Buffalo Land Part 21

While breakfast was preparing next morning, some fiend suggested to one of our Mexican teamsters that the Americans might like a taste of Mexico's standard dish, "chile," of which, the fellow said, he had a good supply in his wagon-chest. Shamus was consulted, and a.s.sented at once, seeming delighted with the prospects of astonis.h.i.+ng our palates with a new sensation. Know, O reader, of an inquiring mind, that chile consists of red pepper, served as a boiling hot sauce, or stew. It is believed to have been invented by the Evil One, and immediately adopted in Mexico.

Shamus succeeded admirably in his design of concocting a sensation for us. Our alderman was _ex-officio_ the epicure of the party, half of his duties as a New York city father having been to study carefully all known flavors. He always tasted new dishes, and on our behalf accepted or rejected them. When, therefore, the savory stew came before us, he experimented with a mouthful. Immediately thereafter a commotion arose in camp, and Shamus fled before the righteous wrath of Sachem.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE BLOCK-HOUSE ON THE SOLOMON--HOW THE OLD MAN DIED--WACONDA DA--LEGEND OF WA-BOG-AHA AND HEWGAW--SABBATH MORNING--SACHEM'S POETICAL EPITAPH--AN ALARM--BATTLE BETWEEN AN EMIGRANT AND THE INDIANS--WAS IT THE SYDNEYS?--TO THE RESCUE--AN ELK HUNT--ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP--NOVEL MODE OF HUNTING TURKEYS--IN CAMP ON THE SOLOMON--A WARM WELCOME.

On the second day we reached the Solomon, and directed our course down its valley. Shamus' face was as bright as if he was about to blow up an English prison, which, for so p.r.o.nounced a Fenian, indicated a happiness of the very highest degree. It was evident that Irish Mary had hold of the other end of our cook's heart-strings, and was twitching them merrily. Cupid had indeed found us in the solitude, and, as Sachem expressed it, was "whanging away" at two of our number, at least, most remorselessly.

Two days' ride brought us to the forks of the river, where a block-house had been built a year or two before, and in which we expected to find a resident. Since its abandonment by the troops, it had been occupied by an elderly man, known as Doctor Rose, who, solitary and alone, was holding this frontier post, that, when civilization came, he might possess it as a farm. We were disappointed. The barricade was deserted, and every thing about it as silent as the grave. No curling smoke uprose among the trees, and the everlasting hills and dusky prairies stretched away on all sides in weird, wild desolation. We shook the door, and called, but found no answer. It was fastened upon the inside, and as we had no right to force it, we pa.s.sed on, and encamped by the "Waconda Da," or Great Spirit Salt Spring, a few miles below.

We did not suppose that the old man we had sought was so near us. Up on a high ridge only a short distance off, his body was lying, another victim of Indian murder. Savages had been raiding through the settlements below, and thinking himself exposed, he had contrived to fasten the door of the block-house from the outside, and attempted to escape in the night. No one but the red murderers saw the old man die, and how and when they met him will never be known; but his body was found near the roadside, where the path wound over a high ridge, and within sight of the Waconda, and there it was afterward laid in its lonely sepulcher by his sorrowing family.

Down on a creek below, the savages, on the previous evening, had been sweeping off the thin line of settlements, as a broom sweeps spiders'

houses from the wall. Perhaps some dark demon eye, glancing up from the crimson trail, saw the old man, bending under the weight of years, feebly trying to save the few remaining days left him, and turned pitilessly aside to hurl him into that grave which, at best, could not be far off. No struggle was visible where he fell, and it is probable that they approached him with a treacherous "How, how?" and a hand-shake, and, as he gave the grasp of friends.h.i.+p, struck him down, and launched him into eternity.

Waconda Da, Great Spirit Salt Spring, is among the most remarkable natural curiosities of the West, and is held in great reverence by the native tribes. It presents the appearance of a large conical ma.s.s of rock, about forty feet high, shaped like an inverted bowl, and smooth as mason-work. In the center of its upper surface, is the spring, shallow at the rim, and in the middle having a well-like opening, about twenty feet in depth. Into this pool the Indians cast their offerings, ranging from old blankets to stolen watches, thereby to appease the Great Spirit. (From his location, Sachem thought the latter must be an old salt.)

