University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
EL VAQUERO.

DESCENDING the mountain range that
then divided California from Oregon, I fell
in with a sour, flinty-faced old man, with a
band of horses, which he was driving to the lower
settlements of California. He was short of help,
and proposed to take me into his employ for the
round trip, promising to pay me whatever my
services were worth. Glad of an opportunity to do
something at least in a new land, I scarcely thought
of the consideration, but eagerly accepted his offer,
and was enrolled as a vaquero along with a motley
set of half Indians from the north, and Mexicans
from the south.

Our duties were light, and the employment pleasant
and congenial to my nature. It was, in fact,
about the only thing I was then fit for in that strange
new country, boiling and surging with hosts of strong
men, rushing hither and thither in search of gold.
Our work consisted in keeping the saddle eight or

ten hours a day, leading or following after the horses,
camping under the trees, and now and then keeping
alternate watch over the stock by night.

We were miserably fed, and half frozen while in
the mountains, but we soon descended into the quiet
Sacramento valley, where the nights are warm with
perpetual summer.

The old drover, whose great vice was avarice,
quarrelled with his men at Los Angelos, whither he
had gone to get a herd of Mexican horses after disposing
of the American stock, to take with him on
the back trip, and only escaped by adroitly suing
out warrants, and leaving them all there in
goal for threatening his life. The cause of the
trouble was the old man's avarice. He had made a
loose contract with the roving vaqueros, and on
settlement refused to pay them scarcely a tithe of
their earnings. I remained with him. We returned
to the north with a great herd of half-wild horses,
driven by a band of almost perfectly wild men: men
of all nationalities and conditions, though chiefly
Mexicans, all anxious to reach the rich mines of the
north.

Drovers in this country always leave the line of
travel and all frequented roads that they may obtain
fresh grass for their stock. In the long, long journey
north we passed through many tribes of Indians, and
except in the mountains, I noticed that all the

Indians from Southern to Northern California were
low, shiftless, indolent, and cowardly. The moment
we touched the mountains we seemed to touch a new
current of blood.

The old man left his motley army of vaqueros
mostly to me, and I was practically captain of the
caravan. Not unfrequently, of a morning, we would
find ourselves short of a Mexican, who had disappeared
in the night with one of the best horses. Sometimes
in the daytime these men would get sulky and
cross with the cold and cruel old master, and ride off
before his face. These men would have to be replaced
by others, picked up here and there, of a still
more questionable character.

We reached Northern California after a long and
lonely journey, through wild and fertile valleys, with
only the smoke of wigwams curling from the fringe
of trees that hemmed them in, or from the river bank
that cleft the little Edens to disprove the fancy that
here might have been the Paradise and here the scene
of the expulsion.

We crossed flashing rivers, still white and clear,
that since have become turbid yellow pools with
barren banks of boulders, shorn of their overhanging
foliage, and drained of flood by ditches that the
resolute miner has led even around the mountain
tops.

On entering Pit River Valley we met with thousands

of Indians, gathered there for the purpose of
fishing, perhaps, but they kindly assisted us across
the two branches of the river, and gave no signs of
ill-will

We pushed far up the valley in the direction of
Yreka, and there pitched camp, for the old man
wished to recruit his horses on the rich meadows of
wild grass before driving them to town for market.

We camped against a high spur of a long timbered
hill, that terminated abruptly at the edge of the valley.
A clear stream of water full of trout, with willow-lined
banks, wound through the length of the
narrow valley, entirely hidden in the long grass and
leaning willows.

The Pit River Indians did not visit us here, neither
did the Modocs, and we began to hope we were entirely
hidden, in the deep narrow little valley, from
all Indians, both friendly and unfriendly, until one
evening some young men, calling themselves Shastas,
came into the camp. They were very friendly, however,
were splendid horsemen, and assisted to bring
in and corral the horses like old vaqueros.

Our force was very small, in fact we had then
less than half-a-dozen men; and the old man, for a day
or two, employed two of these young fellows to attend
and keep watch about the horses. One morning
three of our vaqueros mounted and rode off, cursing
my sour old master for some real or fancied wrong,

and then he had but one white person with him
beside myself, so that the two young Indians had to
be retained.

Some weeks wore on pleasantly enough, when we
began to prepare to strike camp for Yreka. Thus far
we had not seen the sign of a Modoc Indian.

It was early in the morning. The rising sun was
streaming up the valley, through the fringe of fir and
cedar trees. The Indian boys and I had just returned
from driving the herd of horses a little way down
the stream. The old man and his companion were
sitting at breakfast, with their backs to the high bare
wall with its crown of trees. The Indians were
taking our saddle-horses across the little stream to
tether them there on fresh grass, and I was walking
idly towards the camp, only waiting for my tawny
young companions. Crack! crash! thud!!

The two men fell on their faces and never uttered
a word. Indians were running down the little lava
mountain side, with bows and rifles in their hands,
and the hanging, rugged brow of the hill was curling
in smoke. The Ben Wright tragedy was bearing its
fruits.

