twenty years +ago, that description is here again set down.* + +* "The Story of the Cowboy," by E. Hough. Appleton. 1897. +Reprinted by permission. + + +The braiding of a hundred minor pathways, the Long Trail lay like +a vast rope connecting the cattle country of the South with that +of the North. Lying loose or coiling, it ran for more than two +thousand miles along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, +sometimes close in at their feet, again hundreds of miles away +across the hard tablelands or the well-flowered prairies. It +traversed in a fair line the vast land of Texas, curled over the +Indian Nations, over Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, and +Montana, and bent in wide overlapping circles as far west as Utah +and Nevada; as far east as Missouri, Iowa, even Illinois; and as +far north as the British possessions. Even today you may trace +plainly its former course, from its faint beginnings in the lazy +land of Mexico, the Ararat of the cattle-range. It is distinct +across Texas, and multifold still in the Indian lands. Its many +intermingling paths still scar the iron surface of the Neutral +Strip, and the plows have not buried all the old furrows in the +plains of Kansas. Parts of the path still remain visible in the +mountain lands of the far North. You may see the ribbons banding +the hillsides today along the valley of the Stillwater, and along +the Yellowstone and toward the source of the Missouri. The hoof +marks are beyond the Musselshell, over the Bad Lands and the +coulees and the flat prairies; and far up into the land of the +long cold you may see, even today if you like, the shadow of that +unparalleled pathway, the Long Trail of the cattle-range. History +has no other like it. + +The Long Trail was surveyed and constructed in a century and a +day. Over the Red River of the South, a stream even today perhaps +known but vaguely in the minds of many inhabitants of the +country, there appeared, almost without warning, vast processions +of strange horned kine--processions of enormous wealth, owned by +kings who paid no tribute, and guarded by men who never knew a +master. Whither these were bound, what had conjured them forth, +whence they came, were questions in the minds of the majority of +the population of the North and East to whom the phenomenon +appeared as the product of a day. The answer to these questions +lay deep in the laws of civilization, and extended far back into +that civilization's history. The Long Trail was finished in a +day. It was begun more than a century before that day, and came +forward along the very appointed ways of time.... Thus, far +down in the vague Southwest, at some distant time, in some +distant portion of old, mysterious Mexico, there fell into line +the hoof prints which made the first faint beginnings of the Long +Trail, merely the path of a half nomadic movement along the line +of the least resistance. + +The Long Trail began to deepen and extend. It received then, as +it did later, a baptism of human blood such as no other pathway +of the continent has known. The nomadic and the warlike days +passed, and there ensued a more quiet and pastoral time. It was +the beginning of a feudalism of the range, a barony rude enough, +but a glorious one, albeit it began, like all feudalism, in +large-handed theft and generous murdering. The flocks of these +strong men, carelessly interlapping, increased and multiplied +amazingly. They were hardly looked upon as wealth. The people +could not eat a tithe of the beef; they could not use a hundredth +of the leather. Over hundreds and hundreds of miles of ownerless +grass lands, by the rapid waters of the mountains, by the slow +streams of the plains or the long and dark lagoons of the low +coast country the herds of tens grew into droves of hundreds and +thousands and hundreds of thousands. This was really the dawning +of the American cattle industry. + +Chips and flakes of the great Southwestern herd began to be seen +in the Northern States. As early as 1857 Texas cattle were driven +to Illinois. In 1861 Louisiana was, without success, tried as an +outlet. In 1867 a venturous drover took a herd across the Indian +Nations, bound for California, and only abandoned the project +because the Plains Indians were then very bad in the country to +the north. In 1869 several herds were driven from Texas to +Nevada. These were side trails of the main cattle road. It seemed +clear that a great population in the North needed the cheap beef +of Texas, and the main question appeared to be one of +transportation. No proper means for this offered. The Civil War +stopped almost all plans to market the range cattle, and the +close of that war found the vast grazing lands of Texas covered +fairly with millions of cattle which had no actual or determinate +value. They were sorted and branded and herded after a fashion, +but neither they nor their increase could be converted into +anything but more cattle. The cry for a market became imperative. + +Meantime the Anglo-Saxon civilization was rolling swiftly toward +the upper West. The Indians were being driven from the Plains. A +solid army was pressing behind the vanguard of soldier, scout, +and plainsman. The railroads were pushing out into a new and +untracked empire. They carried the market with them. The market +halted, much nearer, though still some hundred of miles to the +north of the great herd. The Long Trail tapped no more at the +door of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, but leaped north again +definitely, this time springing across the Red River and up to +the railroads, along sharp and well-defined channels deepened in +the year of 1866 alone by the hoofs of more than a quarter of a +million cattle. + +In 1871, only five years later, over six hundred thousand cattle +crossed the Red River for the Northern markets. Abilene, Newton, +Wichita, Ellsworth, Great Bend, Dodge, flared out into a swift +and sometime evil blossoming. Thus the men of the North first +came to hear of the Long Trail and the men who made it, although +really it had begun long ago and had been foreordained to grow. + +By this time, 1867 and 1868, the northern portions of the region +immediately to the east of the Rocky Mountains had been +sufficiently cleared of their wild inhabitants to admit a gradual +though precarious settlement. It had been learned yet again that +the buffalo grass and the sweet waters of the far North would +fatten a range broadhorn to a stature far beyond any it could +attain on the southern range. The Long Trail pushed rapidly even +farther to the north where there still remained "free grass" and +a new market. The territorial ranges needed many thousands of +cattle for their stocking, and this demand took a large part of +the Texas drive which came to Abilene, Great Bend, and Fort +Dodge. Moreover, the Government was now feeding thousands of its +new red wards, and these Indians needed thousands of beeves for +rations, which were driven from the southern range to the upper +army posts and reservations. Between this Government demand and +that of the territorial stock ranges there was occupation for the +men who made the saddle their home. + +The Long Trail, which had previously found the black corn lands +of Illinois and Missouri, now crowded to the West, until it had +reached Utah and Nevada, and penetrated every open park and mesa +and valley of Colorado, and found all the high plains of Wyoming. +Cheyenne and Laramie became common words now, and drovers spoke +as wisely of the dangers of the Platte as a year before they had +mentioned those of the Red River or the Arkansas. Nor did the +Trail pause in its irresistible push to the north until it had +found the last of the five great transcontinental lines, far in +the British provinces. Here in spite of a long season of ice and +snow the uttermost edges of the great herd might survive, in a +certain percentage at least, each year in an almost unassisted +struggle for existence, under conditions different enough, it +would seem, from those obtaining at the opposite extreme of the +wild roadway over which they came. + +The Long Trail of the cattle-range was done! By magic the cattle +industry had spread over the entire West. Today many men think of +that industry as belonging only to the Southwest, and many would +consider that it was transferred to the North. Really it was not +transferred but extended, and the trail of the old drive marks +the line of that extension. + +Today the Long Trail is replaced by other trails, product of the +swift development of the West, and it remains as the connection, +now for the most part historical only, between two phases of an +industry which, in spite of differences of climate and condition, +retain a similarity in all essential features. When the last +steer of the first herd was driven into the corral at the Ultima +Thule of the range, it was the pony of the American cowboy which +squatted and wheeled under the spur and burst down the straggling +street of the little frontier town. Before that time, and since +that time, it was and has been the same pony and the same man who +have traveled the range, guarding and guiding the wild herds, +from the romantic to the commonplace days of the West. + + + +Chapter IV. The Cowboy + +The Great West, vast and rude, brought forth men also vast and +rude. We pass today over parts of that matchless region, and we +see the red hills and ragged mountain-fronts cut and crushed into +huge indefinite shapes, to which even a small imagination may +give a human or more than human form. It would almost seem that +the same great hand which chiseled out these monumental forms had +also laid its fingers upon the people of this region and +fashioned them rude and ironlike, in harmony with the stern faces +set about them. + +Of all the babes of that primeval mother, the West, the cowboy +was perhaps her dearest because he was her last. Some of her +children lived for centuries; this one for not a triple decade +before he began to be old. What was really the life of this child +of the wild region of America, and what were the conditions of +the experience that bore him, can never be fully known by those +who have not seen the West with wide eyes--for the cowboy was +simply a part of the West. He who does not understand the one can +never understand the other. + +If we care truly to see the cowboy as he was and seek to give our +wish the dignity of a real purpose, we should study him in +connection with his surroundings and in relation to his work. +Then we shall see him not as a curiosity but as a product--not as +an eccentric driver of horned cattle but as a man suited to his +times. + +Large tracts of that domain where once the cowboy reigned supreme +have been turned into farms by the irrigator's ditch or by the +dry-farmer's plan. The farmer in overalls is in many instances +his own stockman today. On the ranges of Arizona, Wyoming, and +Texas and parts of Nevada we may find the cowboy, it is true, +even today: but he is no longer the Homeric figure that once +dominated the plains. In what we say as to his trade, therefore, +or his fashion in the practice of it, we speak in terms of thirty +or forty years ago, when wire was unknown, when the round-up +still was necessary, and the cowboy's life was indeed that of the +open. + +By the costume we may often know the man. The cowboy's costume +was harmonious with its surroundings. It was planned upon lines +of such stern utility as to leave no possible thing which we may +call dispensable. The typical cowboy costume could hardly be said +to contain a coat and waistcoat. The heavy woolen shirt, loose +and open at the neck, was the common wear at all seasons of the +year excepting winter, and one has often seen cowboys in the +winter-time engaged in work about the yard or corral of the ranch +wearing no other cover for the upper part of the body but one or +more of these heavy shirts. If the cowboy wore a coat he would +wear it open and loose as much as possible. If he wore a "vest" +he would wear it slouchily, hanging open or partly unbuttoned +most of the time. There was a reason for this slouchy habit. The +cowboy would say that the vest closely buttoned about the body +would cause perspiration, so that the wearer would quickly chill +upon ceasing exercise. If the wind were blowing keenly when the +cowboy dismounted to sit upon the ground for dinner, he would +button up his waistcoat and be warm. If it were very cold he +would button up his coat also. + +The cowboy's boots were of fine leather and fitted tightly, with +light narrow soles, extremely small and high heels. Surely a more +irrational foot-covering never was invented; yet these tight, +peaked cowboy boots had a great significance and may indeed be +called the insignia of a calling. There was no prouder soul on +earth than the cowboy. He was proud of being a horseman and had a +contempt for all human beings who walked. On foot in his +tight-toed boots he was lost; but he wished it to be understood +that he never was on foot. If we rode beside him and watched his +seat in the big cow saddle we found that his high and narrow +heels prevented the slipping forward of the foot in the stirrup, +into which he jammed his feet nearly full length. If there was a +fall, the cowboy's foot never hung in the stirrup. In the corral +roping, afoot, his heels anchored him. So he found his little +boots not so unserviceable and retained them as a matter of +pride. Boots made for the cowboy trade sometimes had fancy tops +of bright-colored leather. The Lone Star of Texas was not +infrequent in their ornamentation. + +The curious pride of the horseman extended also to his gloves. +The cowboy was very careful in the selection of his gloves. They +were made of the finest buckskin, which could not be injured by +wetting. Generally they were tanned white and cut with a deep +cuff or gauntlet from which hung a little fringe to flutter in +the wind when he rode at full speed on horseback. + +The cowboy's hat was one of the typical and striking features of +his costumes. It was a heavy, wide, white felt hat with a heavy +leather band buckled about it. There has been no other head +covering devised so suitable as the Stetson for the uses of the +Plains, although high and heavy black hats have in part +supplanted it today among stockmen. The boardlike felt was +practically indestructible. The brim flapped a little and, in +time, was turned up and perhaps held fast to the crown by a +thong. The wearer might sometimes stiffen the brim by passing a +thong through a series of holes pierced through the outer edge. +He could depend upon his hat in all weathers. In the rain it was +an umbrella; in the sun a shield; in the winter he could tie it +down about his ears with his handkerchief. + +Loosely thrown about the cowboy's shirt collar was a silk +kerchief. It was tied in a hard knot in front, and though it +could scarcely be said to be devoted to the uses of a neck scarf, +yet it was a great comfort to the back of the neck when one was +riding in a hot wind. It was sure to be of some bright color, +usually red. Modern would-be cowpunchers do not willingly let +this old kerchief die, and right often they over-play it. For the +cowboy of the "movies," however, let us register an unqualified +contempt. The real range would never have been safe for him. + +A peculiar and distinctive feature of the cowboy's costume was +his "chaps" (chaparejos). The chaps were two very wide and +full-length trouser-legs made of heavy calfskin and connected by +a narrow belt or strap. They were cut away entirely at front and +back so that they covered only the thigh and lower legs and did +not heat the body as a complete leather garment would. They were +intended solely as a protection against branches, thorns, briers, +and the like, but they were prized in cold or wet weather. +Sometimes there was seen, more often on the southern range, a +cowboy wearing chaps made of skins tanned with the hair on; for +the cowboy of the Southwest early learned that goatskin left +with the hair on would turn the cactus thorns better than any +other material. Later, the chaps became a sort of affectation on +the part of new men on the range; but the old-time cowboy wore +them for use, not as a uniform. In hot weather he laid them off. + +In the times when some men needed guns and all men carried them, +no pistol of less than 44-caliber was tolerated on the range, the +solid framed 45-caliber being the one almost universally used. +The barrel was eight inches long, and it shot a rifle cartridge +of forty grains of powder and a blunt-ended bullet that made a +terrible missile. This weapon depended from a belt worn loose +resting upon the left hip and hanging low down on the right hip +so that none of the weight came upon the abdomen. This was +typical, for the cowboy was neither fancy gunman nor army +officer. The latter carries the revolver on the left, the butt +pointing forward. + +An essential part of the cow-puncher's outfit was his "rope." +This was carried in a close coil at the side of the saddle-horn, +fastened by one of the many thongs scattered over the saddle. In +the Spanish country it was called reata and even today is +sometimes seen in the Southwest made of rawhide. In the South it +was called a lariat. The modern rope is a well-made +three-quarter-inch hemp rope about thirty feet in length, with a +leather or rawhide eye. The cowboy's quirt was a short heavy +whip, the stock being of wood or iron covered with braided +leather and carrying a lash made of two or three heavy loose +thongs. The spur in the old days had a very large rowel with +blunt teeth an inch long. It was often ornamented with little +bells or oblongs of metal, the tinkling of which appealed to the +childlike nature of the Plains rider. Their use was to lock the +rowel. + +His bridle--for, since the cowboy and his mount are inseparable, +we may as well speak of his horse's dress also--was noticeable +for its tremendously heavy and cruel curbed bit, known as the +"Spanish bit." But in the ordinary riding and even in the +exciting work of the old round-up and in "cutting out," the +cowboy used the bit very little, nor exerted any pressure on the +reins. He laid the reins against the neck of the pony opposite to +the direction in which he wished it to go, merely turning his +hand in the direction and inclining his body in the same way. He +rode with the pressure of the knee and the inclination of the +body and the light side-shifting of both reins. The saddle was +the most important part of the outfit. It was a curious thing, +this saddle developed by the cattle trade, and the world has no +other like it. Its great weight--from thirty to forty pounds--was +readily excusable when one remembers that it was not only seat +but workbench for the cowman. A light saddle would be torn to +pieces at the first rush of a maddened steer, but the sturdy +frame of a cow-saddle would throw the heaviest bull on the range. +The high cantle would give a firmness to the cowboy's seat when +he snubbed a steer with a sternness sufficient to send it rolling +heels over head. The high pommel, or "horn," steel-forged and +covered with cross braids of leather, served as anchor post for +this same steer, a turn of the rope about it accomplishing that +purpose at once. The saddle-tree forked low down over the pony's +back so that the saddle sat firmly and could not readily be +pulled off. The great broad cinches bound the saddle fast till +horse and saddle were practically one fabric. The strong wooden +house of the old heavy stirrup protected the foot from being +crushed by the impact of the herd. The form of the cow-saddle has +changed but little, although today one sees a shorter seat and +smaller horn, a "swell front" or roll, and a stirrup of open +"ox-bow" pattern. + +The round-up was the harvest of the range. The time of the calf +round-up was in the spring after the grass had become good and +after the calves had grown large enough for the branding. The +State Cattle Association divided the entire State range into a +number of round-up districts. Under an elected round-up captain +were all the bosses in charge of the different ranch outfits sent +by men having cattle in the round-up. Let us briefly draw a +picture of this scene as it was. + +Each cowboy would have eight or ten horses for his own use, for +he had now before him the hardest riding of the year. When the +cow-puncher went into the herd to cut out calves he mounted a +fresh horse, and every few hours he again changed horses, for +there was no horse which could long endure the fatigue of the +rapid and intense work of cutting. Before the rider stretched a +sea of interwoven horns, waving and whirling as the densely +packed ranks of cattle closed in or swayed apart. It was no +prospect for a weakling, but into it went the cow-puncher on his +determined little horse, heeding not the plunging, crushing, and +thrusting of the excited cattle. Down under the bulks of the +herd, half hid in the whirl of dust, he would spy a little curly +calf running, dodging, and twisting, always at the heels of its +mother; and he would dart in after, following the two through the +thick of surging and plunging beasts. The sharp-eyed pony would +see almost as soon as his rider which cow was wanted and he +needed small guidance from that time on. He would follow hard at +her heels, edging her constantly toward the flank of the herd, at +times nipping her hide as a reminder of his own superiority. In +spite of herself the cow would gradually turn out toward the +edge, and at last would be swept clear of the crush, the calf +following close behind her. There was a whirl of the rope and the +calf was laid by the heels and dragged to the fire where the +branding irons were heated and ready. + +Meanwhile other cow-punchers are rushing calves to the branding. +The hubbub and turmoil increase. Taut ropes cross the