We fished with a hooked stick for some time, and were rewarded by bringing up a ragged blanket and a shattered gunstock. All around the rim of the opening were incrustations of salt, and the brackish water trickled over, and ran in little rivulets down the huge sides. At the base of the rock, a dead buffalo was fast in the mud, having died where he mired, while licking the Great Spirit's brackish altar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WACONDA DA--GREAT SPIRIT SALT SPRING.]

As no remarkable spot in Indian land should ever be brought before the public without an accompanying legend, I shall present one, selected out of several such, which has attached itself to this. To make tourists fully appreciate a high bluff or picturesquely dangerous spot, it is absolutely essential that some fond lovers should have jumped down it, hand-in-hand, in sight of the cruel parents, who struggle up the incline, only to be rewarded by the heart-rending _finale_. This, then, is

THE LEGEND OF WACONDA.

Many moons ago--no orthodox Indian story ever commenced without this expression--a red maiden, named Hewgaw, fell in love. (And I may here be permitted to quote a theory of Alderman Sachem's, to the effect that Eve's daughters generally fall into every thing, including hysterics, mistakes, and the fas.h.i.+ons.) Hewgaw was a chief's daughter, and encouraged a savage to sue for her hand who, having scalped but a dozen women and children, was only high private or "big soldier." Chief and lover were quickly by the ears, and the fiat went forth that Wa-bog-aha must bring four more scalps, before aspiring to the position of son-in-law. This seemed as impossible as Jason's task of old. War had existed for some time, and, as there was no chance for surprises, scalp-gathering was a harvest of danger.

There seemed no alternative but to run for it, and so, gathering her bundle, Hewgaw sallied out from the first and only story of the paternal abode, as modern young ladies, in similar emergencies, do from the third or fourth. Through the tangled ma.s.ses of the forest, the red lovers departed, and just at dawn were pa.s.sing by the Waconda Spring, into whose waters all good Indians throw an offering. Wa-bog-aha either forgot or did not wish to do so. Instantly the spring commenced bubbling wrathfully. So far, the Great Spirit had guided the lovers; now, he frowned. An immense column of salt water shot out of Waconda high into air, and its brackish spray dashed furiously into the faces of Wa-bog-aha and Hewgaw, and drove them back.

The saltish torrent deluged the surrounding plains--putting every thing into a pretty pickle, as may well be imagined. The ground was so soaked that the salt marshes of Western Kansas still remain to tell of it, and, a portion of the flood draining off, formed the famous "salt plains."

Along the Arkansas and in the Indian Territory, the incrustations are yet found, covering thousands of acres. The Kansas River, for hours, was as brackish as the ocean, its strangely seasoned waters pouring into the Missouri, and from thence into the Mississippi. It was this, according to tradition, which caused such a violent retching by the Father of Waters, in 1811. The current flowed backward, and vessels were rocked violently--phenomena then ascribed by the materialistic white man to an earthquake.

Too late the luckless pair saw their mistake, and started for the summit of Waconda, just as the angry father put in his very unwelcome appearance. Had they avoided looking toward the spring, all, perchance, might yet have been well. Without exception, the medicine men had written it in their annals that no eye but their own must ever gaze back at Waconda, after once pa.s.sing it. Tradition explains that this was to avoid semblance of regret for gifts there offered the Great Spirit.

Sachem, however, is of the opinion that in giving these orders the medicine men had the gifts in their eye, and simply wished time to put them in their pockets. Hewgaw could not resist the temptation to peep.

Immediately around the rock all was quiet, while without the narrow circle the descending torrents were dashed fiercely by the winds. The beasts of the plains, in countless numbers, came rus.h.i.+ng in toward the Waconda, their forms white with coatings of salt, and probably representing the largest amount of corned meat ever gathered in one place.

All the brute eyes--knightly elk, kingly bison, and currish wolves--were turned toward the top where Wa-bog-aha and Hewgaw stood, casting their valuables, as appeasing morsels, into the hissing spring. It refused to be quieted. Suddenly, the lovers were nowhere visible, and the salt storm ceased. Nothing could be found by the afflicted father, except a tress of his daughter's hair--perhaps her chignon.

The old chief declared that, just as the end was approaching, the clouds were full of beautiful colors, and the air glittered with diamonds. The white man's science, however, coldly a.s.sumes that these appearances were only the rainbows and their reflections, playing amidst the crystal salt shower.