I started to run, and ran with all my might towards
where I had left the Indian boys. I remember distinctly
thinking how cowardly it was to run and desert
the wounded men, with the Indians upon them,
and I also remember thinking that when I got to the

[ILLUSTRATION]

AT A DISADVANTAGE

[Description: 645EAF. Illustration page. An Indian towers over a caucasian, brandishing a club. The white man cowers on the ground, and has dropped his gun. In the background are pine trees and a horse.]

first bank of willows I would turn and fire, for I had
laid hold of the pistol in my belt, and could have
fired, and should have done so, but I was thoroughly
frightened, and no doubt if I had succeeded in reaching
the willows I would have thought it best to go
still further before turning about.

How rapidly one thinks at such a time, and how
distinctly one remembers every thought.

All this, however, was but a flash, the least part of
an instant. Some mounted Indians that had been
stationed up the valley darted out at the first shot,
and one of them was upon me before I saw him, for
I was only concerned with the Indians pouring down
the little hill out of the smoke into the camp.

I was struck down by a club, or some hard heavy
object, maybe the pole of a hatchet, possibly only a
horse's hoof, as he plunged in the air.

When I recovered, which must have been some
minutes after, an Indian was rolling me over and
pulling at the red Mexican sash around my waist.
He was a powerful savage, painted red, half-naked,
and held a war-club in his hand. I clutched tight
around one of his naked legs with both my arms.
He tried to shake me off, but I only clutched the
tighter. I looked up, and his terrible face almost
froze my blood. I relaxed my hold from want of
strength. I shut my eyes, expecting the war-club
to crash through my brain and end the matter at

once, but he only laughed, as much as an Indian ever
allows himself to laugh, and winding the red sash
around him strode down the valley.

My pistol was gone. I crept through the grass
into the stream, then down the stream to where it
nearly touched the forest, and climbed over and slipped
into the wood.

From the timber rim I looked back, but could see
nothing whatever. The band of horses was gone,
the Indians had disappeared. All was still. It was
truly the stillness of death.

The Indian boys, my companions, had escaped with
the ponies into the wood, and I stole up the edge of
the forest till I struck their trail, and following on a
little way, weak and bewildered, I met them stealing
back on foot to my assistance.

My mind and energy both now seemed to give way.
We reached the Indian camp somehow, but I have
but a vague and shadowy recollection of what passed
during the next few weeks. For the most part, as
far as I remember, I sat by the lodges or under the
trees, or rode a little, but never summoned spirit or
energy to return to the fatal camp.

I asked the Indians to go down and see what had
become of the two bodies, but they would not think
of it. This was quite natural, since they will not
revisit their own camp after being driven from it by
an enemy, until it is first visited by their priest or

medicine man, who chaunts the death-song and
appeases the angered spirit that has brought the
calamity upon them. The Indian camp was a
small one, and made up mostly of women and children.
It was in a vine-maple thicket, on the bend of
a small stream called by the Indians Ki-yi-mem, or
white water. By the whites I think it is now called
Milk Creek. A singular stream it is; sometimes it
flows very full, and then is nearly dry; sometimes it
is almost white with ashes and fine sand, and then it
is perfectly clear with a beautiful white sand border
and bottom. The Indians say, that it is also sometimes
so hot as to burn the hand, and then again is as
cold as the McCloud; but this last phenomenon I
never witnessed. The changes, however, whatever
they are, are caused by some internal volcanic action
of Mount Shasta, from which the stream flows in
great springs.

The camp was but a temporary one, and pitched
here for the purpose of gathering and drying a sort
of mountain camas root from the low marshy springs of
this region. This camas is a bulbus root shaped much
like an onion, and is prepared for food by roasting in
the ground, and is very nutritious. Sometimes it is
kneaded into cakes and dried. In this state if kept
dry it will retain its sweetness and fine properties for
months.

I could not have been treated more kindly even at

home. But Indian life and Indian diet are hardly
suited to restore a shattered nervous system and organization
so delicate as my own, and I got on slowly.
Perhaps after all I only needed rest, and it is quite
likely the Indians saw this, for rest I certainly had,
such as I never had before or since. It was as near
a life of nothingness down there in the deep forest as
one well could imagine. There were no birds in the
thicket about the camp, and you even had to go out
and climb a little hill to get the sun.

This hill sloped off to the south with the woods
open like a park, and here the children and some
young women sported noiselessly or basked in the
sun.

If there is any place outside of the tomb that can
be stiller than an Indian camp when stillness is required,
I do not know where it is. Here was a camp
made up mostly of children, and what is usually called
the most garrulous half of mankind, and yet all was
so still that the deer often walked stately and unconscious
into our midst.

No mention was made of my going away or remaining.
I was permitted as far as the Indians were
concerned to forget my existence, and so I dreamed
along for a month or two and began to get strong
and active in mind and body.

I had dreamed a long dream, and now began to
waken and think of active life. I began to hunt

and take part with the Indians, and enter into their
delights and their sorrows.