ground in +many directions. The cutting ponies pant and sweat, rear and +plunge. The garb of the cowboy is now one of white alkali which +hangs gray in his eyebrows and moustache. Steers bellow as they +surge to and fro. Cows charge on their persecutors. Fleet +yearlings break and run for the open, pursued by men who care not +how or where they ride. + +We have spoken in terms of the past. There is no calf round-up of +the open range today. The last of the roundups was held in Routt +County, Colorado, several years ago, so far as the writer knows, +and it had only to do with shifting cattle from the summer to the +winter range. + +After the calf round-up came the beef round-up, the cowman's +final harvest. This began in July or August. Only the mature or +fatted animals were cut out from the herd. This "beef cut" was +held apart and driven on ahead from place to place as the +round-up progressed. It was then driven in by easy stages to the +shipping point on the railroad, whence the long trainloads of +cattle went to the great markets. + +In the heyday of the cowboy it was natural that his chief +amusements should be those of the outdoor air and those more or +less in line with his employment. He was accustomed to the sight +of big game, and so had the edge of his appetite for its pursuit +worn off. Yet he was a hunter, just as every Western man was a +hunter in the times of the Western game. His weapons were the +rifle, revolver, and rope; the latter two were always with him. +With the rope at times he captured the coyote, and under special +conditions he has taken deer and even antelope in this way, +though this was of course most unusual and only possible under +chance conditions of ground and cover. Elk have been roped by +cowboys many times, and it is known that even the mountain sheep +has been so taken, almost incredible as that may seem. The young +buffalo were easy prey for the cowboy and these he often roped +and made captive. In fact the beginnings of all the herds of +buffalo now in captivity in this country were the calves roped +and secured by cowboys; and these few scattered individuals of a +grand race of animals remain as melancholy reminders alike of a +national shiftlessness and an individual skill and daring. + +The grizzly was at times seen by the cowboys on the range, and if +it chanced that several cowboys were together it was not unusual +to give him chase. They did not always rope him, for it was +rarely that the nature of the country made this possible. +Sometimes they roped him and wished they could let him go, for a +grizzly bear is uncommonly active and straightforward in his +habits at close quarters. The extreme difficulty of such a +combat, however, gave it its chief fascination for the cowboy. Of +course, no one horse could hold the bear after it was roped, but, +as one after another came up, the bear was caught by neck and +foot and body, until at last he was tangled and tripped and +hauled +about till he was helpless, strangled, and nearly dead. It is +said that cowboys have so brought into camp a grizzly bear, +forcing him to half walk and half slide at the end of the ropes. +No feat better than this could show the courage of the plainsman +and of the horse which he so perfectly controlled. + +Of such wild and dangerous exploits were the cowboy's amusements +on the range. It may be imagined what were his amusements when he +visited the "settlements." The cow-punchers, reared in the free +life of the open air, under circumstances of the utmost freedom +of individual action, perhaps came off the drive or round-up +after weeks or months of unusual restraint or hardship, and felt +that the time had arrived for them to "celebrate." Merely great +rude children, as wild and untamed and untaught as the herds they +led, they regarded their first look at the "settlements" of the +railroads as a glimpse of a wider world. They pursued to the +uttermost such avenues of new experience as lay before them, +almost without exception avenues of vice. It is strange that the +records of those days should be chosen by the public to be held +as the measure of the American cowboy. Those days were brief, and +they are long since gone. The American cowboy atoned for them by +a quarter of a century of faithful labor. + +The amusements of the cowboy were like the features of his daily +surroundings and occupation--they were intense, large, Homeric. +Yet, judged at his work, no higher type of employee ever existed, +nor one more dependable. He was the soul of honor in all the ways +of his calling. The very blue of the sky, bending evenly over all +men alike, seemed to symbolize his instinct for justice. +Faithfulness and manliness were his chief traits; his +standard--to be a "square man." + +Not all the open range will ever be farmed, but very much that +was long thought to be irreclaimable has gone under irrigation or +is being more or less successfully "dryfarmed." The man who +brought water upon the arid lands of the West changed the entire +complexion of a vast country and with it the industries of that +country. Acres redeemed from the desert and added to the realm of +the American farmer were taken from the realm of the American +cowboy. + +The West has changed. The curtain has dropped between us and its +wild and stirring scenes. The old days are gone. The house dog +sits on the hill where yesterday the coyote sang. There are +fenced fields and in them stand sleek round beasts, deep in crops +such as their ancestors never saw. In a little town nearby is the +hurry and bustle of modern life. This town is far out upon what +was called the frontier, long after the frontier has really gone. +Guarding its ghost here stood a little army post, once one of the +pillars, now one of the monuments of the West. + +Out from the tiny settlement in the dusk of evening, always +facing toward where the sun is sinking, might be seen riding, not +so long ago, a figure we should know. He would thread the little +lane among the fences, following the guidance of hands other than +his own, a thing he would once have scorned to do. He would ride +as lightly and as easily as ever, sitting erect and jaunty in the +saddle, his reins held high and loose in the hand whose fingers +turn up gracefully, his whole body free yet firm in the saddle +with the seat of the perfect horseman. At the boom of the cannon, +when the flag dropped fluttering down to sleep, he would rise in +his stirrups and wave his hat to the flag. Then, toward the edge, +out into the evening, he would ride on. The dust of his riding +would mingle with the dusk of night. We could not see which was +the one or the other. We could only hear the hoofbeats passing, +boldly and steadily still, but growing fainter, fainter, and more +faint.* + +* For permission to use in this chapter material from the +author's "The Story of the Cowboy," acknowledgment is made to D. +Appleton & Co. + + + +Chapter V. The Mines + +If the influence of the cattle industry was paramount in the +development of the frontier region found by the first railways, +it should not be concluded that this upthrust of the southern +cattle constituted the only contribution to the West of that day. +There were indeed earlier influences, the chief of which was the +advent of the wild population of the placer mines. The riches of +the gold-fields hastened the building of the first +transcontinental railroads and the men of the mines set their +mark also indelibly upon the range. + +It is no part of our business here to follow the great +discoveries of 1849 in California.* Neither shall we chronicle +the once-famous rushes from California north into the Fraser +River Valley of British Columbia; neither is it necessary to +mention in much detail the great camps of Nevada; nor yet the +short-lived stampede of 1859 to the Pike's Peak country in +Colorado. The rich placer fields of Idaho and Montana, from which +enormous amounts were taken, offer typical examples of the mining +communities of the Rockies. + +* See Stewart Edward White: "The Forty-Niners" ("Chronicles of +America"). + + +We may never know how much history remains forever unwritten. Of +the beginnings of the Idaho camps there have trickled back into +record only brief, inconsequent, and partial stories. The miners +who surged this way and that all through the Sierras, the upper +Cascades, north into the Selkirks, and thence back again into the +Rockies were a turbulent mob. Having overrun all our mountain +ranges, following the earlier trails of the traders and trappers, +they now recoiled upon themselves and rolled back eastward to +meet the advancing civilization of the westbound rails, caring +nothing for history and less for the civilized society in which +they formerly had lived. This story of bedlam broken loose, of +men gone crazed, by the sudden subversion of all known values +and all standards of life, was at first something which had no +historian and can be recorded only by way of hearsay stories +which do not always tally as to the truth. + +The mad treasure-hunters of the California mines, restless, +insubordinate, incapable of restraint, possessed of the belief +that there might be gold elsewhere than in California, and having +heard reports of strikes to the north, went hurrying out into the +mountains of Oregon and Washington, in a wild stampede, all eager +again to engage in the glorious gamble where by one lucky stroke +of the pick a man might be set free of the old limitations of +human existence. + +So the flood of gold-seekers--passing north into the Fraser River +country, south again into Oregon and Washington, and across the +great desert plains into Nevada and Idaho--made new centers of +lurid activity, such as Oro Fino, Florence, and Carson. Then it +was that Walla Walla and Lewiston, outfitting points on the +western side of the range, found place upon the maps of the land, +such as they were. + +Before these adventurers, now eastbound and no longer facing +west, there arose the vast and formidable mountain ranges which +in their time had daunted even the calm minds of Meriwether Lewis +and William Clark. But the prospectors and the pack-trains alike +penetrated the Salmon River Range. Oro Fino, in Idaho, was old in +1861. The next great strikes were to be made around Florence. +Here the indomitable packer from the West, conquering unheard-of +difficulties, brought in whiskey, women, pianos, food, mining +tools. Naturally all these commanded fabulous prices. The price +for each and all lay underfoot. Man, grown superman, could +overleap time itself by a stroke of the pick! What wonder +delirium reigned! + +These events became known in the Mississippi Valley and farther +eastward. And now there came hurrying out from the older regions +many more hundreds and thousands eager to reach a land not so far +as California, but reputed to be quite as rich. It was then, as +the bull-trains came in from the East, from the head of +navigation on the Missouri River, that the western outfitting +points of Walla Walla and Lewiston lost their importance. + +Southward of the Idaho camps the same sort of story was repeating +itself. Nevada had drawn to herself a portion of the wild men of +the stampedes. Carson for its day (1859-60) was a capital not +unlike the others. Some of its men had come down from the upper +fields, some had arrived from the East over the old Santa Fe +Trail, and yet others had drifted in from California. + +All the camps were very much alike. A straggling row of log +cabins or huts of motley construction; a few stores so-called, +sometimes of logs, or, if a saw-mill was at hand, of rude sawn +boards; a number of saloons, each of which customarily also +supported a dance-hall; a series of cabins or huts where dwelt +individual men, each doing his own cooking and washing; and +outside these huts the uptorn earth--such were the camps which +dotted the trails of the stampedes across inhospitable deserts +and mountain ranges. Church and school were unknown. Law there +was none, for of organized society there was none. The women who +lived there were unworthy of the name of woman. The men strode +about in the loose dress of the camp, sometimes without +waistcoat, sometimes coatless, shod with heavy boots, always +armed. + +If we look for causes contributory to the history of the +mining-camp, we shall find one which ordinarily is +overlooked--the invention of Colt's revolving pistol. At the time +of the Civil War, though this weapon was not old, yet it had +attained very general use throughout the frontier. That was +before the day of modern ammunition. The six-shooter of the +placer days was of the old cap-and-ball type, heavy, +long-barreled, and usually wooden-handled. It was the general +ownership of these deadly weapons which caused so much bloodshed +in the camps. The revolver in the hands of a tyro is not +especially serviceable, but it attained great deadliness in the +hands of an expert user. Such a man, naturally of quick nerve +reflexes, skillful and accurate in the use of the weapon through +long practice, became a dangerous, and for a time an +unconquerable, antagonist. + +It is a curious fact that the great Montana fields were doubly +discovered, in part by men coming east from California, and in +part by men passing west in search of new gold-fields. The first +discovery of gold in Montana was made on Gold Creek by a +half-breed trapper named Francois, better known as Be-net-see. +This was in 1852, but the news seems to have lain dormant for a +time--naturally enough, for there was small ingress or egress for +that wild and unknown country. In 1857, however, a party of +miners who had wandered down the Big Hole River on their way back +east from California decided to look into the Gold Creek +discovery, of which they had heard. This party was led by James +and Granville Stuart, and among others in the party were Jake +Meeks, Robert Hereford, Robert Dempsey, John W. Powell, John M. +Jacobs, Thomas Adams, and some others. These men did some work on +Gold Creek in 1858, but seem not to have struck it very rich, and +to have withdrawn to Fort Bridger in Utah until the autumn of +1860. Then a prospector by the name of Tom Golddigger turned up +at Bridger with additional stories of creeks to the north, so +that there was a gradual straggling back toward Gold Creek and +other gulches. This prospector had been all over the Alder Gulch, +which was ere long to prove fabulously rich. + +It was not, however, until 1863 that the Montana camps sprang +into fame. It was not Gold Creek or Alder Gulch, but Florence and +other Idaho camps, that, in the summer and autumn of 1862, +brought into the mountains no less than five parties of +gold-seekers, who remained in Montana because they could not +penetrate the mountain barrier which lay between them and the +Salmon River camps in Idaho. + +The first of these parties arrived at Gold Creek by wagon-train +from Fort Benton and the second hailed from Salt Lake. An +election was held for the purpose of forming a sort of community +organization, the first election ever known in Montana. The men +from the East had brought with them some idea of law and +organization. There were now in the Montana fields many good men +such as the Stuart Brothers, Samuel T. Hauser, Walter Dance, and +others later well known in the State. These men were prominent in +the organization of the first miners' court, which had occasion +to try--and promptly to hang--Stillman and Jernigan, two ruffians +who had been in from the Salmon River mines only about four days +when they thus met retribution for their early crimes. An +associate of theirs, Arnett, had been killed while resisting +arrest. The reputation of Florence for lawlessness and bloodshed +was well known; and, as the outrages of the well-organized band +of desperadoes operating in Idaho might be expected to begin at +any time in Montana, a certain uneasiness existed among the +newcomers from the States. + +Two more parties, likewise bound for Idaho and likewise baffled +by the Salmon River range, arrived at the Montana camps in the +same summer. Both these were from the Pike's Peak country in +Colorado. And in the autumn came a fifth--this one under military +protection, Captain James L. Fisk commanding, and having in the +party a number of settlers bound for Oregon as well as miners for +Idaho. This expedition arrived in the Prickly Pear Valley in +Montana on September 21, 1862, having left St. Paul on the 16th +of June, traveling by steamboat and wagon-train. While Captain +Fisk and his expedition pushed on to Walla Walla, nearly half of +the immigrants stayed to try their luck at placer-mining. But the +yield was not great and the distant Salmon River mines, their +original destination, still awaited them. Winter was approaching. +It was now too late in the season to reach the Salmon River +mines, five hundred miles across the mountains, and it was four +hundred miles to Salt Lake, the nearest supply post; therefore, +most of the men joined this little army of prospectors in +Montana. Some of them drifted to the Grasshopper diggings, soon +to be known under the name of Bannack--one of the wildest +mining-camps of its day. + +These different origins of the population of the first Montana +camps are interesting because of the fact that they indicate a +difference in the two currents of population which now met here +in the new placer fields. In general the wildest and most +desperate of the old-time adventurers, those coming from the +West, had located in the Idaho camps, and might be expected in +Montana at any time. In contrast to these, the men lately out +from the States were of a different type, many of them sober, +most of them law-abiding, men who had come out to better their +fortunes and not merely to drop into the wild and licentious life +of a placercamp. Law and order always did prevail eventually in +any mining community. In the case of Montana, law and order +arrived almost synchronously with lawlessness and desperadoism. + +Law and order had not long to wait before the arrival of the +notorious Henry Plummer and his band from Florence. Plummer was +already known as a bad man, but was not yet recognized as the +leader of that secret association of robbers and murderers which +had terrorized the Idaho camps. He celebrated his arrival in +Bannack by killing a man named Cleveland. He was acquitted in the +miners' court that tried him, on the usual plea of self-defense. +He was a man of considerable personal address. + +The same tribunal soon assembled once more to try three other +murderers, Moore, Reeves, and Mitchell, with the agreement that +the men should have a jury and should be provided with counsel. +They were all practically freed; and after that the roughs grew +bolder than ever. The Plummer band swore to kill every man who +had served in that court, whether as juryman or officer. So well +did they make good their threat that out of the twenty-seven men +thus engaged all but seven were either killed or driven out of +the country, nine being murdered outright. The man who had acted +as sheriff of this miners' court, Hank Crawford, was unceasingly +hounded by Plummer, who sought time and again to fix a quarrel on +him. Plummer was the best shot in the mountains at that time, and +he thought it would be easy for him to kill his man and enter the +usual plea of self-defense. By good fortune, however, Crawford +caught Plummer off his guard and fired upon him with a rifle, +breaking his right arm. Plummer's friends called in Dr. Glick, +the best physician in Bannack, to treat the wounded man, warning +him that if he told anything about the visit he would be shot +down. Glick held his peace, and later was obliged to attend many +of the wounded outlaws, who were always engaged in affairs with +firearms. + +Of all these wild affrays, of the savage life which they denoted, +and of the stern ways in which retribution overtook the +desperadoes of the mines, there is no better historian than +Nathaniel P. Langford, a prominent citizen of the West, who +accompanied the overland expedition of 1862 and took part in the +earliest life of Montana. His work, "Vigilante Days and Ways," is +an invaluable contemporary record. + +It is mentally difficult for us now fully to restore these +scenes, although the events occurred no earlier than the Civil +War. "Life in Bannack at this time," says Langford, "was perfect +isolation from the rest of the world. Napoleon was not more of an +exile on St. Helena than a newly arrived immigrant from the +States in this region of lakes and mountains. All the great +battles of the season of 1862--Antietam, Fredericksburg, Second +Bull Run--all the exciting debates of Congress, and the more +exciting combats at sea, first became known to us on the arrival +of newspapers and letters in the spring of 1863. + +The Territory of Idaho, which included Montana and nearly all +Wyoming, was organized March 3, 1863. Previous to that time +western Montana and Idaho formed a part of Washington Territory, +of which Olympia was the capital, and Montana, east of the +mountains, belonged to the Territory of Dakota, of which the +capital was Yankton, on the Missouri. Langford makes clear the +political uncertainties of the time, the difficulty of enforcing +the laws, and narrates the circumstances which led to the +erection in 1864 of the new Territory of Montana, comprising the +limits of the present State.