12. CHAPTER XII.
JUST beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a Mormon
emigrant train of thirty-three wagons; and tramping wearily along
and driving their herd of loose cows, were dozens of coarse-clad
and sad-looking men, women and children, who had walked as
they were walking now, day after day for eight lingering weeks,
and in that time had compassed the distance our stage had come in
eight days and three hours—seven
hundred and ninety-eight miles! They were dusty and
uncombed, hatless, bonnetless and ragged, and they did look so
tired!
After breakfast, we bathed in Horse Creek, a (previously)
limpid, sparkling stream—an appreciated luxury, for it was very
seldom that our furious coach halted long enough for an
indulgence of that kind. We changed horses ten or twelve times in
every twenty-four hours—changed mules, rather—six mules—and
did it nearly every time in
four minutes. It was lively work.
As our coach rattled up to each station six
harnessed mules stepped gayly from the stable; and in the
twinkling of an eye, almost, the old team was out, and the new one
in and we off and away again.
During the afternoon we passed Sweetwater Creek,
Independence Rock, Devil's Gate and the Devil's Gap. The latter
were wild specimens of rugged scenery, and full of
interest—we were in the heart of the Rocky Mountains,
now. And we also passed by "Alkali" or "Soda Lake," and we woke up
to the fact that our journey had stretched a long way across the
world when the driver said that the Mormons often came there
from Great Salt Lake City to haul away saleratus. He said that a
few days gone by they had shoveled up enough pure saleratus from
the ground (it was a
dry lake) to load two
wagons, and that when they got these two
wagons-loads of a drug that cost them nothing, to Salt Lake, they
could sell it for twenty-five cents a pound.
In the night we sailed by a most notable curiosity, and one we
had been hearing a good deal about for a day or two, and were
suffering to see. This was what might be called a natural
ice-house. It was August, now, and sweltering weather in the
daytime, yet at one of the stations the men could scape the soil on
the hill-side under the lee of a range of boulders, and at a depth of
six inches cut out pure blocks of ice—hard, compactly frozen, and
clear as crystal!
Toward dawn we got under way again, and presently as we sat
with raised curtains enjoying our early-morning smoke and
contemplating the first splendor of the rising sun as it swept down
the long array of mountain peaks, flushing and gilding crag after
crag and summit after summit, as if the invisible Creator reviewed
his gray veterans and they saluted with a smile, we hove in sight of
South Pass City. The hotel-keeper, the postmaster, the blacksmith,
the mayor, the constable, the city marshal and the principal citizen
and property holder, all came out and greeted us cheerily, and we
gave him good day. He gave us a little Indian news, and a little
Rocky Mountain news, and we gave him some Plains information
in return. He then retired to his lonely grandeur and we climbed
on up among the bristling peaks and the ragged clouds. South Pass
City consisted of four log cabins, one if which was unfinished, and
the gentleman with all those offices and titles was the chiefest of
the ten citizens of the place. Think of hotel-keeper, postmaster,
blacksmith, mayor, constable, city marshal and principal citizen all
condensed into one person and crammed into one skin. Bemis said
he was "a perfect Allen's revolver of dignities." And he said that if
he were to die as postmaster, or as blacksmith, or as postmaster
and blacksmith
both, the people might stand it; but if he were to die all over, it
would be a frightful loss to the community.
Two miles beyond South Pass City we saw for the first time
that mysterious marvel which all Western untraveled boys have
heard of and fully believe in, but are sure to be astounded at when
they see it with their own eyes, nevertheless—banks of snow in
dead summer time. We were now far up toward the sky, and knew
all the time that we must presently encounter lofty summits clad in
the "eternal snow" which was so common place a matter of
mention in books, and yet when I did see it glittering in the sun on
stately domes in the distance and knew the month was August and
that my coat was hanging up because it was too warm to wear it, I
was full as much amazed as if I never had heard of snow in August
before. Truly, "seeing is believing"—and many a man lives a long
life through, thinking
he believes certain universally received and well established
things, and yet never suspects that if he were confronted by those
things once, he would discover that he did
not really believe them before,
but only thought he believed them.
In a little while quite a number of peaks swung into view with
long claws of glittering snow clasping them; and with here and
there, in the shade, down the mountain side, a little solitary patch
of snow looking no larger than a lady's pocket-handkerchief but
being in reality as large as a "public square."
And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned SOUTH
PASS, and whirling gayly along high above the common world.
We were perched upon the extreme summit of the great range of
the Rocky Mountains, toward which we had been climbing,
patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing, for days and nights
together—and about us was gathered a convention of Nature's kings
that stood ten, twelve, and even thirteen thousand feet high—grand
old fellows who would have to stoop to see Mount Washington, in
the twilight. We were in such an airy elevation above the creeping
populations of the earth, that now and then when the obstructing
crags stood out of the way it seemed that we could look around
and abroad and contemplate the whole great globe, with its
dissolving views of mountains, seas and continents stretching away
through the mystery of the summer haze.