Sabbath morning dawned upon our camp, and according to our usual custom, we lay by for the day. At ten o'clock, the Professor read the morning service. It must have been a strange scene that we presented, while uncouth teamsters and all--our family-pew the wide valley, with its seats of stones, and logs--sat listening to the beautiful language that told how the faith of which Christianity was born was cradled in a land as primitive and desolate as that which we were traversing. There, the wild Arab hordes hovered over the deserts; here, America's savage tribes do the same over the plains.

Our priest stood near one of Nature's grandest altar pieces, "Waconda Da." Reverence from the most irreverent is secured among such scenes and solitudes. Away from his fellows, man's soul instinctively looks upward, and yearns for some power mightier than himself to which to cling. The brittle straw of Atheism snaps when called upon for support under these circ.u.mstances, and the blasphemy which was bold and loud among the haunts of men, here is hushed into silence, or even awed into reverential fear.

The Professor improved the opportunity to deliver an excellent discourse upon the wonderful evidences of G.o.d's power which geology is daily revealing. His peroration was quite flowery, and in a strain very much as follows:

"Science is yet in its infancy, and many things which seem dark to us will be clear to our descendants. Future generations will doubtless wonder at our boiler explosions, and our railroad accidents. Lightning expresses will be used only for freight, while machines navigating the air, at one hundred miles an hour, will carry the pa.s.sengers. Steam, electricity, and the magnetic needle have all been open to man's appropriative genius ever since the world offered him a home, and yet he has only just now comprehended them. The future will see instruments boring thousands of feet into the earth in a day, and developing measures and mysteries which the world is not now ripe for understanding. Perhaps, the telescopes of another century may bring our descendants face to face with the life of the heavenly bodies, and give us glimpses of the inhabitants at their daily avocations. Who knows but that the beings who people other worlds in the infinite ocean of s.p.a.ce around us, compared with which worlds our little planet is insignificant indeed, are able, by the use of more powerful instruments than any with which we are acquainted, to hold us in constant review? Our battles they may look upon as we would the conflicts of ants, and they wonder, perchance, why so quarrelsome a world is permitted to exist at all."

Next morning Sachem was up at daybreak, examining the spot where Hewgaw and Wa-bog-aha met their fate, and underwent their iridescent annihilation. His offering to their memory we found after breakfast, tacked up in a prominent position beside the spring. The inscription, evidently intended as a sort of epitaph, was written on the cover of a cracker-box, and struck me as so peculiar that I was at the pains of transcribing it among our notes. I give it to the reader for the purpose, princ.i.p.ally, of showing the unconquerable antipathies of an alderman.

IN MEMORIAM.

Lot's wife, you remember, looked back, (What woman could ever refrain?) And instantly stood in her track A pillar of salt on the plain.

If all were thus cursed for the fault, Who peep when forbidden to look, The feminine pillars of salt Could never be written in book.

Hewgaw was an Indian belle Which no one could ring--she was fickle; Some scores of her lovers there fell (Where she did at last) in a pickle.

Thus salt is the only thing known Entirely certain of keeping Flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, Out of the habit of peeping.

Unless the tradition has lied, Our maiden may claim, with good reason, That she is a well-preserved bride, And certainly bride of a season.

Wa-bog-aha big was a brave-- The Great Spirit salted him down: Braves seldom get corned in the grave, They 're oftener corned in the town.

My rhyming, you find, is saline, Quite brackish its toning and end; The moral--far better to pine Than wed and get "salted," my friend.

Soon after sunrise we took our way down the river, intending to reach the Sydney farm on the following day, and there spend the necessary time in preparing our specimens for immediate s.h.i.+pment when we should arrive at Solomon City. The Professor made desperate efforts to appear entirely wrapped up in science, and his devotion to geology was something wonderful. Hitherto he had been inclined to urge us forward, but now he made a show of holding us back. Did he do so with a knowledge that our necessities for food and forage would be sufficient spur, and was he simply s.h.i.+elding his weak side from Sachem's attacks?

We had proceeded but a few miles on our journey, when the guide rode back, and reported fresh pony tracks across the road ahead of us. This was an unquestionable Indian sign, but as the trail seemed to be leading north, we took no precaution; our route was over a high divide, where ambus.h.i.+ng was impossible.