* + +* The Acts of Congress organizing Territories and admitting +States are milestones in the occupation of this last West. On the +eve of the Civil War, Kansas was admitted into the Union; during +the war, the Territories of Colorado, Nevada, Dakota, Arizona, +Idaho, and Montana were organized, and Nevada was admitted as a +State. Immediately after the war, Nebraska was admitted and +Wyoming was organized as a Territory. In the Centennial Year +(1876) Colorado became a State. In 1889 and 1890 North and South +Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming were admitted as +States. In the latter year Oklahoma was carved out of the Indian +Territory. Utah with its Mormon population was kept waiting at +the doors of the Union until 1896. Oklahoma became a State in +1907; Arizona and New Mexico were admitted in 1912. + + +In Montana as elsewhere in these days of great sectional +bitterness, there was much political strife; and this no doubt +accounts for an astonishing political event that now took place. +Henry Plummer, the most active outlaw of his day, was elected +sheriff and entrusted with the enforcement of the laws! He made +indeed a great show of enforcing the laws. He married, settled +down, and for a time was thought by some of the ill-advised to +have reformed his ways, although in truth he could not have +reformed. + +By June, 1863, the extraordinarily rich strike in Alder Gulch had +been made. The news of this spread like wildfire to Bannack and +to the Salmon River mines in Idaho as well, and the result was +one of the fiercest of all the stampedes, and the rise, almost +overnight, of Virginia City. Meanwhile some Indian fighting had +taken place and in a pitched battle on the Bear River General +Connor had beaten decisively the Bannack Indians, who for years +had preyed on the emigrant trains. This made travel on the +mountain trails safer than it had been; and the rich Last Chance +Gulch on which the city of Helena now stands attracted a +tremendous population almost at once. The historian above cited +lived there. Let him tell of the life. + +"One long stream of active life filled the little creek on its +auriferous course from Bald Mountain, through a canyon of wild +and picturesque character, until it emerged into the large and +fertile valley of the Pas-sam-a-ri...the mountain stream +called by Lewis and Clark in their journal "Philanthropy River." +Lateral streams of great beauty pour down the sides of the +mountain chain bounding the valley.... Gold placers were +found upon these streams and occupied soon after the settlement +at Virginia City was commenced.... This human hive, numbering +at least ten thousand people, was the product of ninety days. +Into it were crowded all the elements of a rough and active +civilization. Thousands of cabins and tents and brush wakiups... +were seen on every hand. Every foot of the gulch...was +undergoing displacement, and it was already disfigured by huge +heaps of gravel which had been passed through the sluices and +rifled of their glittering contents.... Gold was abundant, +and every possible device was employed by the gamblers, the +traders, the vile men and women that had come in with the miners +into the locality, to obtain it. Nearly every third cabin was a +saloon where vile whiskey was peddled out for fifty cents a +drink in gold dust. Many of these places were filled with +gambling tables and gamblers.... Hurdy-gurdy dance-houses +were numerous.... Not a day or night passed which did not +yield its full fruition of vice, quarrels, wounds, or murders. +The crack of the revolver was often heard above the merry notes +of the violin. Street fights were frequent, and as no one knew +when or where they would occur, every one was on his guard +against a random shot. + +"Sunday was always a gala day.... The stores were all open.... +Thousands of people crowded the thoroughfares ready to rush +in the direction of any promised excitement. Horse-racing was +among the most favored amusements. Prize rings were formed, and +brawny men engaged in fisticuffs until their sight was lost and +their bodies pommelled to a jelly, while hundreds of onlookers +cheered the victor.... Pistols flashed, bowie knives +flourished, and braggart oaths filled the air, as often as men's +passions triumphed over their reason. This was indeed the reign +of unbridled license, and men who at first regarded it with +disgust and terror, by constant exposure soon learned to become a +part of it and forget that they had ever been aught else. All +classes of society were represented at this general exhibition. +Judges, lawyers, doctors, even clergymen, could not claim +exemption. Culture and religion afforded feeble protection, where +allurement and indulgence ruled the hour." + +Imagine, therefore, a fabulously rich mountain valley twelve +miles in extent, occupied by more than ten thousand men and +producing more than ten millions of dollars before the close of +the first year! It is a stupendous demand on any imagination. How +might all this gold be sent out in safe-keeping? We are told that +the only stage route extended from Virginia City no farther than +Bannack. Between Virginia City and Salt Lake City there was an +absolute wilderness, wholly unsettled, four hundred and +seventy-five miles in width. "There was no post office in the +Territory. Letters were brought from Salt Lake first at a cost of +two dollars and a half each, and later in the season at one +dollar each. All money at infinite risk was sent to the nearest +express office at Salt Lake City by private hands." + +Practically every man in the new gold-fields was aware of the +existence of a secret band of well-organized ruffians and +robbers. The general feeling was one of extreme uneasiness. There +were plenty of men who had taken out of the ground considerable +quantities of gold, and who would have been glad to get back to +the East with their little fortunes, but they dared not start. +Time after time the express coach, the solitary rider, the +unguarded wagon-train, were held up and robbed, usually with the +concomitant of murder. When the miners did start out from one +camp to another they took all manner of precautions to conceal +their gold dust. We are told that on one occasion one party bored +a hole in the end of the wagon tongue with an auger and filled it +full of gold dust, thus escaping observation! The robbers learned +to know the express agents, and always had advice of every large +shipment of gold. It was almost useless to undertake to conceal +anything from them; and resistance was met with death. Such a +reign of terror, such an organized system of highway robbery, +such a light valuing of human life, has been seldom found in any +other time or place. + +There were, as we have seen, good men in these camps--although +the best of them probably let down the standards of living +somewhat after their arrival there; but the trouble was that the +good men did not know one another, had no organization, and +scarcely dared at first to attempt one. On the other hand, the +robbers' organization was complete and kept its secrets as the +grave; indeed, many and many a lonesome grave held secrets none +ever was to know. How many men went out from Eastern States and +disappeared, their fate always to remain a mystery, is a part of +the untold story of the mining frontier. + +There are known to have been a hundred and two men killed by +Plummer and his gang; how many were murdered without their fate +ever being discovered can not be told. Plummer was the leader of +the band, but, arch-hypocrite that he was, he managed to keep his +own connection with it a secret. His position as sheriff gave him +many advantages. He posed as being a silver-mine expert, among +other things, and often would be called out to "expert" some new +mine. That usually meant that he left town in order to commit +some desperate robbery. The boldest outrages always required +Plummer as the leader. Sometimes he would go away on the pretense +of following some fugitive from justice. His horse, the fleetest +in the country, often was found, laboring and sweating, at the +rear of his house. That meant that Plummer had been away on some +secret errand of his own. He was suspected many times, but +nothing could be fastened upon him; or there lacked sufficient +boldness and sufficient organization on the part of the +law-and-order men to undertake his punishment. + +We are not concerned with repeating thrilling tales, bloody +almost beyond belief, and indicative of an incomprehensible +depravity in human nature, so much as we are with the causes and +effects of this wild civilization which raged here quite alone in +the midst of one of the wildest of the western mountain regions. +It will best serve our purpose to retain in mind the twofold +character of this population, and to remember that the frontier +caught to itself not only ruffians and desperadoes, men undaunted +by any risk, but also men possessed of a yet steadier personal +courage and hardihood. There were men rough, coarse, brutal, +murderous; but against them were other men self-reliant, stern, +just, and resolved upon fair play. + +That was indeed the touchstone of the entire civilization which +followed upon the heels of these scenes of violence. It was fair +play which really animated the great Montana Vigilante movement +and which eventually cleaned up the merciless gang of Henry +Plummer and his associates. The centers of civilization were far +removed. The courts were powerless. In some cases even the +machinery of the law was in the hands of these ruffians. But so +violent were their deeds, so brutal, so murderous, so unfair, +that slowly the indignation of the good men arose to the +white-hot point of open resentment and of swift retribution. What +the good men of the frontier loved most of all was justice. They +now enforced justice in the only way left open to them. They did +this as California earlier had done; and they did it so well that +there was small need to repeat the lesson. + +The actual extermination of the Henry Plummer band occurred +rather promptly when the Vigilantes once got under way. One of +the band by the name of Red Yager, in company with yet another by +the name of Brown, had been concerned in the murder of Lloyd +Magruder, a merchant of the Territory. The capture of these two +followed closely upon the hanging of George Ives, also accused of +more than one murder. Ives was an example of the degrading +influence of the mines. He was a decent young man until he left +his home in Wisconsin. He was in California from 1857 to 1858. +When he appeared in Idaho he seemed to have thrown off all +restraint and to have become a common rowdy and desperado. It is +said of him that "few men of his age ever had been guilty of so +many fiendish crimes." + +Yager and Brown, knowing the fate which Ives had met, gave up +hope when they fell into the hands of the newly organized +Vigilantes. Brown was hanged; so was Yager; but Yager, before his +death, made a full confession which put the Vigilantes in +possession of information they had never yet been able to +secure.* + +* Langford gives these names disclosed by Yager as follows: +"Henry Plummer was chief of the band; Bill Bunton, stool pigeon +and second in command; George Brown, secretary; Sam Bunton, +roadster; Cyrus Skinner, fence, spy, and roadster; George Shears, +horse thief and roadster; Frank Parish, horse thief and roadster; +Hayes Lyons, telegraph man and roadster; Bill Hunter, telegraph +man and roadster; Ned Ray, council-room keeper at Bannack City; +George Ives, Stephen Marshland, Dutch John (Wagner), Alex Carter, +Whiskey Bill (Graves), Johnny Cooper, Buck Stinson, Mexican +Franks Bob Zachary, Boone Helm, Clubfoot George (Lane), Billy +Terwiliger, Gad Moore were roadsters." Practically all these were +executed by the Vigilantes, with many others, and eventually the +band of outlaws was entirely broken up. + + +Much has been written and much romanced about the conduct of +these desperadoes when they met their fate. Some of them were +brave and some proved cowards at the last. For a time, Plummer +begged abjectly, his eyes streaming with tears. Suddenly he was +smitten with remorse as the whole picture of his past life +appeared before him. He promised everything, begged everything, +if only life might be spared him--asked his captors to cut off +his ears, to cut out his tongue, then strip him naked and banish +him. At the very last, however, he seems to have become composed. +Stinson and Ray went to their fate alternately swearing and +whining. Some of the ruffians faced death boldly. More than one +himself jumped from the ladder or kicked from under him the box +which was the only foothold between him and eternity. Boone Helm +was as hardened as any of them. This man was a cannibal and +murderer. He seems to have had no better nature whatever. His +last words as he sprang off were "Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Let her +rip!" Another man remarked calmly that he cared no more for +hanging than for drinking a glass of water. But each after his +own fashion met the end foreordained for him by his own lack of +compassion; and of compassion he received none at the hands of +the men who had resolved that the law should be established and +should remain forever. + +There was an instant improvement in the social life of Virginia +City, Bannack, and the adjoining camps as soon as it was +understood that the Vigilantes were afoot. Langford, who +undoubtedly knew intimately of the activities of this +organization, makes no apology for the acts of the Vigilantes, +although they did not have back of them the color of the actual +law. He says: + +"The retribution dispensed to these daring freebooters in no +respect exceeded the demands of absolute justice.... There +was no other remedy. Practically the citizens had no law, but if +law had existed it could not have afforded adequate redress. This +was proven by the feeling of security consequent upon the +destruction of the band. When the robbers were dead the people +felt safe, not for themselves alone but for their pursuits and +their property. They could travel without fear. They had +reasonable assurance of safety in the transmission of money to +the States and in the arrival of property over the unguarded +route from Salt Lake. The crack of pistols had ceased, and they +could walk the streets without constant exposure to danger. There +was an omnipresent spirit of protection, akin to that omnipresent +spirit of law which pervaded older and more civilized +communities....Young men who had learned to believe that the +roughs were destined to rule and who, under the influence of that +faith, were fast drifting into crime shrunk appalled before the +thorough work of the Vigilantes. Fear, more potent than +conscience, forced even the worst of men to observe the +requirements of society, and a feeling of comparative security +among all classes was the result." + +Naturally it was not the case that all the bad men were thus +exterminated. From time to time there appeared vividly in the +midst of these surroundings additional figures of solitary +desperadoes, each to have his list of victims, and each himself +to fall before the weapons of his enemies or to meet the justice +of the law or the sterner meed of the Vigilantes. It would not be +wholly pleasant to read even the names of a long list of these; +perhaps it will be sufficient to select one, the notorious Joseph +Slade, one of the "picturesque" characters of whom a great deal +of inaccurate and puerile history has been written. The truth +about Slade is that he was a good man at first, faithful in the +discharge of his duties as an agent of the stage company. Needing +at times to use violence lawfully, he then began to use it +unlawfully. He drank and soon went from bad to worse. At length +his outrages became so numerous that the men of the community +took him out and hanged him. His fate taught many others the risk +of going too far in defiance of law and decency. + +What has been true regarding the camps of Florence, Bannack, and +Virginia City, had been true in part in earlier camps and was to +be repeated perhaps a trifle less vividly in other camps yet to +come. The Black Hills gold rush, for instance, which came after +the railroad but before the Indians were entirely cleared away, +made a certain wild history of its own. We had our Deadwood stage +line then, and our Deadwood City with all its wild life of +drinking, gambling, and shooting--the place where more than one +notorious bad man lost his life, and some capable officers of the +peace shared their fate. To describe in detail the life of this +stampede and the wild scenes ensuing upon it is perhaps not +needful here. The main thing is that the great quartz lodes of +the Black Hills support in the end a steady, thrifty, and +law-abiding population. + +All over that West, once so unspeakably wild and reckless, there +now rise great cities where recently were scattered only +mining-camps scarce fit to be called units of any social compact. +It was but yesterday that these men fought and drank and dug +their own graves in their own sluices. At the city of Helena, on +the site of Last Chance Gulch, one recalls that not so long ago +citizens could show with a certain contemporary pride the old +dead tree once known as "Hangman's Tree." It marked a spot which +might be called a focus of the old frontier. Around it, and in +the country immediately adjoining, was fought out the great +battle whose issue could not be doubted--that between the new and +the old days; between law and order and individual lawlessness; +between the school and the saloon; between the home and the +dance-hall; between society united and resolved and the +individual reverted to worse than savagery. + + + +Chapter VI. The Pathways Of The West + +Since we have declared ourselves to be less interested in bald +chronology than in the naturally connected causes of events which +make chronology worth while, we may now, perhaps, double back +upon the path of chronology, and take up the great early highways +of the West--what we might call the points of attack against the +frontier. + +The story of the Santa Fe Trail, now passing into oblivion, once +was on the tongue of every man. This old highroad in its heyday +presented the most romantic and appealing features of the earlier +frontier life. The Santa Fe Trail was the great path of commerce +between our frontier and the Spanish towns trading through Santa +Fe. This commerce began in 1822, when about threescore men +shipped certain goods across the lower Plains by pack-animals. By +1826 it was employing a hundred men and was using wagons and +mules. In 1830, when oxen first were used on the trail, the trade +amounted to $120,000 annually; and by 1843, when the Spanish +ports were closed, it had reached the value of $450,000, +involving the use of 230 wagons and 350 men. It was this great +wagon trail which first brought us into touch with the Spanish +civilization of the Southwest. Its commercial totals do not bulk +large today, but the old trail itself was a thing titanic in its +historic value. + +This was the day not of water but of land transport; yet the +wheeled vehicles which passed out into the West as common +carriers of civilization clung to the river valleys--natural +highways and natural resting places of homebuilding man. This has +been the story of the advance of civilization from the first +movements of the world's peoples. The valleys are the cleats of +civilization's golden sluices. + +There lay the great valley of the Arkansas, offering food and +water, an easy grade and a direct course reaching out into the +West, even to the edge of the lands of Spain; and here stood +wheeled vehicles able to traverse it and to carry drygoods and +hardware, and especially domestic cotton fabrics, which formed +the great staple of a "Santa Fe assortment." The people of the +Middle West were now, in short, able to feed and clothe +themselves and to offer a little of their surplus merchandise to +some one else in sale. They had begun to export! Out yonder, in a +strange and unknown land, lay one of the original markets of +America! + +On the heels of Lewis and Clark, who had just explored the +Missouri River route to the Northwest, Captain Zebulon Pike of +the Army, long before the first wheeled traffic started West, had +employed this valley of the Arkansas in his search for the +southwestern delimitations of the United States. Pike thought he +had found the head of the Red River when after a toilsome and +dangerous march he reached the headwaters of the Rio Grande. But +it was not our river. It belonged to Spain, as he learned to his +sorrow, when he marched all the way to Chihuahua in old Mexico +and lay there during certain weary months. + +It was Pike's story of the far Southwest that first started the +idea of the commerce of the Santa Fe Trail. In that day geography +was a human thing, a thing of vital importance to all men. Men +did not read the stock markets; they read stories of adventure, +tales of men returned from lands out yonder in the West. +Heretofore the swarthy Mexicans, folk of the dry plains and hills +around the head of the Rio Grande and the Red, had carried their +cotton goods and many other small and needful things all the way +from Vera Cruz on the seacoast, over trails that were long, +tedious, uncertain, and expensive. A far shorter and more natural +trade route went west along the Arkansas, which would bring the +American goods to the doors of the Spanish settlements. After +Pike and one or two others had returned with reports of the +country, the possibilities of this trade were clear to any one +with the merchant's imagination. + +There is rivalry for the title of "Father of the Santa Fe Trail." +As early as 1812, when the United States was at war with England, +a party of men on horseback trading into the West, commonly +called the McKnight, Baird, and Chambers party, made their way +west to Santa Fe. There, however, they met with disaster. All +their goods were confiscated and they themselves lay in Mexican +jails for nine years. Eventually the returning survivors of this +party told their stories, and those stories, far from chilling, +only inflamed the ardor of other adventurous traders. In 1821 +more than one American trader reached Santa Fe; and, now that the +Spanish yoke had been thrown off by the Mexicans, the goods, +instead of