As a general thing the Pass was more suggestive of a valley
than a suspension bridge in the clouds—but it strongly suggested
the latter at one spot. At that place the upper third of one or two
majestic purple domes projected above our level on either hand
and gave us a sense of a hidden great deep of mountains and plains
and valleys down about their bases which we fancied we might see
if we could step to the edge and look over. These Sultans of the
fastnesses were turbaned with tumbled volumes of cloud, which
shredded away from time to time and drifted off fringed and torn,
trailing their continents of shadow after them; and catching
presently on an intercepting peak, wrapped it about and brooded
there—then shredded away again and left the purple peak, as they
had left the purple domes, downy and white with new-laid snow.
In passing, these monstrous rags of cloud hung low and swept
along right over the spectator's head, swinging their tatters so
nearly in his face that his impulse was to shrink when they came
closet. In the one place I speak of, one could look below him upon
a world of diminishing crags and canyons leading down, down,
and away to a vague plain with a thread in it which was a road, and
bunches of feathers in it which were trees,—a pretty picture
sleeping in the sunlight—but with a darkness stealing over it and
glooming its features
deeper and deeper under the frown of a coming storm; and then,
while no film or shadow marred the noon brightness of his high
perch, he could watch the tempest break forth down there and see
the lightnings leap from crag to crag and the sheeted rain drive
along the canyon-sides, and hear the thunders peal and crash and
roar. We had this spectacle; a familiar one to many, but to us a
novelty.
We bowled along cheerily, and presently, at the very summit
(though it had been all summit to us, and all equally level, for half
an hour or more), we came to a spring which spent its water
through two outlets and sent it in opposite directions. The
conductor said that one of those streams which we were looking at,
was just starting on a journey westward to the Gulf of California
and the Pacific Ocean, through hundreds and even thousands of
miles of desert solitudes. He said that the other was just leaving its
home among the snow-peaks on a similar journey eastward—and
we knew that long after we should have forgotten the simple
rivulet it would still be plodding its patient way down the
mountain sides, and canyonbeds, and between the banks of the
Yellowstone; and by and by would join the broad Missouri and
flow through unknown plains and deserts and unvisited
wildernesses; and add a long and troubled pilgrimage among snags
and wrecks and sandbars; and enter the Mississippi, touch the
wharves of St. Louis and still drift on, traversing shoals and rocky
channels,
then endless chains of bottomless and ample bends, walled with
unbroken forests, then mysterious byways and secret passages
among woody islands, then the chained bends again, bordered with
wide levels of shining sugar-cane in place of the sombre forests;
then by New Orleans and still other chains of bends—and finally,
after two long months of daily and nightly harassment, excitement,
enjoyment, adventure, and awful peril of parched throats, pumps
and evaporation, pass the Gulf and enter into its rest upon the
bosom of the tropic sea, never to look upon its snow-peaks again
or regret them.
I freighted a leaf with a mental message for the friends at
home, and dropped it in the stream. But I put no stamp on it and it
was held for postage somewhere.
On the summit we overtook an emigrant train of many
wagons, many tired men and women, and many a disgusted sheep
and cow.
In the wofully dusty horseman in charge of the expedition I
recognized John —. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of
the Rocky Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the
last one I should have looked for. We were school-boys together
and warm friends for years. But a boyish prank of mine had
disruptured this friendship and it had never been renewed. The act
of which I speak was this. I had been accustomed to visit
occasionally an editor whose room was in the third story of a
building and overlooked the street. One day this editor gave me a
watermelon which I made preparations to devour on the spot, but
chancing to look out of the
window, I saw John standing directly under it and an irresistible
desire came upon me to drop the melon on his head, which I
immediately did. I was the loser, for it spoiled the melon, and
John never forgave me and we dropped all intercourse and parted,
but now met again under these circumstances.
We recognized each other simultaneously, and hands were
grasped as warmly as if no coldness had ever existed between us,
and no allusion was made to any. All animosities were buried and
the simple fact of meeting a familiar face in that isolated spot so
far from home, was sufficient to make us forget all things but
pleasant ones, and we parted again with sincere "good-bye" and
"God bless you" from both.
We had been climbing up the long shoulders of the Rocky
Mountains for many tedious hours—we
started down them, now.
And we went spinning away at a round rate too.
We left the snowy Wind River Mountains and Uinta
Mountains behind, and sped away, always through splendid
scenery but occasionally through long ranks of white skeletons of
mules and oxen—monuments of the huge emigration of other
days—and here and there were up-ended boards or small piles of
stones which the driver said marked the resting-place of more
precious remains.
It was the loneliest land for a grave! A land given over to
the cayote and the raven—which is but another name for desolation
and utter solitude. On damp, murky nights, these scattered
skeletons gave forth a soft, hideous glow, like very faint spots of
moonlight starring the vague desert. It
was because of the phosphorus in the bones. But no scientific
explanation could keep a body from shivering when he drifted by
one of those ghostly lights and knew that a skull held it.