Approaching Limestone Creek, the road wound down the face of a precipitous bluff, into the valley below. We had just commenced the descent, when the now familiar cry of "Injuns!" came back from the men in front, and following closely on the cry we heard the echoing report of firearms. We looked in the direction of the sound, and saw close to the trees an emigrant wagon, while beyond it, but at fully one hundred yards' distance, four or five Indians were riding back and forth in semi-circles, and firing pistols. The emigrant stood beside his oxen, with rifle in readiness, but apparently reserving his fire.

"That man knows his biz!" exclaimed our guide, as he urged the teams forward, that we might afford rescue. "Injuns never b.u.mp up agin a loaded gun."

A gleam of calico was visible in the wagon, and another rifle barrel, held by female hands, seemed peering out in front. The general aspect of the a.s.sailed outfit reminded us strongly of the Sydney family, and suspicion was strengthened by a very unscientific yell from the Professor, as he started off at break-neck speed down the bluff for a rescue, with no other weapon whatever in his hand than a small hammer he had just been using for breaking stones. Mr. Colon seemed equally demented, following close upon Paleozoic's heels with a bug-net. Shamus, at the moment, happened to be astride his donkey, and giving an Irish war-whoop which reached even to the scene of combat, straightway charged over the limestone ledges in a cloud of white dust. Our appearance upon the scene was a surprise to Lo. The Indians stood not upon the order of their going, but "lit out on the double-quick," as our guide expressed it, and were soon out of sight.

We found that the emigrants were named Burns, the family comprising the parents and their two children. The man stated that he had no fear of the savages. He had been twice across the plains, and made it a rule never to throw a shot away. "If they can draw your fire," said he, "the fellows will charge. But they don't want to look into a loaded gun."

Mrs. Burns had come to her husband's rescue with an expedient worthy the wife of a frontiersman. Having no gun, she pointed from under the canva.s.s the handle of a broom. This, being woman's favorite weapon, was handled so skillfully that the savages imagined it another rifle. In our log-book she was chronicled at once as fully the equal of that revolutionary hero, who one evening made prisoner of a British officer, by crooking an American sausage into the semblance of a pistol, and presenting it at the Englishman's breast.

There were two of our party who did not rejoice as they should have done, after rendering such timely aid to the Burns family. How romantic had the rescued party only proved to be the one which was at first suspected!

Where this little scene occurred, there are homesteads now, which will soon develop into thrifty farms. The blessing of a railroad can not be long deferred. A year, a month, even a week sometimes, makes wonderful changes in Buffalo Land, when the tide of immigration is rolling forward upon it. Before the present year is ended, the beautiful valley of Limestone Creek will be teeming with civilized life, and the savage red man, there is good reason to believe, has departed from it forever.

After bidding the Burns family good-bye, we traveled without further adventure until near noon, when the guide rode back, and directed our attention to some elk, which he pointed out, some distance ahead. The bodies of the herd were hidden by a ridge, but above its brown line we could plainly see their great antlers, looking like the branches of trees, moving slowly along. There was but one method of getting near the game, and that was immediately adopted. Up the side of the sloping ridge we carefully crawled, and, reaching the summit, peeped over. Half a dozen big antlered fellows, and as many does, were feeding along the slope below. Only one of them, a splendid male, was within shooting distance at all, and even for it the range was long. The guide and Muggs fired together, breaking the poor creature's shoulder.

What a startled stare the n.o.ble animals flashed back at the crack of the rifles, and how quickly they disappeared. Their trot was perfectly grand--great, firm strokes which seemed to fairly fling the bodies onward. We had hardly time to realize having fired, when their tails bade us distant adieu. It is said that no horse can keep up with the trot of the elk. If charged upon suddenly, however, from close quarters, he is frightened into an awkward gallop, and may then be overtaken easily.

Our wounded game looked formidable, and we approached cautiously. He made several efforts to run, but each time fell forward, in plunging slides, on his nose and side, rubbing the hair from the latter, and daubing the ground with blood from his nostrils. Muggs felt free to confess that even the pampered stags of England, when perilously roused from their well-kept glens, by over-fed hunters in killing coats and boots, never presented such a picture of wild beauty and agony, colored just the least bit with danger. At this "kill" we lost our black hound.

Tempted to incaution by the sight of the n.o.ble elk standing wounded and at bay, or else excited by its blood, the dog sprang forward. A chance blow of the ma.s.sive horns knocked him over, and in an instant more the beast had stamped him to death.