being confiscated, were purchased eagerly. + +It is to be remembered, of course, that trading of this sort to +Mexico was not altogether a new thing. Sutlers of the old fur +traders and trappers already had found the way to New Spain from +the valley of the Platte, south along the eastern edge of the +Rockies, through Wyoming and Colorado. By some such route as that +at least one trader, a French creole, agent of the firm of Bryant +& Morrison at Kaskaskia, had penetrated to the Spanish lands as +early as 1804, while Lewis and Clark were still absent in the +upper wilderness. Each year the great mountain rendezvous of the +trappers--now at Bent's Fort on the Arkansas, now at Horse Creek +in Wyoming, now on Green River in Utah, or even farther beyond +the mountains--demanded supplies of food and traps and ammunition +to enable the hunters to continue their work for another year. +Perhaps many of the pack-trains which regularly supplied this +shifting mountain market already had traded in the Spanish +country. + +It is not necessary to go into further details regarding this +primitive commerce of the prairies. It yielded a certain profit; +it shaped the character of the men who carried it on. But what is +yet more important, it greatly influenced the country which lay +back of the border on the Missouri River. It called yet more men +from the eastern settlements to those portions which lay upon the +edge of the Great Plains. There crowded yet more thickly, up to +the line between the certain and the uncertain, the restless +westbound population of all the country. + +If on the south the valley of the Arkansas led outward to New +Spain, yet other pathways made out from the Mississippi River +into the unknown lands. The Missouri was the first and last of +our great natural frontier roads. Its lower course swept along +the eastern edge of the Plains, far to the south, down to the +very doors of the most adventurous settlements in the Mississippi +Valley. Those who dared its stained and turbulent current had to +push up, onward, northward, past the mouth of the Platte, far to +the north across degrees of latitude, steadily forward through a +vast virgin land. Then the river bent boldly and strongly off to +the west, across another empire. Its great falls indicated that +it headed high; beyond the great falls its steady sweep westward +and at last southward, led into yet other kingdoms. + +When we travel by horse or by modern motor car in that now +accessible region and look about us, we should not fail to +reflect on the long trail of the upbound boats which Manuel Lisa +and other traders sent out almost immediately upon the return of +the Lewis and Clark expedition. We should see them struggling up +against that tremendous current before steam was known, driven by +their lust for new lands. We may then understand fully what we +have read of the enterprises of the old American Fur Company, and +bring to mind the forgotten names of Campbell and Sublette, of +General Ashley and of Wyeth--names to be followed by others +really of less importance, as those of Bonneville and Fremont. +That there could be farms, that there ever might be homes, in +this strange wild country, was, to these early adventurers, +unthinkable. + +Then we should picture the millions of buffalo which once covered +these plains and think of the waste and folly of their +slaughtering. We should see the long streams of the Mackinaw +boats swimming down the Missouri, bound for St. Louis, laden with +bales of buffalo and beaver peltry, every pound of which would be +worth ten dollars at the capital of the fur trade; and we should +restore to our minds the old pictures of savage tribesmen, decked +in fur-trimmed war-shirts and plumed bonnets, armed with lance +and sinewed bow and bull-neck shield, not forgetting whence they +got their horses and how they got their food. + +The great early mid-continental highway, known as the Oregon +Trail or the Overland Trail, was by way of the Missouri up the +Platte Valley, thence across the mountains. We know more of this +route because it was not discontinued, but came steadily more and +more into use, for one reason after another. The fur traders used +it, the Forty-Niners used it, the cattlemen used it in part, the +railroads used it; and, lastly, the settlers and farmers used it +most of all. + +In physical features the Platte River route was similar to that +of the Arkansas Valley. Each at its eastern extremity, for a few +days' travel, passed over the rolling grass-covered and +flower-besprinkled prairies ere it broke into the high and dry +lands of the Plains, with their green or grey or brown covering +of practically flowerless short grasses. But between the two +trails of the Arkansas and the Platte there existed certain wide +differences. At the middle of the nineteenth century the two +trails were quite distinct in personnel, if that word may be +used. The Santa Fe Trail showed Spanish influences; that of the +Platte Valley remained far more nearly American. + +Thus far the frontier had always been altering the man who came +to it; and, indirectly, always altering those who dwelt back of +the frontier, nearer to the Appalachians or the Atlantic. A new +people now was in process of formation--a people born of a new +environment. America and the American were conceiving. There was +soon to be born, soon swiftly to grow, a new and lasting type of +man. Man changes an environment only by bringing into it new or +better transportation. Environment changes man. Here in the +midcontinent, at the mid-century, the frontier and the ways of +the frontier were writing their imprint on the human product of +our land. + +The first great caravans of the Platte Valley, when the +wagon-trains went out hundreds strong, were not the same as the +scattering cavalcade of the fur hunters, not the same as the +ox-trains and mule-trains of the Santa Fe traffic. The men who +wore deepest the wheel marks of the Oregon Trail were neither +trading nor trapping men, but homebuilding men--the first real +emigrants to go West with the intent of making homes beyond the +Rockies. + +The Oregon Trail had been laid out by the explorers of the fur +trade. Zealous missionaries had made their way over the trail in +the thirties. The Argonauts of '49 passed over it and left it +only after crossing the Rockies. But, before gold in California +was dreamed of, there had come back to the States reports of +lands rich in resources other than gold, lying in the far +Northwest, beyond the great mountain ranges and, before the +Forty-Niners were heard of, farmers, homebuilders, emigrants, men +with their families, men with their household goods, were +steadily passing out for the far-off and unknown country of +Oregon. + +The Oregon Trail was the pathway for Fremont in 1842, perhaps the +most overvalued explorer of all the West; albeit this comment may +to some seem harsh. Kit Carson and Bill Williams led Fremont +across the Rockies almost by the hand. Carson and Williams +themselves had been taken across by the Indian tribes. But +Fremont could write; and the story which he set down of his first +expedition inflamed the zeal of all. Men began to head out for +that far-away country beyond the Rockies. Not a few scattered +bands, but very many, passed up the valley of the Platte. There +began a tremendous trek of thousands of men who wanted homes +somewhere out beyond the frontier. And that was more than ten +years before the Civil War. The cow trade was not dreamed of; the +coming cow country was overleaped and ignored. + +Our national horizon extended immeasurably along that dusty way. +In the use of the Oregon Trail we first began to be great. The +chief figure of the American West, the figure of the ages, is not +the long-haired, fringed-legging man riding a raw-boned pony, but +the gaunt and sadfaced woman sitting on the front seat of the +wagon, following her lord where he might lead, her face hidden in +the same ragged sunbonnet which had crossed the Appalachians and +the Missouri long before. That was America, my brethren! There +was the seed of America's wealth. There was the great romance of +all America--the woman in the sunbonnet; and not, after all, the +hero with the rifle across his saddle horn. Who has written her +story? Who has painted her picture? + +They were large days, those of the great Oregon Trail, not always +pleasingly dramatic, but oftentimes tragic and terrible. We speak +of the Oregon Trail, but it means little to us today; nor will +any mere generalities ever make it mean much to us. But what did +it mean to the men and women of that day? What and who were those +men and women? What did it mean to take the Overland Trail in the +great adventure of abandoning forever the known and the safe and +setting out for Oregon or California at a time when everything in +the far West was new and unknown? How did those good folk travel? +Why and whither did they travel? + +There is a book done by C. F. McGlashan, a resident of Truckee, +California, known as "The History of the Donner Party," holding a +great deal of actual history. McGlashan, living close to Donner +Lake, wrote in 1879, describing scenes with which he was +perfectly familiar, and recounting facts which he had from direct +association with participants in the ill-fated Donner Party. He +chronicles events which happened in 1846--a date before the +discovery of gold in California. The Donner Party was one of the +typical American caravans of homeseekers who started for the +Pacific Slope with no other purpose than that of founding homes +there, and with no expectation of sudden wealth to be gained in +the mines. I desire therefore to quote largely from the pages of +this book, believing that, in this fashion, we shall come upon +history of a fundamental sort, which shall make us acquainted +with the men and women of that day, with the purposes and the +ambitions which animated them, and with the hardships which they +encountered. + +"The States along the Mississippi were but sparsely settled in +1846, yet the fame of the fruitfulness, the healthfulness, and +the almost tropical beauty of the land bordering the Pacific, +tempted the members of the Donner Party to leave their homes. +These homes were situated in Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, Missouri, +and Ohio. Families from each of these States joined the train and +participated in its terrible fate; yet the party proper was +organized in Sangamon County, Illinois, by George and Jacob +Donner and James F. Reed. Early in April, 1846, the party set out +from Springfield, Illinois, and by the first week in May reached +Independence, Missouri. Here the party was increased by +additional members, and the train comprised about one hundred +persons.... "In the party were aged fathers with their trusting +families about them, mothers whose very lives were wrapped up in +their children, men in the prime and vigor of manhood, maidens in +all the sweetness and freshness of budding womanhood, children +full of glee and mirthfulness, and babes nestling on maternal +breasts. Lovers there were, to whom the journey was tinged with +rainbow hues of joy and happiness, and strong, manly hearts whose +constant support and encouragement was the memory of dear ones +left behind in homeland. + +"The wonderment which all experience in viewing the scenery along +the line of the old emigrant road was peculiarly vivid to these +people. Few descriptions had been given of the route, and all was +novel and unexpected. In later years the road was broadly and +deeply marked, and good camping grounds were distinctly +indicated. The bleaching bones of cattle that had perished, or +the broken fragments of wagons or castaway articles, were thickly +strewn on either side of the highway. But in 1846 the way was +through almost trackless valleys waving with grass, along rivers +where few paths were visible, save those made by the feet of +buffalo and antelope, and over mountains and plains where little +more than the westward course of the sun guided the travelers. +Trading-posts were stationed at only a few widely distant points, +and rarely did the party meet with any human beings, save +wandering bands of Indians. Yet these first days are spoken of by +all of the survivors as being crowned with peaceful enjoyment and +pleasant anticipations. There were beautiful flowers by the +roadside, an abundance of game in the meadows and mountains, and +at night there were singing, dancing, and innocent plays. Several +musical instruments, and many excellent voices, were in the +party, and the kindliest feeling and goodfellowship prevailed +among the members. + +"The formation of the company known as the Donner Party was +purely accidental. The union of so many emigrants into one train +was not occasioned by any preconcerted arrangement. Many +composing the Donner Party were not aware, at the outset, that +such a tide of emigration was sweeping to California. In many +instances small parties would hear of the mammoth train just +ahead of them or just behind them, and by hastening their pace, +or halting for a few days, joined themselves to the party. Many +were with the train during a portion of the journey, but from +some cause or other became parted from the Donner company before +reaching Donner Lake. Soon after the train left Independence it +contained between two and three hundred wagons, and when in +motion was two miles in length. The members of the party proper +numbered ninety." + +This caravan, like many others of the great assemblage westbound +at that time, had great extremes in personnel. Some were out for +mere adventure; some were single men looking for a location. Most +of them were fathers of families, among them several persons of +considerable means and of good standing in the community which +they were leaving. While we may suppose that most of them were +folk of no extraordinary sort, certainly some were persons of +education and intelligence. Among these was the wife of George +Donner--Tamsen Dormer; a woman of education, a musician, a +linguist, a botanist, and of the most sublime heroism. + +Tamsen Donner sent back now and then along the route some story +of the daily doings of the caravan; and such letters as these are +of the utmost interest to any who desire precise information of +that time. It would seem that the emigrants themselves for a +great part of their route met with no great adventures, nor +indeed, appeared to be undertaking any unusual affair. They +followed a route up the Platte Valley already long known to those +of the eastern settlements. + +"Near the Junction of the North +and South Platte, June 16, 1846. + +"My Old Friend: We are now on the Platte, two hundred miles from +Fort Laramie. Our journey so far has been pleasant, the roads +have been good, and food plentiful. The water for part of the way +has been indifferent, but at no time have our cattle suffered for +it. Wood is now very scarce, but "buffalo chips" are excellent; +they kindle quickly and retain heat surprisingly. We had this +morning buffalo steaks broiled upon them that had the same flavor +they would have had upon hickory coals. + +"We feel no fear of Indians; our cattle graze quietly around our +encampment unmolested. Two or three men will go hunting twenty +miles from camp; and last night two of our men lay out in the +wilderness rather than ride their horses after a hard chase. + +"Indeed, if I do not experience something far worse than I have +yet done, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started. Our +wagons have not needed much repair, and I can not yet tell in +what respects they could be improved. Certain it is, they can not +be too strong. Our preparations for the journey might have been +in some respects bettered. + +"Bread has been the principal article of food in our camp. We +laid in one hundred and fifty pounds of flour and seventy-five +pounds of meat for each individual, and I fear bread will be +scarce. Meat is abundant. Rice and beans are good articles on the +road; cornmeal too, is acceptable. Linsey dresses are the most +suitable for children. Indeed, if I had one, it would be +acceptable. There is so cool a breeze at all times on the Plains +that the sun does not feel so hot as one would suppose. + +"We are now four hundred and fifty miles from Independence. Our +route at first was rough, and through a timbered country, which +appeared to be fertile. After striking the prairie, we found a +firstrate road, and the only difficulty we have had, has been in +crossing the creeks. In that, however, there has been no danger. + +"I never could have believed we could have traveled so far with +so little difficulty. The prairie between the Blue and the Platte +Rivers is beautiful beyond description. Never have I seen so +varied a country, so suitable for cultivation. Everything is +new and pleasing; the Indians frequently come to see us, and the +chiefs of a tribe breakfasted at our tent this morning. All are +so friendly that I can not help feeling sympathy and friendship +for them. But on one sheet what can I say? + +"Since we have been on the Platte, we have had the river on one +side and the ever varying mounds on the other, and have traveled +through the bottom lands from one to two miles wide, with little +or no timber. The soil is sandy, and last year, on account of the +dry season, the emigrants found grass here scarce. Our cattle are +in good order, and when proper care has been taken, none have +been lost. Our milch cows have been of great service, indeed. +They have been of more advantage than our meat. We have plenty of +butter and milk. + +"We are commanded by Captain Russell, an amiable man. George +Donner is himself yet. He crows in the morning and shouts out, +"Chain up, boys--chain up," with as much authority as though he +was "something in particular." John Denton is still with us. We +find him useful in the camp. Hiram Miller and Noah James are in +good health and doing well. We have of the best people in our +company, and some, too, that are not so good. + +"Buffalo show themselves frequently. We have found the wild +tulip, the primrose, the lupine, the eardrop, the larkspur, and +creeping hollyhock, and a beautiful flower resembling the bloom +of the beech tree, but in bunches as large as a small sugarloaf, +and of every variety of shade, to red and green. + +"I botanize, and read some, but cook "heaps" more. There are four +hundred and twenty wagons, as far as we have heard, on the road +between here and Oregon and California. + +"Give our love to all inquiring friends. God bless them. + +"Yours truly, +Mrs. George Donner." + +By the Fourth of July the Donner Party had reached Fort Laramie. +They pushed on west over the old trail up the Sweetwater River +and across the South Pass, the easiest of all the mountain passes +known to the early travelers. Without much adventure they reached +Fort Bridger, then only a trading-post. Here occurred the fatal +mistake of the Donner Party. + +Some one at the fort strongly advised them to take a new route, a +cut-off said to shorten the distance by about three hundred +miles. This cut-off passed along the south shore of Great Salt +Lake and caught up the old California Trail from Fort Hall--then +well established and well known-along the Humboldt River. The +great Donner caravan delayed for some days at Fort Bridger, +hesitating over the decision of which route to follow. The party +divided. All those who took the old road north of Salt Lake by +way of Fort Hall reached California in complete safety. Of the +original Donner Party there remained eighty-seven persons. All of +these took the cut-off, being eager to save time in their travel. +They reached Salt Lake after unspeakable difficulties. Farther +west, in the deserts of Nevada, they lost many of their cattle. + +Now began among the party dissensions and grumblings. The story +is a long one. It reached its tragic denouement just below the +summit of the Sierras, on the shores of Donner Lake. The words of +McGlashan may now best serve our purpose. + +"Generally, the ascent of the Sierra brought joy and gladness to +weary overland emigrants. To the Donner Party it brought terror +and dismay. The company had hardly obtained a glimpse of the +mountains, ere the winter storm clouds began to assemble their +hosts around the loftier crests. Every day the weather appeared +more ominous and threatening. The delay at the Truckee Meadows +had been brief, but every day ultimately cost a dozen lives. On +the twenty-third of October, they became thoroughly alarmed at +the angry heralds of the gathering storm, and with all haste +resumed the journey. It was too late! At Prosser Creek, three +miles below Truckee, they found themselves encompassed with six +inches of snow. On the summits, the snow was from two to five +feet in depth. This was October 28, 1846. Almost a month earlier +than usual, the Sierra had donned its mantle of ice and snow. The +party were prisoners! + +"All was consternation. The wildest confusion prevailed. In their +eagerness, many went far in advance of the main train. There was +little concert of action or harmony of plan. All did not arrive +at Donner Lake the same day. Some wagons and families did not +reach the lake until the thirty-first day of October, some never +went farther than Prosser Creek, while others, on the evening of +the twenty-ninth, struggled through the snow, and reached the +foot of the precipitous cliffs between the summit and the upper +end of the lake. Here, baffled, wearied, disheartened, they +turned back to the foot of the lake." + +These emigrants did not lack in health, strength, or resolution, +but here they were in surroundings absolutely new to them. A sort +of panic seized them now. They scattered; their organization +disintegrated. All thought of conjoint action, of a social +compact, a community of interests, seems to have left them. It +was a history of every man for himself, or