At midnight it began to rain, and I never saw anything like
it—indeed, I did not even see this, for it was too dark. We fastened
down the curtains and even caulked them with clothing, but the
rain streamed in in twenty places, nothwithstanding. There was no
escape. If one moved his feet out of a stream, he brought his body
under one; and if he moved his body he caught one somewhere
else. If he struggled out of the drenched blankets and sat up, he
was bound to get one down the back of his neck. Meantime the
stage was wandering about a plain with gaping gullies in it, for the
driver could not see an inch before his face nor keep the road, and
the storm pelted so pitilessly that there was no keeping the horses
still. With the first abatement the conductor turned out with
lanterns to look for the road, and the first dash he made was into a
chasm about fourteen feet deep, his lantern following like a
meteor. As soon as he touched bottom he sang out frantically:
"Don't come here!"
To which the driver, who was looking over the precipice
where he had disappeared, replied, with an injured air: "Think I'm
a dam fool?"
The conductor was more than an hour finding the road—a
matter which showed us how far we had wandered and what
chances we had been taking. He traced our wheel-tracks to the
imminent verge of danger, in two places. I have always been glad
that we were not killed that night. I do not know any particular
reason, but I have always been glad.
In the morning, the tenth day out, we crossed Green
River, a fine, large, limpid stream—stuck in it with the water just
up to the top of our mail-bed, and waited till extra teams were put
on to haul us up the steep bank. But it was nice cool water, and
besides it could not find any fresh place on us to wet.
At the Green River station we had breakfast—hot biscuits, fresh
antelope steaks, and coffee—the only decent meal we tasted
between the United States and Great Salt Lake City, and the only
one we were ever really thankful for.
Think of the monotonous execrableness of the thirty that went
before it, to leave this one simple breakfast looming up in my
memory like a shot-tower after all these years have gone by!
At five P.M. we reached Fort Bridger, one hundred and
seventeen miles from the South Pass, and one thousand and
twenty-five miles from St. Joseph. Fifty-two miles further on, near
the head of Echo Canyon, we met sixty United States soldiers from
Camp Floyd. The day before, they had fired upon three hundred or
four hundred Indians, whom they supposed gathered together for
no good purpose. In the fight that had ensued, four Indians were
captured, and the main body chased four miles, but nobody killed.
This looked like business. We had a notion to get out and join the
sixty soldiers, but upon reflecting that there were four hundred of
the Indians, we concluded to go on and join the Indians.
Echo Canyon is twenty miles long. It was like a long, smooth,
narrow street, with a gradual descending grade, and shut in by
enormous perpendicular walls of coarse conglomerate, four
hundred feet high in many places, and turreted like mediæval
castles. This was the most faultless piece of road in the
mountains, and the driver said he would "let his team
out." He did, and if the Pacific express trains whiz through there
now any faster than we did then in the stage-coach, I envy the
passengers the exhilaration of it. We fairly seemed to pick up our
wheels and fly—and the mail matter was lifted up free from
everything and held i solution! I am not given to exaggeration, and
when I say a thing I mean it.
However, time presses. At four in the afternoon we arrived on
the summit of Big Mountain, fifteen miles from Salt Lake City,
when all the world was glorified with the setting sun, and the most
stupendous panorama of mountain peaks yet encountered burst on
our sight. We looked out upon this sublime spectacle from under
the arch of a brilliant rainbow! Even the overland stage-driver
stopped his horses and gazed!
Half an hour or an hour later, we changed horses, and took
supper with a Mormon "Destroying Angel."
"Destroying Angels," as I understand it, are Latter-Day Saints who
are set apart by the Church to conduct permanent disappearances
of obnoxious citizens. I had heard a deal about these Mormon
Destroying Angels and the dark and bloody deeds they had done,
and when I entered this one's house I had my shudder all ready.
But alas for all our romances, he was nothing but a loud, profane,
offensive, old blackguard! He was murderous enough, possibly, to
fill the bill of a Destroyer, but would you
have any
kind of an Angel devoid of dignity? Could you abide an Angel in
an unclean shirt and no suspenders? Could you respect an Angel
with a horse-laugh and a swagger like a buccaneer?
There were other blackguards present—comrades of this one.
And there was one person that looked like a gentleman—Heber C.
Kimball's son, tall and well made, and thirty years old, perhaps. A
lot of slatternly women flitted hither and thither in a hurry, with
coffee-pots, plates of bread, and other appurtenances to supper,
and these were said to be the wives of the Angel—or some of them,
at least. And of course they were; for if they had been hired "help"
they would not have let an angel from above storm and swear at
them as he did, let alone one from the place this one hailed
from.
This was our first experience of the western "peculiar
institution," and it was not very prepossessing. We did not tarry
long to observe it, but hurried on to the home of the Latter-Day
Saints, the stronghold of the prophets, the capital of the only
absolute monarch in America—Great Salt Lake City. As the night
closed in we took sanctuary in the Salt Lake House and unpacked
our baggage.