Did the world ever stop to consider how an Indian
who has no theatre, no saloon, no whisky shop, no
parties, no newspaper, not one of all our hundreds
of ways and means of amusement, spends his evening?
Think of this! He is a human being, full of passion
and of poetry. His soul must find some expression;
his heart some utterance. The long, long nights of
darkness, without any lighted city to walk about in,
or books to read. Think of that! Well, all this
mind, or thought, or soul, or whatever it may be,
which we scatter in so many directions, and on so
many things, they centre on one or two.

What if I told you that they talk more of the
future and know more of the unknown than the
Christian? That would shock you. Truth is a
great galvanic battery.

No wonder they die so bravely, and care so little
for this life, when they are so certain of the next.

After a time we moved camp to a less dangerous
quarter, and out into the open wood. I now took
rides daily or hunted bear or deer with the Indians.
Yet all this time I had a sort of regretful idea that
I must return to the white people and give some
account of what had happened. Then I reflected
how inglorious a part I had borne, how long I had
remained with the Indians, though for no fault of

my own, and instinctively knew the virtue of silence
on the subject.

In this new camp I seemed to come fully to my
strength. I took in the situation and the scenery
and began to observe, to think, and reflect.

Here, for the first time, I found myself alone in
an Indian camp without any obligation or anything
whatever binding me or calling me back to the
Saxon. I began to look on the romantic side of my
life, and was not displeased. I put aside the little
trouble of the old camp and became as careless as a
child.

The wood seemed very very beautiful. The air
was so rich, so soft and pure in the Indian summer,
that it almost seemed that you could feed upon it.
The antlered deer, fat, and tame almost as if fed
in parks, stalked by, and game of all kinds filled
the woods in herds. We hunted, rode, fished and
rested beside the rivers.

What a fragrance from the long and bent fir boughs.
What a healthy breath of pine! All the long sweet
moonlight nights the magnificent forest, warm and
mellow-like from sunshine gone away, gave out
odours like burnt incense from censers swinging in
some mighty cathedral.

If I were to look back over the chart of my life for
happiness, I should locate it here if anywhere. It is
true that there was a little cast of concern in all this

about the future, and some remorse for wasted time;
and my life, I think, partook of the Indian's melancholy,
which comes of solitude and too much thought,
but the memory of these few weeks always appeals
to my heart, and strikes me with a peculiar gentleness
and uncommon delight.

The Indians were not at war with the whites, nor
were they particularly at peace. In fact, they assert
that there has never been any peace since they or
their fathers can remember. The various tribes,
sometimes at war, were also then at peace, so that
nothing whatever occurred to break the calm repose
of the golden autumn.

The mountain streams went foaming down among
the boulders between the leaning walls of yew and
cedar trees toward the Sacramento. The partridge
whistled and called his flock together when the sun
went down; the brown pheasants rustled as they ran
in strings through the long brown grass, but nothing
else was heard. The Indians, always silent, are unusually
so in autumn. The majestic march of the season
seems to make them still. They moved like
shadows. The conflicts of civilization were beneath
us. No sound of strife; the struggle for the
possession of usurped lands was far away, and I
was glad, glad as I shall never be again. I know I
should weary you, to linger here and detail the life
we led; but as for myself I shall never cease to relive

this life. Here I go for rest when I cannot rest
elsewhere.

With nothing whatever to do but learn their
language and their manners, I made fast progress,
and without any particular purpose at first, I soon
found myself in possession of that which, in the
hands of a man of culture would be of great
value. I saw then how little we know of the
Indian. I had read some flaming picture books of
Indian life, and I had mixed all my life more or less
with the Indians, that is, such as are willing to mix
with us on the border, but the real Indian, the
brave, simple, silent and thoughtful Indian who
retreats from the white man when he can, and fights
when he must, I had never before seen or read a
line about. I had never even heard of him. Few
have. Perhaps ten years from now the red man, as
I found him there in the forests of his fathers, shall
not be found anywhere on earth. I am now certain
that if I had been a man, or even a clever wide-awake
boy, with any particular business with the Indians, I
might have spent years in the mountains, and known
no more of these people than others know. But lost
as I was, and a dreamer, too ignorant of danger to
fear, they sympathized with me, took me into their inner
life, told me their traditions, and sometimes showed
me the “Indian question” from an Indian point of
view.

After mingling with these people for some months,
I began to say to myself, Why cannot they be permitted
to remain here? Let this region be untraversed
and untouched by the Saxon. Let this be a
great national park peopled by the Indian only. I
saw the justice of this, but did not at that time conceive
the possibility of it.

No man leaps full-grown into the world. No
great plan bursts into full and complete magnificence
and at once upon the mind. Nor does any one suddenly
become this thing or that. A combination of
circumstances, a long chain of reverses that refuses to
be broken, carries men far down in the scale of life,
without any fault whatever of theirs. A similar but
less frequent chain of good fortune lifts others up
into the full light of the sun. Circumstances which
few see, and fewer still understand, fashion the destinies
of nearly all the active men of the plastic west.
The world watching the gladiators from its high seat
in the circus will never reverse its thumbs against the
successful man. Therefore, succeed, and have the approval
of the world. Nay! what is far better, deserve
to succeed, and have the approval of your own conscience.