at least every family +for itself. All track of the road was now lost under the snow. At +the last pitch up to the summit of the Sierras precipitous cliffs +abounded. No one knew the way. And now the snows came once again. + +"The emigrants suffered a thousand deaths. The pitiless snow came +down in large, steady masses. All understood that the storm meant +death. One of the Indians silently wrapped his blanket about him +and in deepest dejection seated himself beside a tall pine. In +this position he passed the entire night, only moving +occasionally to keep from being covered with snow. Mrs. Reed +spread down a shawl, placed her four children--Virginia, Patty, +James, and Thomas--thereon, and putting another shawl over them, +sat by the side of her babies during all the long hours of +darkness. Every little while she was compelled to lift the upper +shawl and shake off the rapidly accumulating snow. + +"With slight interruptions, the storm continued several days. The +mules and oxen that had always hovered about camp were blinded +and bewildered by the storm, and straying away were literally +buried alive in the drifts. What pen can describe the horror of +the position in which the emigrants found themselves? It was +impossible to move through the deep, soft snow without the +greatest effort. The mules were gone, and were never found. Most +of the cattle had perished, and were wholly hidden from sight. +The few oxen which were found were slaughtered for beef." + +The travelers knew that the supplies they had could not last +long. On the 12th of November a relief party essayed to go +forward, but after struggling a short distance toward the summit, +came back wearied and broken-hearted, unable to make way through +the deep, soft snow. Then some one--said to have been F. W. +Graves of Vermont--bethought himself of making snowshoes out of +the oxbows and the hides of the slaughtered oxen. With these they +did better. + +Volunteers were called for yet another party to cross the +mountains into California. Fifteen persons volunteered. Not all +of them were men--some were mothers, and one was a young woman. +Their mental condition was little short of desperation. Only, in +the midst of their intense hardships it seemed to all, somewhere +to the westward was California, and that there alone lay any +hope. The party traveled four miles the first day; and their camp +fires were visible below the summit. The next day they traveled +six miles and crossed the divide. + +They were starving, cold, worn out, their feet frozen to +bursting, their blood chilled. At times they were caught in some +of the furious storms of the Sierras. They did not know their +way. On the 27th of December certain of the party resolved +themselves to that last recourse which alone might mean life. +Surrounded by horrors as they were, it seemed they could endure +the thought of yet an additional horror.... There were the +dead, the victims who already had perished!... + +Seven of the fifteen got through to the Sacramento Valley, among +these the young girl, Mary Graves, described as "a very beautiful +girl, of tall and slender build, and, exceptionally graceful +character." The story brought out by these survivors of the first +party to cross the Sierras from the starving camp set all +California aflame. There were no less than three relief +expeditions formed, which at varying dates crossed the mountains +to the east. Some men crossed the snow belt five times in all. +The rescuers were often in as much danger as the victims they +sought to save. + +And they could not save them. Back there in their tents and +hovels around Donner Lake starvation was doing its work steadily. +There is contemporary history also covering the details of this. +Tamsen Donner, heroine that she was, kept a diary which would +have been valuable for us, but this was lost along with her +paintings and her botanical collections. The best preserved diary +is that of Patrick Breen, done in simple and matter-of-fact +fashion throughout most of the starving winter. Thus: + +"Dec. 17. Pleasant; William Murphy returned from the mountain +party last evening; Baylis Williams died night before last; +Milton and Noah started for Donner's eight days ago; not returned +yet; think they are lost in the snow. + +"Dec. 21. Milton got back last night from Donner's camp. Sad +news; Jacob Donner, Samuel Shoemaker, Rhineheart, and Smith are +dead; the rest of them in a low situation; snowed all night, with +a strong southwest wind. + +"Dec. 23. Clear to-day; Milton took some of his meat away; all +well at their camp. Began this day to read the "Thirty Days' +Prayers"; Almighty God, grant the requests of unworthy sinners! + +"Jan. 13. Snowing fast; snow higher than the shanty; it must be +thirteen feet deep. Can not get wood this morning; it is a +dreadful sight for us to look upon. + +"Jan. 27. Commenced snowing yesterday; still continues today. +Lewis Keseberg, Jr., died three days ago; food growing scarce; +don't have fire enough to cook our hides. + +"Jan. 31. The sun does not shine out brilliant this morning; +froze hard last night; wind northwest. Landrum Murphy died last +night about ten o'clock; Mrs. Reed went to Graves's this morning +to look after goods. + +"Feb. 4. Snowed hard until twelve o'clock last night; many uneasy +for fear we shall all perish with hunger; we have but little meat +left, and only three hides; Mrs. Reed has nothing but one hide, +and that is on Graves's house; Milton lives there, and likely +will keep that. Eddy's child died last night. + +"Feb. 7. Ceased to snow at last; today it is quite pleasant. +McCutchen's child died on the second of this month. + +"[This child died and was buried in the Graves's cabin. Mr. W. C. +Graves helped dig the grave near one side of the cabin, and laid +the little one to rest. One of the most heart-rending features of +this Donner tragedy is the number of infants that perished. Mrs. +Breen, Mrs. Pike, Mrs. Foster, Mrs. McCutchen, Mrs. Eddy, and +Mrs. Graves each had nursing babes when the fatal camp was +pitched at Donner Lake.] + +"Feb. 8. Fine, clear morning. Spitzer died last night, and we +will bury him in the snow; Mrs. Eddy died on the night of the +seventh. + +"Feb. 9. Mrs. Pike's child all but dead; Milton is at Murphy's, +not able to get out of bed; Mrs. Eddy and child buried today; +wind southeast. + +"Feb. 10. Beautiful morning; thawing in the sun; Milton Elliott +died last night at Murphy's cabin, and Mrs. Reed went there this +morning to see about his effects. John Denton trying to borrow +meat for Graves; had none to give; they had nothing but hides; +all are entirely out of meat, but a little we have; our hides are +nearly all eat up, but with God's help spring will soon smile +upon us." + +There was one survivor of the camp at Donner Lake, a man named +Lewis Keseberg, of German descent. That he was guilty of repeated +cannibalism cannot be doubted. It was in his cabin that, after +losing all her loved ones, the heroic Tamsen Donner met her end. +Many thought he killed her for the one horrid purpose.* + +* Many years later (1879) Keseberg declared under oath to C. F. +McGlashan that he did not take her life. See "History of the +Donner" Party, pp. 212, 213. + + +Such then is the story of one of the great emigrant parties who +started West on a hazard of new fortunes in the early days of the +Oregon Trail. Happily there has been no parallel to the +misadventures of this ill-fated caravan. It is difficult +--without reading these, bald and awful details-- to realize the +vast difference between that day and this. Today we may by the +gentle stages of a pleasant railway journey arrive at Donner +Lake. Little trace remains, nor does any kindly soul wish for +more definite traces, of those awful scenes. Only a cross here +and there with a legend, faint and becoming fainter every year, +may be seen, marking the more prominent spots of the historic +starving camp. + +Up on the high mountain side, for the most part hid in the +forest, lie the snowsheds and tunnels of the railway, now +encountering its stiffest climb up the steep slopes to the summit +of the Sierras. The author visited this spot of melancholy +history in company with the vice-president of the great railway +line which here swings up so steadily and easily over the +Sierras. Bit by bit we checked out as best we might the fateful +spots mentioned in the story of the Donner Party. A splendid +motor highway runs by the lakeside now. While we halted our own +car there, a motor car drove up from the westward--following that +practical automobile highway which now exists from the plains of +California across the Sierras and east over precisely that trail +where once the weary feet of the oxen dragged the wagons of the +early emigrants. It was a small car of no expensive type. It was +loaded down with camping equipment until the wheels scarcely +could be seen. It carried five human occupants--an Iowa farmer +and his family. They had been out to California for a season. +Casually they had left Los Angeles, had traveled north up the +valleys of California, east across the summit of the Sierras, and +were here now bound for Iowa over the old emigrant trail! + +We hailed this new traveler on the old trail. I do not know +whether or not he had any idea of the early days of that great +highway; I suspect that he could tell only of its present +motoring possibilities. But his wheels were passing over the +marks left more than half a century ago by the cracked felloes of +the emigrant wagons going west in search of homes. If we seek +history, let us ponder that chance pause of the eastbound +family, traveling by motor for pleasure, here by the side of the +graves of the travelers of another day, itself so briefly gone. +What an epoch was spanned in the passing of that frontier! + + + +Chapter VII. The Indian Wars + +It might well be urged against the method employed in these pages +that, although we undertook to speak of the last American +frontier, all that we really thus far have done has been to +describe a series of frontiers from the Missouri westward. In +part this is true. But it was precisely in this large, loose, and +irregular fashion that we actually arrived at our last frontier. +Certainly our westbound civilization never advanced by any steady +or regular process. It would be a singularly illuminating +map--and one which I wish we might show--which would depict in +different colors the great occupied areas of the West, with the +earliest dates of their final and permanent occupation. Such a +map as this would show us that the last frontier of America was +overleaped and left behind not once but a score of times. + +The land between the Missouri and the Rockies, along the Great +Plains and the high foothills, was crossed over and forgotten by +the men who were forging on into farther countries in search of +lands where fortune was swift and easy. California, Oregon, all +the early farming and timbering lands of the distant Northwest-- +these lay far beyond the Plains; and as we have noted, they were +sought for, even before gold was dreamed of upon the Pacific +Slope. + +So here, somewhere between the Missouri and the Rockies, lay our +last frontier, wavering, receding, advancing, gaining and losing, +changing a little more every decade--and at last so rapidly +changed as to be outworn and abolished in one swift decade all +its own. + +This unsettled land so long held in small repute by the early +Americans, was, as we have pointed out, the buffalo range and the +country of the Horse Indians--the Plains tribes who lived upon +the buffalo. For a long time it was this Indian population which +held back the white settlements of Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, +Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. But as men began to work farther and +farther westward in search of homes in Oregon, or in quest of +gold in California or Idaho or Montana, the Indian question came +to be a serious one. + +To the Army, soon after the Civil War, fell the task of +exterminating, or at least evicting, the savage tribes over all +this unvalued and unknown Middle West. This was a process not +altogether simple. For a considerable time the Indians themselves +were able to offer very effective resistance to the enterprise. +They were accustomed to living upon that country, and did not +need to bring in their own supplies; hence the Army fought them +at a certain disadvantage. In sooth, the Army had to learn to +become half Indian before it could fight the Indians on anything +like even terms. We seem not so much to have coveted the lands +in the first Indian-fighting days; we fought rather for the +trails than for the soil. The Indians themselves had lived there +all their lives, had conquered their environment, and were happy +in it. They made a bitter fight; nor are they to be blamed for +doing so. + +The greatest of our Indian wars have taken place since our own +Civil War; and perhaps the most notable of all the battles are +those which were fought on the old cow range--in the land of our +last frontier. We do not lack abundant records of this time of +our history. Soon after the Civil War the railroads began edging +out into the plains. They brought, besides many new settlers, an +abundance of chroniclers and historians and writers of hectic +fiction or supposed fact. A multitude of books came out at this +time of our history, most of which were accepted as truth. That +was the time when we set up as Wild West heroes rough skinclad +hunters and so-called scouts, each of whom was allowed to tell +his own story and to have it accepted at par. As a matter of +fact, at about the time the Army had succeeded in subduing the +last of the Indian tribes on the buffalo-range, the most of our +Wild West history, at least so far as concerned the boldest +adventure, was a thing of the past. It was easy to write of a +past which every one now was too new, too ignorant, or too busy +critically to remember. + +Even as early as 1866, Colonel Marcy, an experienced army officer +and Indian-fighter, took the attitude of writing about a +vanishing phase of American life. In his Army "Life on the +Border," he says: + +"I have been persuaded by many friends that the contents of the +book which is herewith presented to the public are not without +value as records of a fast-vanishing age, and as truthful +sketches of men of various races whose memory will shortly depend +only on romance, unless some one who knew them shall undertake to +leave outlines of their peculiar characteristics.... I am +persuaded that excuse may be found in the simple fact that all +these peoples of my description--men, conditions of life, races +of +aboriginal inhabitants and adventurous hunters and pioneers--are +passing away. A few years more and the prairie will be +transformed into farms. The mountain ravines will be the abodes +of busy manufacturers, and the gigantic power of American +civilization will have taken possession of the land from the +great river of the West to the very shores of the Pacific.... +The world is fast filling up. I trust I am not in error when I +venture to place some value, however small, on everything which +goes to form the truthful history of a condition of men incident +to the advances of civilization over the continent--a condition +which forms peculiar types of character, breeds remarkable +developments of human nature--a condition also which can hardly +again exist on this or any other continent, and which has, +therefore, a special value in the sum of human history." + +Such words as the foregoing bespeak a large and dignified point +of view. No one who follows Marcy's pages can close them with +anything but respect and admiration. It is in books such as this, +then, that we may find something about the last stages of the +clearing of the frontier. + +Even in Marcy's times the question of our Government's Indian +policy was a mooted one. He himself as an Army officer looked at +the matter philosophically, but his estimate of conditions was +exact. Long ago as he wrote, his conclusions were such as might +have been given forty years later. + +"The limits of their accustomed range are rapidly contracting, +and their means of subsistence undergoing a corresponding +diminution. The white man is advancing with rapid strides upon +all sides of them, and they are forced to give way to his +encroachments. The time is not far distant when the buffalo will +become extinct, and they will then be compelled to adopt some +other mode of life than the chase for a subsistence.... No +man will quietly submit to starvation when food is within his +reach, and if he cannot obtain it honestly he will steal it or +take it by force. If, therefore, we do not induce them to engage +in agricultural avocations we shall in a few years have before us +the alternative of exterminating them or fighting them +perpetually. That they are destined ultimately to extinction does +not in my mind admit of a doubt. For the reasons above mentioned +it may at first be necessary for our government to assert its +authority over them by a prompt and vigorous exercise of the +military arm.... The tendency of the policy I have indicated +will be to assemble these people in communities where they will +be more readily controlled; and I predict from it the most +gratifying results." Another well-informed army officer, Colonel +Richard Dodge, himself a hunter, a trailer, and a rider able to +compete with the savages in their own fields, penetrated to the +heart of the Indian problem when he wrote: + +"The conception of Indian character is almost impossible to a man +who has passed the greater portion of his life surrounded by the +influences of a cultivated, refined, and moral society.... +The truth is simply too shocking, and the revolted mind takes +refuge in disbelief as the less painful horn of the dilemma. As a +first step toward an understanding of his character we must get +at his standpoint of morality. As a child he is not brought +up....From the dawn of intelligence his own will is his law. +There is no right and no wrong to him.... No dread of +punishment restrains him from any act that boyish fun or fury may +prompt. No lessons inculcating the beauty and sure reward of +goodness or the hideousness and certain punishment of vice are +ever wasted on him. The men by whom he is surrounded, and to whom +he looks as models for his future life, are great and renowned +just in proportion to their ferocity, to the scalps they have +taken, or the thefts they have committed. His earliest boyish +memory is probably a dance of rejoicing over the scalps of +strangers, all of whom he is taught to regard as enemies. The +lessons of his mother awaken only a desire to take his place as +soon as possible in fight and foray. The instruction of his +father is only such as is calculated to fit him best to act a +prominent part in the chase, in theft, and in murder.... +Virtue, morality, generosity, honor, are words not only +absolutely without significance to him, but are not accurately +translatable, into any Indian language on the Plains." + +These are sterner, less kindly, less philosophic words than +Marcy's, but they keenly outline the duty of the Army on the +frontier. We made treaties with the Indians and broke them. In +turn men such as these ignorant savages might well be expected to +break their treaties also; and they did. Unhappily our Indian +policy at that time was one of mingled ferocity and wheedling. +The Indians did not understand us any more than we did them. When +we withdrew some of the old frontier posts from the old +hunting-range, the action was construed by the tribesmen as an +admission that we feared them, and they acted upon that idea. In +one point of view they had right with them, for now we were +moving out into the last of the great buffalo country. Their war +was one of desperation, whereas ours was one of conquest, no +better and no worse than all the wars of conquest by which the +strong have taken the possessions of the weak. + +Our Army at the close of the Civil War and at the beginning of +the wars with the Plains tribes was in better condition than it +has ever been since that day. It was made up of the soundest and +best-seasoned soldiers that ever fought under our flag; and at +that time it represented a greater proportion of our fighting +strength than it ever has before or since. In 1860 the Regular +Army, not counting the volunteer forces, was 16,000. In 1870 it +was 37,000--one soldier to each one thousand of our population. + +Against this force, pioneers of the vaster advancing army of +peaceful settlers now surging West, there was arrayed practically +all the population of fighting tribes such as the Sioux, the two +bands of the Cheyennes, the Piegans, the Assiniboines, the +Arapahoes, the Kiowas, the Comanches, and the Apaches. These were +the leaders of many other tribes in savage campaigns which set +the land aflame from the Rio Grande to our northern line. The +Sioux and Cheyennes were more especially the leaders, and they +always did what they could to enlist the aid of the less warlike +tribes such as the Crows, the Snakes, the Bannacks, the +Utes--indeed all of the savage or semi-civilized tribes which had +hung on the flanks of the traffic of the westbound trail. + +The Sioux, then at the height of their power, were distinguished +by many warlike qualities. They fought hard and were quick to +seize upon any signs of weakness in their enemies. When we, in +the course of our Civil War, had withdrawn some of the upper +posts, the Sioux edged in at once and pressed back the whites +quite to the eastern confines of the Plains. When we were locked +in the death grip of internecine war in 1862, they rose in one +savage wave of rebellion of their own and massacred with the most +horrible ferocity not less than six hundred and forty-four whites +in Minnesota and South Dakota. When General Sibley went out among +them on his later punitive campaign he had his hands full for +many a long and weary day. + +Events following the close of the Civil War did not mend matters +in the Indian situation. The railroads had large land grants +given to them along their lines, and they began to offer these +lands for sale to settlers. Soldier scrip entitling the holder to +locate on public lands now began to float about. Some of the +engineers, even some of the laborers, upon the railroads, seeing +how really feasible was the settlement of these Plains, began to +edge out and to set up their homes, usually not far from the +railway lines. All this increase in the numbers of the white +population not only infuriated the Indians the more, but gave +them the better chance to inflict damage upon our people. Our +Army therefore became very little more than a vast body of +police, and it was always afoot with the purpose of punishing +these offending tribesmen, who knew nothing of the higher laws of +war and who committed atrocities that have never been equalled in +history; unless it be by one of the belligerents of the Great War +in Europe, with whom we are at this writing engaged--once more in +the interest of a sane and human civilization. The last great +struggle for the occupation of the frontier was on. It involved +the ownership of the last of our open lands; and hence may be +called the war of our last frontier. + +The settler who pushed West continued to be the man who shared +his time between his rifle and his plough. The numerous buffalo +were butchered with an endless avidity by the men who now +appeared upon the range. As the great herds regularly migrated +southward with each winter's snows, they were met by the settlers +along the lower railway lines and in a brutal commerce were +killed in thousands and in millions. The Indians saw this sudden +and appalling shrinkage of their means of livelihood. It meant +death to them. To their minds, especially when they thought we +feared them, there was but one answer to all this--the whites +must all be killed. + +Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Roman Nose, American Horse, Black +Kettle--these were names of great Indian generals who proved +their ability to fight. At times they brought into the open +country, which as yet remained unoccupied by the great pastoral +movement from the south, as many as five thousand mounted +warriors in one body, and they were well armed and well supplied +with ammunition. Those were the days when the Indian agents were +carrying on their lists twice as many Indians as actually +existed--and receiving twice as many supplies as really were +issued to the tribes. The curse of politics was ours even at that +time, and it cost us then, as now, unestimated millions of our +nation's dearest treasures. As to the reservations which the +Indians were urged to occupy, they left them when they Iced. In +the end, when they were beaten, all they were asked to do was to +return to these reservations and be fed. + +There were fought in the West from 1869 to 1875 more than two +hundred pitched actions between the Army and the Indians. In most +cases the white men were heavily outnumbered. The account which +the Army gave of itself on scores of unremembered minor +fields--which meant life or death to all engaged--would make one +of the best pages of our history, could it be written today. The +enlisted men of the frontier Army were riding and shooting men, +able to live as the Indians did and able to beat them at their +own game. They were led by Army officers whose type has never +been improved upon in any later stage of our Army itself, or of +any army in the world. + +There are certain great battles which may at least receive +notice, although it would be impossible to mention more than a +few of the encounters of the great Indian wars on the +buffalo-range at about the time of the buffalo's disappearance. +The Fetterman Massacre in 1866, near Fort Phil Kearney, a post +located at the edge of the Big Horn Mountains, was a blow which +the Army never has forgotten. "In a place of fifty feet square +lay the bodies of Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown, and +sixty-five enlisted men. Each man was stripped naked and hacked +and scalped, the skulls beaten in with war clubs and the bodies +gashed with knives almost beyond recognition, with other ghastly +mutilations that the civilized pen hesitates to record." + +This tragedy brought the Indian problem before the country as +never before. The hand of the Western rancher and trader was +implacably against the tribesmen of the plains; the city-dweller +of the East, with hazy notions of the Indian character, was +disposed to urge lenient methods upon those responsible for +governmental policy. While the Sioux and Cheyenne wars dragged +on, Congress created, by act of July 20, 1867, a peace commission +of four civilians and three army officers to deal with the +hostile tribes. For more than a year, with scant sympathy from +the military members, this commission endeavored to remove the +causes of friction by amicable conference with the Indian chiefs. +The attitude of the Army is reflected in a letter of General +Sherman to his brother. "We have now selected and provided +reservations for all, off the great roads. All who cling to their +old hunting-grounds are hostile and will remain so till killed +off. We will have a sort of predatory war for years--every now +and then be shocked by the indiscriminate murder of travelers and +settlers, but the country is so large, and the advantage of the +Indians so great, that we cannot make a single war and end it. +From the nature of things we must take chances and clean out +Indians as we encounter them." + +Segregation of the Indian tribes upon reservations seemed to the +commission the only solution of the vexing problem. Various +treaties were made and others were projected looking toward the +removal of the tribesmen from the highways of continental travel. +The result was misgiving and increased unrest among the Indians. + +In midsummer of 1868 forays occurred at many points along the +border of the Indian Territory. General Sheridan, who now +commanded the Department of the Missouri, believed that a general +war was imminent. He determined to teach the southern tribesmen a +lesson they would not forget. In the dead of winter our troops +marched against the Cheyennes, then in their encampments below +the Kansas line. The Indians did not believe that white men could +march in weather forty below zero, during which they themselves +sat in their tepees around their fires; but our cavalrymen did +march in such weather, and under conditions such as our cavalry +perhaps could not endure today. Among these troops was the +Seventh Cavalry, Custer's Regiment, formed after the Civil War, +and it was led by Lieutenant-Colonel George A. Custer himself, +that gallant officer whose name was to go into further and more +melancholy history of the Plains. + +Custer marched until he got in touch with the trails of the +Cheyennes, whom he knew to belong to Black Kettle's band. He did +not at the time know that below them, in the same valley of the +Washita, were also the winter encampments of the Kiowas, the +Comanches, the Arapahoes, and even a few Apaches. He attacked at +dawn of a bleak winter morning, November 27, 1868, after taking +the precaution of surrounding the camp, and killed Black Kettle, +and another chief, Little Rock, and over a hundred of their +warriors. Many women and children also were killed in this +attack. The result was one which sank deep into the Indian mind. +They began to respect the men who could outmarch them and outlive +them on the range. Surely, they thought, these were not the same +men who had abandoned Forts Phil Kearney, C. F. Smith, and Reno. +There had been some mistake about this matter. The Indians began +to think it over. The result was a pacifying of all the country +south of the Platte. The lower Indians began to come in and give +themselves up to the reservation life. + +One of the hardest of pitched battles ever fought with an Indian +tribe occurred in September, 1868, on the Arickaree or South Fork +of the Republican River, where General "Sandy" Forsyth, and his +scouts, for nine days fought over six hundred Cheyennes and +Arapahoes. These savages had been committing atrocities upon the +settlers of the Saline, the Solomon, and the Republican valleys, +and were known to have killed some sixty-four men and women at +the time General Sheridan resolved to punish them. Forsyth had no +chance to get a command of troops, but he was allowed to enlist +fifty scouts, all "first-class, hardened frontiersmen," and with +this body of fighting men he carried out the most dramatic battle +perhaps ever waged on the Plains. + +Forsyth ran into the trail of two or three large Indian villages, +but none the less he followed on until he came to the valley of +the South Fork. Here the Cheyennes under the redoubtable Roman +Nose surrounded him on the 17th of September. The small band of +scouts took refuge on a brushy island some sixty yards from +shore, and hastily dug themselves in under fire. + +They stood at bay outnumbered ten to one, with small prospect of +escape, for the little island offered no protection of itself, +and was in pointblank range from the banks of the river. All +their horses soon were shot down, and the men lay in the rifle +pits with no hope of escape. Roman Nose, enraged at the +resistance put up by Forsyth's men, led a band of some four +hundred of his warriors in the most desperate charge that has +been recorded in all our Indian fighting annals. It was rarely +that the Indian would charge at all; but these tribesmen, +stripped naked for the encounter, and led at first by that giant +warrior, who came on shouting his defiance, charged in full view +not only once but three times in one day, and got within a +hundred feet of the foot of the island where the scouts were +lying. + +According to Forsyth's report, the Indians came on in regular +ranks like the cavalry of the white men, more than four hundred +strong. They were met by the fire of repeating carbines and +revolvers, and they stood for the first, second, third, fourth, +and fifth fire of repeating weapons, and still charged in! Roman +Nose was killed at last within touch of the rifle pits against +which he was leading his men. The second charge was less +desperate, for the savages lost heart after the loss of their +leader. The third one, delivered towards the evening of that same +day, was desultory. By that time the bed of the shallow stream +was well filled with fallen horses and dead warriors. + +Forsyth ordered meat cut from the bodies of his dead horses and +buried in the wet sand so that it might keep as long as possible. +Lieutenant Beecher, his chief of scouts, was killed, as also were +Surgeon Mooers, and Scouts Smith, Chalmers, Wilson, Farley, and +Day. Seventeen others of the party were wounded, some severely. +Forsyth himself was shot three times, once in the head. His left +leg was broken below the knee, and his right thigh was ripped up +by a rifle ball, which caused him extreme pain. Later he cut the +bullet out of his own leg, and was relieved from some part of the +pain. After his rescue, when his broken leg was set it did not +suit him, and he had the leg broken twice in the hospital and +reset until it knitted properly. + +Forsyth's men lay under fire under a blazing sun in their holes +on the sandbar for nine days. But the savages never dislodged +them, and at last they made off, their women and children beating +the death drums, and the entire village mourning the unreturning +brave. On the second day of the fighting Forsyth had got out +messengers at extreme risk, and at length the party was rescued +by a detachment of the Tenth Cavalry. The Indians later said that +they had in all over six hundred warriors in this fight. Their +losses, though variously estimated, were undoubtedly heavy. + +It was encounters such as this which gradually were teaching the +Indians that they could not beat the white men, so that after a +time they began to yield to the inevitable. + +What is known as the Baker Massacre was the turning-point in the +half-century of warfare with the Blackfeet, the savage tribe +which had preyed upon the men of the fur trade in a +long-continued series of robberies and murders. On January 22, +1870, Major E. M. Baker, led by half-breeds who knew the country, +surprised the Piegans in their winter camp on the Marias River, +just below the border. He, like Custer, attacked at dawn, opening +the encounter with a general fire into the tepees. He killed a +hundred and seventy-three of the Piegans, including very many +women and children, as was unhappily the case so often in these +surprise attacks. It was deplorable warfare. But it ended the +resistance of the savage Blackfeet. They have been disposed for +peace from that day to this. + +The terrible revenge which the Sioux and Cheyennes took in the +battle which annihilated Custer and his men on the Little Big +Horn in the summer of 1876; the Homeric running fight made by +Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces--a flight which baffled our best +generals and their men for a hundred and ten days over more than +fourteen hundred miles of wilderness--these are events so well +known that it seems needless to do more than to refer to them. +The Nez Perces in turn went down forever when Joseph came out and +surrendered, saying, "From where the sun now stands I fight +against the white man no more forever." His surrender to fate did +not lack its dignity. Indeed, a mournful interest attached to the +inevitable destiny of all these savage leaders, who, no doubt, +according to their standards, were doing what men should do and +all that men could do. + +The main difficulty in administering full punishment to such +bands was that after a defeat they scattered, so that they could +not be overtaken in any detailed fashion. After the Custer fight +many of the tribe went north of the Canadian line and remained +there for some time. The writer himself has seen along the +Qu'Appelle River in Saskatchewan some of the wheels taken out of +the watches of Custer's men. The savages broke them up and used +the wheels for jewelry. They even offered the Canadians for trade +boots, hats, and clothing taken from the bodies of Custer's men. + +The Modoc war against the warriors of Captain Jack in 1873 was +waged in the lava beds of Oregon, and it had the distinction of +being one of the first Indian wars to be well reported in the +newspapers. We heard a great deal of the long and trying +campaigns waged by the Army in revenge for the murder of General +Canby in his council tent. We got small glory out of that war, +perhaps, but at last we hanged the ringleader of the murderers; +and the extreme Northwest remained free from that time on. + +Far in the dry Southwest, where home-building man did not as yet +essay a general occupation of the soil, the blood-thirsty Apache +long waged a warfare which tried the mettle of our Army as +perhaps no other tribes ever have done. The Spaniards had fought +these Apaches for nearly three hundred years, and had not beaten +them. They offered three hundred dollars each for Apache scalps, +and took a certain number of them. But they left all the +remaining braves sworn to an eternal enmity. The Apaches became +mountain outlaws, whose blood-mad thirst for revenge never died. +No tribe ever fought more bitterly. Hemmed in and surrounded, +with no hope of escape, in some instances they perished literally +to the last man. General George Crook finished the work of +cleaning up the Apache outlaws only by use of the trailers of +their own people who sided with the whites for pay. Without the +Pima scouts he never could have run down the Apaches as he did. +Perhaps these were the hardest of all the Plains Indians to find +and to fight. But in 1872 Crook subdued them and concentrated +them in reservations in Arizona. Ten years later, under Geronimo, +a tribe of the Apaches broke loose and yielded to General Crook +only after a prolonged war. Once again they raided New Mexico and +Arizona in 1885-6. This was the last raid of Geronimo. He was +forced by General Miles to surrender and, together with his chief +warriors, was deported to Fort Pickens in Florida. +In all these savage pitched battles and bloody skirmishes, the +surprises and murderous assaults all over the old range, there +were hundreds of settlers killed, hundreds also of our army men, +including some splendid officers. In the Custer fight alone, on +the Little Big Horn, the Army lost Custer himself, thirteen +commissioned officers, and two hundred and fifty-six enlisted men +killed, with two officers and fifty-one men wounded; a total of +three hundred and twenty-three killed and wounded in one battle. +Custer had in his full column about seven hundred men. The number +of the Indians has been variously estimated. They had perhaps +five thousand men in their villages when they met Custer in this, +the most historic and most ghastly battle of the Plains. It would +be bootless to revive any of the old discussions regarding Custer +and his rash courage. Whether in error or in wisdom, he died, and +gallantly. He and his men helped clear the frontier for those who +were to follow, and the task took its toll. Thus, slowly but +steadily, even though handicapped by a vacillating governmental +policy regarding the Indians, we muddled through these great +Indian wars of the frontier, our soldiers doing their work +splendidly and uncomplainingly, such work as no other body of +civilized troops has ever been asked to do or could have done if +asked. At the close of the Civil War we ourselves were a nation +of fighting men. We were fit and we were prepared. The average of +our warlike qualities never has been so high as then. The +frontier produced its own pathfinders, its own saviors, its own +fighting men. + +So now the frontier lay ready, waiting for the man with the +plough. The dawn of that last day was at hand. + + + +Chapter VIII. The Cattle Kings + +It is proper now to look back yet again over the scenes with +which we hitherto have had to do. It is after the railways have +come to the Plains. The Indians now are vanishing. The buffalo +have not yet gone, but are soon to pass. + +Until the closing days of the Civil War the northern range was a +wide, open domain, the greatest ever offered for the use of a +people. None claimed it then in fee; none wanted it in fee. The +grasses and the sweet waters offered accessible and profitable +chemistry for all men who had cows to range. The land laws still +were vague and inexact in application, and each man could +construe them much as he liked. The excellent homestead law of +1862, one of the few really good land laws that have been put on +our national statute books, worked well enough so long as we had +good farming lands for homesteading--lands of which a quarter +section would support a home and a family. This same homestead +law was the only one available for use on the cattle-range. In +practice it was violated thousands of times--in fact, of +necessity violated by any cattle man who wished to acquire +sufficient range to run a considerable herd. Our great timber +kings, our great cattle kings, made their fortunes out of their +open contempt for the homestead law, which was designed to give +all the people an even chance for a home and a farm. It made, and +lost, America. + +Swiftly enough, here and there along all the great waterways of +the northern range, ranchers and their men filed claims on the +water fronts. The dry land thus lay tributary to them. For the +most part the open lands were held practically under squatter +right; the first cowman in any valley usually had his rights +respected, at least for a time. These were the days of the open +range. Fences had not come, nor had farms been staked out. + +From the South now appeared that tremendous and elemental +force--most revolutionary of all the great changes we have noted +in the swiftly changing West--the bringing in of thousands of +horned kine along the northbound trails. The trails were hurrying +from the Rio Grande to the upper plains of Texas and northward, +along the north and south line of the Frontier--that land which +now we have been seeking less to define and to mark precisely +than fundamentally to understand. + +The Indian wars had much to do with the cow trade. The Indians +were crowded upon the reservations, and they had to be fed, and +fed on beef. Corrupt Indian agents made fortunes, and the Beef +Ring at Washington, one of the most despicable lobbies which ever +fattened there, now wrote its brief and unworthy history. In a +strange way corrupt politics and corrupt business affected the +phases of the cattle industry as they had affected our relations +with the Indians. More than once a herd of some thousand beeves +driven up from Texas on contract, and arriving late in autumn, +was not accepted on its arrival at the army post--some pet of +Washington perhaps had his own herd to sell! All that could be +done then would be to seek out a "holding range." In this way, +more and more, the capacity of the northern Plains to nourish and +improve cattle became established. + +Naturally, the price of cows began to rise; and naturally, also, +the demand for open range steadily increased. There now began the +whole complex story of leased lands and fenced lands. The +frontier still was offering opportunity for the bold man to reap +where he had not sown. Lands leased to the Indians of the +civilized tribes began to cut large figure in the cow trade--as +well as some figure in politics--until at length the thorny +situation was handled by a firm hand at Washington. The methods +of the East were swiftly overrunning those of the West. Politics +and graft and pull, things hitherto unknown, soon wrote their +hurrying story also over all this newly won region from which the +rifle-smoke had scarcely yet cleared away. + +But every herd which passed north for delivery of one sort or the +other advanced the education of the cowman, whether of the +northern or the southern ranges. Some of the southern men began +to start feeding ranges in the North, retaining their breeding +ranges in the South. The demand of the great upper range for +cattle seemed for the time insatiable. + +To the vision of the railroad builders a tremendous potential +freightage now appeared. The railroad builders began to calculate +that one day they would parallel the northbound cow trail with +iron trails of their own and compete with nature for the carrying +of this beef. The whole swift story of all that development, +while the westbound rails were crossing and crisscrossing the +newly won frontier, scarce lasted twenty years. Presently we +began to hear in the East of the Chisholm Trail and of the +Western Trail which lay beyond it, and of many smaller and +intermingling branches. We heard of Ogallalla, in Nebraska, the +"Gomorrah of the Range," the first great upper marketplace for +distribution of cattle to the swiftly forming northern ranches. +The names of new rivers came upon our maps; and beyond the first +railroads we began to hear of the Yellowstone, the Powder, the +Musselshell, the Tongue, the Big Horn, the Little Missouri. + +The wild life, bold and carefree, coming up from the South now in +a mighty surging wave, spread all over that new West which +offered to the people of older lands a strange and fascinating +interest. Every one on the range had money; every one was +independent. Once more it seemed that man had been able to +overleap the confining limitations of his life, and to attain +independence, self-indulgence, ease and liberty. A chorus of +Homeric, riotous mirth, as of a land in laughter, rose up all +over the great range. After all, it seemed that we had a new +world left, a land not yet used. We still were young! The cry +arose that there was land enough for all out West. And at first +the trains of white-topped wagons rivaled the crowded coaches +westbound on the rails. + +In consequence there came an entire readjustment of values. This +country, but yesterday barren and worthless, now was covered with +gold, deeper than the gold of California or any of the old +placers. New securities and new values appeared. Banks did not +care much for the land as security--it was practically worthless +without the cattle--but they would lend money on cattle at rates +which did not then seem usurious. A new system of finance came +into use. Side by side with the expansion of credits went the +expansion of the cattle business. Literally in hundreds of +thousands the cows came north from the exhaustless ranges of the +lower country. + +It was a wild, strange day. But withal it was the kindliest and +most generous time, alike the most contented and the boldest +time, in all the history of our frontiers. There never was a +better life than that of the cowman who had a good range on the +Plains and cattle enough to stock his range. There never will be +found a better man's country in all the world than that which ran +from the Missouri up to the low foothills of the Rockies. + +The lower cities took their tribute of the northbound cattle for +quite a time. Wichita, Coffeyville, and other towns of lower +Kansas in turn made bids for prominence as cattle marts. Agents +of the Chicago stockyards would come down along the trails into +the Indian Nations to meet the northbound herds and to try to +divert them to this or that market as a shipping-point. The +Kiowas and Comanches, not yet wholly confined to their +reservations, sometimes took tribute, whether in theft or in open +extortion, of the herds laboring upward through the long slow +season. Trail-cutters and herd-combers, licensed or unlicensed +hangers-on to the northbound throngs of cattle, appeared along +the lower trails--with some reason, occasionally; for in a great +northbound herd there might be many cows included under brands +other than those of the road brands registered for the drovers of +that particular herd. Cattle thieving became an industry of +certain value, rivaling in some localities the operations of the +bandits of the placer camps. There was great wealth suddenly to +be seen. The weak and the lawless, as well as the strong and the +unscrupulous, set out to reap after their own fashion where they +had not sown. If a grave here or there appeared along the trail +or at the edge of the straggling town, it mattered little. If the +gamblers and the desperadoes of the cow towns such as Newton, +Ellsworth, Abilene, Dodge, furnished a man for breakfast day +after day, it mattered little, for plenty of men, remained, as +good or better. The life was large and careless, and bloodshed +was but an incident. + +During the early and unregulated days of the cattle industry, the +frontier insisted on its own creed, its own standards. But all +the time, coming out from the East, were scores and hundreds of +men of exacter notions of trade and business. The enormous waste +of the cattle range could not long endure. The toll taken by the +thievery of the men who came to be called range-rustlers made an +element of loss which could not long be sustained by thinking +men. As the Vigilantes regulated things in the mining camps, so +now in slightly different fashion the new property owners on the +upper range established their own ideas, their own sense of +proportion as to law and order. The cattle associations, the +banding together of many owners of vast herds, for mutual +protection and mutual gain were a natural and logical +development. Outside of these there was for a time a highly +efficient corps of cattle-range Vigilantes, who shot and hanged +some scores of rustlers. + +It was a frenzied life while it lasted--this lurid outburst, the +last flare of the frontier. Such towns as Dodge and Ogallalla +offered extraordinary phenomena of unrestraint. But fortunately +into the worst of these capitals of license came the best men of +the new regime, and the new officers of the law, the agents of +the Vigilantes, the advance-guard of civilization now crowding on +the heels of the wild men of the West. In time the lights of the +dance-halls and the saloons and the gambling parlors went out one +by one all along the frontier. By 1885 Dodge City, a famed +capital of the cow trade, which will live as long as the history +of that industry is known, resigned its eminence and declared +that from where the sun then stood it would be a cow camp no +more! The men of Dodge knew that another day had dawned. But this +was after the homesteaders had arrived and put up their wire +fences, cutting off from the town the holding grounds of the +northbound herds. + +This innovation of barb-wire fences in the seventies had caused a +tremendous alteration of conditions over all the country. It had +enabled men to fence in their own water-fronts, their own +homesteads. Casually, and at first without any objection filed by +any one, they had included in their fences many hundreds of +thousands of acres of range land to which they had no title +whatever. These men--like the large-handed cow barons of the +Indian Nations, who had things much as they willed in a little +unnoted realm all their own--had money and political influence. +And there seemed still range enough for all. If a man wished to +throw a drift fence here or there, what mattered it? + +Up to this time not much attention had been paid to the Little +Fellow, the man of small capital who registered a brand of his +own, and who with a Maverick* here and there and the natural +increase, and perhaps a trifle of unnatural increase here and +there--had proved able to accumulate with more or less rapidity a +herd of his own. Now the cattle associations passed rules that no +foreman should be allowed to have or register a brand of his own. +Not that any foreman could be suspected--not at all!--but the +foreman who insisted on his old right to own a running iron and a +registered brand was politely asked to find his employment +somewhere else. + + * In the early days a rancher by the name of Maverick, a Texas +man, had made himself rich simply by riding out on the open range +and branding loose and unmarked occupants of the free lands. +Hence the term "Maverick" was applied to any unbranded animal +running loose on the range. No one cared to interfere with these +early activities in collecting unclaimed cattle. Many a +foundation for a great fortune was laid in precisely that way. It +was not until the more canny days in the North that Mavericks +were regarded with jealous eyes. + + +The large-handed and once generous methods of the old range now +began to narrow themselves. Even if the Little Fellow were able +to throw a fence around his own land, very often he did not have +land enough to support his herd with profit. A certain antipathy +now began to arise between the great cattle owners and the small +ones, especially on the upper range, where some rather bitter +wars were fought--the cow kings accusing their smaller rivals of +rustling cows; the small man accusing the larger operators of +having for years done the same thing, and of having grown rich at +it. + +The cattle associations, thrifty and shifty, sending their brand +inspectors as far east as the stockyards of Kansas City and +Chicago, naturally had the whip hand of the smaller men. They +employed detectives who regularly combed out the country in +search of men who had loose ideas of mine and thine. All the time +the cow game was becoming stricter and harder. Easterners brought +on the East's idea of property, of low interest, sure returns, +and good security. In short, there was set on once more--as there +had been in every great movement across the entire West-- the old +contest between property rights and human independence in +action. It was now once more the Frontier against the States, and +the States were foredoomed to win. + +The barb-wire fence, which was at first used extensively by the +great operators, came at last to be the greatest friend of the +Little Fellow on the range. The Little Fellow, who under the +provisions of the homestead act began to push West arid, to +depart farther and farther from the protecting lines of the +railways, could locate land and water for himself and fence in +both. "I've got the law back of me," was what he said; and what +he said was true. Around the old cow camps of the trails, and +around the young settlements which did not aspire to be called +cow camps, the homesteaders fenced in land--so much land that +there came to be no place near any of the shipping-points where a +big herd from the South could be held. Along the southern range +artificial barriers to the long drive began to be raised. It +would be hard to say whether fear of Texas competition or of +Texas cattle fever was the more powerful motive in the minds of +ranchers in Colorado and Kansas. But the cattle quarantine laws +of 1885 nearly broke up the long drive of that year. Men began to +talk of fencing off the trails, and keeping the northbound herds +within the fences--a thing obviously impossible. + +The railroads soon rendered this discussion needless. Their +agents went down to Texas and convinced the shippers that it +would be cheaper and safer to put their cows on cattle trains and +ship them directly to the ranges where they were to be delivered. +And in time the rails running north and south across the Staked +Plains into the heart of the lower range began to carry most of +the cattle. So ended the old cattle trails. + +What date shall we fix for the setting of the sun of that last +frontier? Perhaps the year 1885 is as accurate as any--the time +when the cattle trails practically ceased to bring north their +vast tribute. But, in fact, there is no exact date for the +passing of the frontier. Its decline set in on what day the first +lank "nester" from the States outspanned his sun-burned team as +he pulled up beside some sweet water on the rolling lands, +somewhere in the West, and looked about him, and looked again at +the land map held in his hand. + +"I reckon this is our land, Mother," said he. + +When he said that, he pronounced the doom of the old frontier. + + + +Chapter IX. The Homesteader + +His name was usually Nester or Little Fellow. It was the old +story of the tortoise and the hare. The Little Fellow was from +the first destined to win. His steady advance, now on this flank, +now on that, just back of the vanguard pushing westward, had +marked the end of all our earlier frontiers. The same story now +was being written on the frontier of the Plains. + +But in the passing of this last frontier the type of the +land-seeking man, the type of the American, began to alter +distinctly. The million dead of our cruel Civil War left a great +gap in the American population which otherwise would have +occupied the West and Northwest after the clearing away of the +Indians. For three decades we had been receiving a strong and +valuable immigration from the north of Europe. It was in great +part this continuous immigration which occupied the farming lands +of upper Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. Thus the population of +the Northwest became largely foreign. Each German or Scandinavian +who found himself prospering in this rich new country was himself +an immigration agency. He sent back word to his friends and +relatives in the Old World and these came to swell the steadily +thickening population of the New. + +We have seen that the enterprising cattlemen had not been slow to +reach out for such resources as they might. Perhaps at one time +between 1885 and 1890 there were over ten million acres of land +illegally fenced in on the upper range by large cattle companies. +This had been done without any color of law whatever; a man +simply threw out his fences as far as he liked, and took in range +enough to pasture all the cattle that he owned. His only pretext +was "I saw it first." For the Nester who wanted a way through +these fences out into the open public lands, he cherished a +bitter resentment. And yet the Nester must in time win through, +must eventually find the little piece of land which he was +seeking. + +The government at Washington was finally obliged to take action. +In the summer of 1885, acting under authorization of Congress, +President Cleveland ordered the removal of all illegal enclosures +and forbade any person or association to prevent the peaceful +occupation of the public land by homesteaders. The President had +already cancelled the leases by which a great cattle company had +occupied grazing lands in the Indian Territory. Yet, with +even-handed justice he kept the land boomers also out of these +coveted lands, until the Dawes Act of 1887 allotted the tribal +lands to the Indians in severalty and threw open the remainder to +the impatient homeseekers. Waiting thousands were ready at the +Kansas line, eager for the starting gun which was to let loose a +mad stampede of crazed human beings. + +It always was contended by the cowman that these settlers coming +in on the semi-arid range could not make a living there, that all +they could do was legally to starve to death some good woman. +True, many of them could not last out in the bitter combined +fight with nature and the grasping conditions of commerce and +transportation of that time. The western Canadian farmer of today +is a cherished, almost a petted being. But no one ever showed any +mercy to the American farmer who moved out West. + +As always has been the case, a certain number of wagons might be +seen passing back East, as well as the somewhat larger number +steadily moving westward. There were lean years and dry years, +hot years, yellow years here and there upon the range. The phrase +written on one disheartened farmer's wagon top, "Going back to my +wife's folks," became historic. + +The railways were finding profit in carrying human beings out to +the cow-range just as once they had in transporting cattle. +Indeed, it did not take the wiser railroad men long to see that +they could afford to set down a farmer, at almost no cost for +transportation, in any part of the new West. He would after that +be dependent upon the railroad in every way. The railroads +deliberately devised the great land boom of 1886, which was more +especially virulent in the State of Kansas. Many of the roads +had lands of their own for sale, but what they wanted most was +the traffic of the settlers. They knew the profit to be derived +from the industry of a dense population raising products which +must be shipped, and requiring imports which also must be +shipped. One railroad even offered choice breeding-stock free on +request. The same road, and others also, preached steadily the +doctrine of diversified farming. In short, the railroads, in +their own interests, did all they could to make prosperous the +farms or ranches of the West. The usual Western homestead now was +part ranch and part farm, although the term "ranch" continued for +many years to cover all the meanings of the farm of whatever +sort. + +There appeared now in the new country yet another figure of the +Western civilization, the land-boomer, with his irresponsible and +unregulated statements in regard to the values of these Western +lands. These men were not always desirable citizens, although of +course no industry was more solid or more valuable than that of +legitimate handling of the desirable lands. "Public spirit" +became a phrase now well known in any one of scores of new towns +springing up on the old cow-range, each of which laid claims to +be the future metropolis of the world. In any one of these towns +the main industry was that of selling lands or "real estate." +During the Kansas boom of 1886 the land-boomers had their desks +in the lobbies of banks, the windows of hardware stores--any +place and every place offering room for a desk and chair. + +Now also flourished apace the industry of mortgage loans. Eastern +money began to flood the western Plains, attracted by the high +rates of interest. In 1886 the customary banking interest in +western Kansas was two per cent a month. It is easy to see that +very soon such a state of affairs as this must collapse. The +industry of selling town lots far out in the cornfields, and of +buying unimproved subdivision property with borrowed money at +usurious rates of interest, was one riding for its own fall. + +None the less the Little Fellow kept on going out into the West. +We did not change our land laws for his sake, and for a time he +needed no sympathy. The homestead law in combination with the +preemption act and the tree claim act would enable a family to +get hold of a very sizable tract of land. The foundations of many +comfortable fortunes were laid in precisely this way by thrifty +men who were willing to work and willing to wait. + +It was not until 1917 that the old homestead law limiting the +settler to a hundred and sixty acres of land was modified for the +benefit of the stock-raiser. The stockraising homestead law, as +it is called, permits a man to make entry for not more than six +hundred and forty acres of unappropriated land which shall have +been designated by the Secretary of the Interior as "stockraising +land." Cultivation of the land is not required, but the holder is +required to make "permanent improvements" to the value of a +dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, and at least one-half of +these improvements must be made within three years after the date +of entry. In the old times the question of proof in "proving up" +was very leniently considered. A man would stroll down to the +land office and swear solemnly that he had lived the legal length +of time on his homestead, whereas perhaps he had never seen it or +had no more than ridden across it. Today matters perhaps will be +administered somewhat more strictly; for of all those millions of +acres of open land once in the West there is almost none left +worth the holding for farm purposes. + +Such dishonest practices were, however, indignantly denied by +those who fostered the irrigation and dryfarming booms which made +the last phase of exploitation of the old range. A vast amount of +disaster was worked by the failure of number less irrigation +companies, each of them offering lands to the settlers through +the medium of most alluring advertising. In almost every case the +engineers underestimated the cost of getting water on the land. +Very often the amount of water available was not sufficient to +irrigate the land which had been sold to settlers. In countless +cases the district irrigation bonds-which were offered broadcast +by Eastern banks to their small investors--were hardly worth the +paper on which they were written. One after another these wildcat +irrigation schemes, purporting to assure sudden wealth in apples, +pears, celery, garden truck, cherries, small fruits, alfalfa, +pecans, eucalyptus or catalpa trees-anything you liked--went to +the wall. Sometimes whole communities became straitened by the +collapse of these overblown enterprises. The recovery was slow, +though usually the result of that recovery was a far healthier +and more stable condition of society. + +This whole question of irrigation and dry farming, this or that +phase of the last scrambling, feverish settling on the last +lands, was sorely wasteful of human enterprise and human +happiness. It was much like the spawning rush of the salmon from +the sea. Many perish. A few survive. Certainly there never was +more cruel injustice done than that to the sober-minded Eastern +farmers, some of them young men in search of cheaper homes, who +sold out all they had in the East and went out to the dry country +to farm under the ditch, or to take up that still more hazardous +occupation--successful sometimes, though always hard and always +risky--dry farming on the benches which cannot be reached with +irrigating waters. + +Strangely changed was all the face of the cattle range by these +successive and startling innovations. The smoke of many little +homes rose now, scattered over all that tremendous country from +the Rockies to the edge of the short grass country, from Texas to +the Canadian line. The cattle were not banished from the range, +for each little farmer would probably have a few cows of his own; +and in some fashion the great cowmen were managing to get in fee +tracts of land sufficient for their purposes. There were land +leases of all sorts which enabled the thrifty Westerner who knew +the inside and out of local politics to pick up permanently +considerable tracts of land. Some of these ranches held together +as late as 1916; indeed, there are some such oldtime holdings +still existent in the West, although far more rare than formerly +was the case. + +Under all these conditions the price of land went up steadily. +Land was taken eagerly which would have been refused with +contempt a decade earlier. The parings and scraps and crumbs of +the Old West now were fought for avidly. + +The need of capital became more and more important in many of the +great land operations. Even the government reclamation +enterprises could not open lands to the settler on anything like +the old homestead basis. The water right cost money--sometimes +twenty-five or thirty dollars an acre; in some of the private +reclamation enterprises, fifty dollars an acre, or even more. +Very frequently when the Eastern farmer came out to settle on +such a tract and to meet the hard, new, and expensive conditions +of life in the semi-arid regions he found that he could not pay +out on the land. Perhaps he brought two or three thousand dollars +with him. It usually was the industrial mistake of the +land-boomer to take from this intending settler practically all +of his capital at the start. Naturally, when the new farmers were +starved out and in one way or another had made other plans, the +country itself went to pieces. That part of it was wisest which +did not kill the goose of the golden egg. But be these things as +they may be and as they were, the whole readjustment in +agricultural values over the once measureless and valueless cow +country was a stupendous and staggering thing. + +Now appeared yet another agency of change. The high dry lands of +many of the Rocky Mountain States had long been regarded +covetously by an industry even more cordially disliked by the +cattleman than the industry of farming. The sheepman began to +raise his head and to plan certain things for himself in turn. +Once the herder of sheep was a meek and lowly man, content to +slink away when ordered. The writer himself in the dry Southwest +once knew a flock of six thousand sheep to be rounded up and +killed by the cattlemen of a range into which they had intruded. +The herders went with the sheep. All over the range the feud +between the sheepmen and the cowmen was bitter and implacable. +The issues in those quarrels rarely got into the courts but were +fought out on the ground. The old Wyoming deadline of the cowmen +against intruding bands of Green River sheep made a considerable +amount of history which was never recorded. + +The sheepmen at length began to succeed in their plans. +Themselves not paying many taxes, not supporting the civilization +of the country, not building the schools or roads or bridges, +they none the less claimed the earth and the fullness thereof. + +After the establishment of the great forest reserves, the +sheepmen coveted the range thus included. It has been the +governmental policy to sell range privileges in the forest +reserves for sheep, on a per capita basis. Like privileges have +been extended to cattlemen in certain of the reserves. Always the +contact and the contest between the two industries of sheep and +cows have remained. Of course the issue even in this ancient +contest is foregone--as the cowman has had to raise his cows +under fence, so ultimately must the sheepman also buy his range +in fee and raise his product under fence. + +The wandering bands of sheep belong nowhere. They ruin a country. +It is a pathetic spectacle to see parts of the Old West in which +sheep steadily have been ranged. They utterly destroy all the +game; they even drive the fish out of the streams and cut the +grasses and weeds down to the surface of the earth. The denuded +soil crumbles under their countless hoofs, becomes dust, and +blows away. They leave a waste, a desert, an abomination. + +There were yet other phases of change which followed hard upon +the heels of our soldiers after they had completed their task of +subjugating the tribes of the buffalo Indians. After the +homesteads had been proved up in some of the Northwestern States, +such as Montana and the Dakotas, large bodies of land were +acquired by certain capitalistic farmers. All this new land had +been proved to be exceedingly prolific of wheat, the great +new-land crop. The farmers of the Northwest had not yet learned +that no country long can thrive which depends upon a single crop. +But the once familiar figures of the bonanza farms of the +Northwest--the pictures of their long lines of reapers or +selfbinders, twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty machines, one after +the other, advancing through the golden grain--the pictures of +their innumerable stacks of wheat--the figures of the vast +mileage of their fencing--the yet more stupendous figures of the +outlay required to operate these farms, and the splendid totals +of the receipts from such operations--these at one time were +familiar and proudly presented features of boom advertising in +the upper portions of our black land belt, which day just at the +eastern edge of the old Plains. + +There was to be repeated in this country something of the history +of California. In the great valleys, such as the San Joaquin, the +first interests were pastoral, and the cowmen found a vast realm +which seemed to be theirs forever. There came to them, however, +the bonanza wheat farmers, who flourished there about 1875 and +through the next decade. Their highly specialized industry +boasted that it could bake a loaf of bread out of a wheat field +between the hours of sunrise and sunset. The outlay in stock and +machinery on some of these bonanza ranches ran into enormous +figures. But here, as in all new wheat countries, the productive +power of the soil soon began to decrease. Little by little the +number of bushels per acre lessened, until the bonanza farmer +found himself with not half the product to sell which he had +owned the first few years of his operations. In one California +town at one time a bonanza farmer came in and covered three city +blocks with farm machinery which he had turned over to the bank +owning the mortgages on his lands and plant. He turned in also +all his mules and horses, and retired worse than broke from an +industry in which he had once made his hundreds of thousands. +Something of this same story was to follow in the Dakotas. +Presently we heard no more of the bonanza wheat farms; and a +little later they were not. The one-crop country is never one of +sound investing values; and a land boom is something of which to +beware--always and always to beware. + +The prairie had passed; the range had passed; the illegal fences +had passed; and presently the cattle themselves were to +pass--that is to say, the great herds. As recently as five years +ago (1912) it was my fortune to be in the town of Belle Fourche, +near the Black Hills--a region long accustomed to vivid history, +whether of Indians, mines, or cows--at the time when the last of +the great herds of the old industry thereabouts were breaking up; +and to see, coming down to the cattle chutes to be shipped to the +Eastern stockyards, the last hundreds of the last great Belle +Fourche herd, which was once numbered in thousands. They came +down out of the blue-edged horizon, threading their way from +upper benches down across the dusty valley. The dust of their +travel rose as it had twenty years earlier on the same old trail. +But these were not the same cattle. There was not a longhorn +among them; there has not been a longhorn on the range for many +years. They were sleek, fat, well-fed animals, heavy and stocky, +even of type, all either whitefaces or shorthorns. With them were +some old-time cowmen, men grown gray in range work. Alongside the +herds, after the ancient fashion of trailing cattle, rode cowboys +who handled their charges with the same old skill. But even the +cowboys had changed. These were without exception men from the +East who had learned their trade here in the West. Here indeed +was one of the last acts of the great drama of the Plains. To +many an observer there it was a tragic thing. I saw many a cowman +there the gravity on whose face had nothing to do with commercial +loss. It was the Old West he mourned. I mourned with him. +Naturally the growth of the great stockyards of the Middle West +had an effect upon all the cattle-producing country of the West, +whether those cattle were bred in large or in small numbers. The +dealers of the stockyards, let us say, gradually evolved a +perfect understanding among themselves as to what cattle prices +ought to be at the Eastern end of the rails. They have always +pleaded poverty and explained the extremely small margin of +profit under which they have operated. Of course, the repeated +turn-over in their business has been an enormous thing; and their +industry, since the invention of refrigerator cars and the +shipment of dressed beef in tins, has been one which has extended +to all the corners of the world. The great packers would rather +talk of "by-products" than of these things. Always they have been +poor, so very poor! + +For a time the railroads east of the stockyard cities of Kansas +City and Chicago divided up pro rata the dressed beef traffic. +Investigation after investigation has been made of the methods of +the stockyard firms, but thus far the law has not laid its hands +successfully upon them. Naturally of late years the extremely +high price of beef has made greater profit to the cattle raiser; +but that man, receiving eight or ten cents a pound on the hoof, +is not getting rich so fast as did his predecessor, who got half +of it, because he is now obliged to feed hay and to enclose his +range. Where once a half ton of hay might have been sufficient to +tide a cow over the bad part of the winter, the Little Fellow who +fences his own range of a few hundred acres is obliged to figure +on two or three tons, for he must feed his herd on hay through +the long months of the winter. + +The ultimate consumer, of course, is the one who pays the freight +and stands the cost of all this. Hence we have the swift growth +of American discontent with living conditions. There is no longer +land for free homes in America. This is no longer a land of +opportunity. It is no longer a poor man's country. We have +arrived all too swiftly upon the ways of the Old World. And +today, in spite of our love of peace, we are in an Old World's +war! + +The insatiable demand of Americans for cheap lands assumed a +certain international phase at the period lying between 1900 and +1913 or later--the years of the last great boom in Canadian +lands. The Dominion Government, represented by shrewd and +enterprising men able to handle large undertakings, saw with a +certain satisfaction of its own the swift passing from the market +of all the cheap lands of the United States. It was proved to the +satisfaction of all that very large tracts of the Canadian plains +also would raise wheat, quite as well as had the prairies of +Montana or Dakota. The Canadian railroads, with lands to sell, +began to advertise the wheat industry in Alberta and +Saskatchewan. The Canadian Government went into the publicity +business on its own part. To a certain extent European +immigration was encouraged, but the United States really was the +country most combed out for settlers for these Canadian lands. As +by magic, millions of acres in western Canada were settled. + +The young American farmers of our near Northwest were especially +coveted as settlers, because they knew how to farm these upper +lands far better than any Europeans, and because each of them was +able to bring a little capital of ready money into Canada. The +publicity campaign waged by Canadians in our Western States in +one season took away more than a hundred and fifty thousand good +young farmers, resolved to live under another flag. In one year +the State of Iowa lost over fifteen million dollars of money +withdrawn from bank deposits by farmers moving across the line +into Canada. + +The story of these land rushes was much the same there as it had +been with us. Not all succeeded. The climatic conditions were far +more severe than any which we had endured, and if the soil for a +time in some regions seemed better than some of our poorest, at +least there waited for the one-crop man the same future which had +been discovered for similar methods within our own confines. But +the great Canadian land booms, carefully fostered and well +developed, offered a curious illustration of the tremendous +pressure of all the populations of the world for land and yet +more land. + +In the year 1911 the writer saw, all through the Peace River +Valley and even in the neighborhood of the Little Slave Lake, the +advance-guard of wheat farmers crowding out even beyond the +Canadian frontier in the covetous search for yet more cheap land. +In 1912 I talked with a school teacher, who herself had homestead +land in the Judith Basin of Montana--once sacred to cows--and who +was calmly discussing the advisability of going up into the Peace +River country to take up yet more homestead land under the +regulations of the Dominion Government! In the year 1913 I saw an +active business done in town lots at Fort McMurray, five hundred +miles north of the last railroad of Alberta, on the ancient +Athabasca waterway of the fur trade! + +Who shall state the limit of all this expansion? The farmer has +ever found more and more land on which he could make a living; he +is always taking land which his predecessor has scornfully +refused. If presently there shall come the news that the land +boomer has reached the mouth of the Mackenzie River--as long ago +he reached certain portions of the Yukon and Tanana country--if +it shall be said that men are now selling town lots under the +Midnight Sun--what then? We are building a government railroad of +our own almost within shadow of Mount McKinley in Alaska. There +are steamboats on all these great sub-Arctic rivers. Perhaps, +some day, a power boat may take us easily where I have stood, +somewhat wearied, at that spot on the Little Bell tributary of +the Porcupine, where a slab on a post said, "Portage Road to Ft. +McPherson"--a "road" which is not even a trail, but which crosses +the most northerly of all the passes of the Rockies, within a +hundred miles of the Arctic Ocean. + +Land, land, more land! It is the cry of the ages, more imperative +and clamorous now than ever in the history of the world and only +arrested for the time by the cataclysm of the Great War. The +earth is well-nigh occupied now. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, +even Africa, are colonization grounds. What will be the story of +the world at the end of the Great War none may predict. For the +time there will be more land left in Europe; but, unbelievably +soon, the Great War will have been forgotten; and then the march +of the people will be resumed toward such frontiers of the world +as yet may remain. Land, land, more land! + +Always in America we have occupied the land as fast as it was +feasible to do so. We have survived incredible hardships on the +mining frontier, have lived through desperate social conditions +in the cow country, have fought many of our bravest battles in +the Indian country. Always it has been the frontier which has +allured many of our boldest souls. And always, just back of the +frontier, advancing, receding, crossing it this way and that, +succeeding and failing, hoping and despairing--but steadily +advancing in the net result--has come that portion of the +population which builds homes and lives in them, and which is not +content with a blanket for a bed and the sky for a roof above. + +We had a frontier once. It was our most priceless possession. It +has not been possible to eliminate from the blood of the American +West, diluted though it has been by far less worthy strains, all +the iron of the old home-bred frontiersmen. The frontier has been +a lasting and ineradicable influence for the good of the United +States. It was there we showed our fighting edge, our +unconquerable resolution, our undying faith. There, for a time at +least, we were Americans. + +We had our frontier. We shall do ill indeed if we forget and +abandon its strong lessons, its great hopes, its splendid human +dreams. + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +ANDY ADAMS, "The Log of a Cowboy," 1903. "The Outlet," 1905. +Homely but excellently informing books done by a man rarely +qualified for his task by long experience in the cattle business +and on the trail. Nothing better exists than Adams's several +books for the man who wishes trustworthy information on the early +American cattle business. + +GEORGE A. FORSYTH, "The Story of the Soldier," 1900. + +GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, "The Story of the Indian," 1895. + +EMERSON HOUGH, "The Story of the Cowboy," 1897. + +CHARLES HOWARD SHINN, "The Story of the Mine," 1901. + +CY WARMAN, "The Story of the Railroad," 1898. The foregoing books +of Appleton's interesting series known as "The Story of the West" +are valuable as containing much detailed information, done by +contemporaries of wide experience. + +FRANCIS PARKMAN, "The Oregon Trail," 1901, with preface by the +author to the edition of 18991. This is a reprint of the edition +published in 1857 under the title "Prairie and Rocky Mountain +Life," or "The California and Oregon Trail," and has always been +held as a classic in the literature of the West. It holds a +certain amount of information regarding life on the Plains at the +middle of the last century. The original title is more accurate +than the more usual one "The Oregon Trail," as the book itself is +in no sense an exclusive study of that historic highway. + +COLONEL R. B. MARCY, U. S. A., "Thirty Years of Army Life on the +Border," 1866. An admirable and very informing book done by an +Army officer who was also a sportsman and a close observer of the +conditions of the life about him. One of the standard books for +any library of early Western literature. + +EMERSON HOUGH, "The Story of the Outlaw," 1907. A study of the +Western desperado, with historical narratives of famous outlaws, +stories of noted border movements, Vigilante activities, and +armed conflicts on the border. + +NATHANIEL PITT LANGFORD, "Vigilante Days and Ways," 1893. A +storehouse of information done in graphic anecdotal fashion of +the scenes in the early mining camps of Idaho and Montana. +Valuable as the work of a contemporary writer who took part in +the scenes he describes. + +JOHN C. VAN TRAMP, "Prairie and Rocky Mountain Adventures or Life +in the West," 1870. A study of the States and territorial regions +of our Western empire, embracing history, statistics, and +geography, with descriptions of the chief cities of the West. In +large part a compilation of earlier Western literature. + +SAMUEL BOWLES, "Our New West," 1869. Records of travel between +the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, with details +regarding scenery, agriculture, mines, business, social life, +etc., including a full description of the Pacific States and +studies of the "Mormons, Indians, and Chinese" at that time. + +HIRAM MARTIN CHITTENDEN, "The American Fur Trade of the Far +West," 1902. The work of a distinguished Army officer. Done with +the exact care of an Army engineer. An extraordinary collection +of facts and a general view of the picturesque early industry of +the fur trade, which did so much toward developing the American +West. See also his "History of Steamboat Navigation on the +Missouri River" (1903). + +A. J. SOWELL, "Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest +Texas," 1900. A local book, but done with contemporary accuracy +by a man who also studied the Texas Rangers and who was familiar +with some of the earlier frontier characters of the Southwest. + +The foregoing volumes are of course but a few among the many +scores or hundreds which will have been read avidly by every man +concerned with frontier life or with the expansion of the +American people to the West. Space lacks for a fuller list, but +the foregoing readings will serve to put upon the trail of wider +information any one interested in these and kindred themes. + +Let especial stress again be laid upon the preeminent value of +books done by contemporaries, men who wrote, upon the ground, of +things which they actually saw and actually understood. It is not +always, or perhaps often, that these contemporary books achieve +the place which they ought to have and hold. + +Among the many books dealing with the Indians and Indian Wars, +the following may be mentioned: J. P. DUNN, "Massacres of the +Mountains, A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West," 1886. + +L. E. TEXTOR, "Official Relations between the United States and +the Sioux Indians," 1896. + +G. W. MANYPENNY, "Our Indian Wards," 1880. + +There is an extensive bibliography appended to Frederic L. +Paxson's "The Last American Frontier" (1910), the first book to +bring together the many aspects of the Far West. + + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Passing of the Frontier +by Emerson Hough + |