CHAPTER III.
Gold Mining in '49 and '50.
At last we were in California. I had a rather bitter introduction, but I soon felt well again and began to look about to see what California was really like and to learn the truth of all the wonderful stories I had heard about gold. We didn't want to take up claims immediately—wanted to look about and get the best location possible. They told us about Sacramento City being down the river and we decided to go down there. Weaver Creek was a small tributary of the American River, so we went down to the main stream and moved on down in the direction of Sacramento City. We met a man who said he had just been down there. We asked him how far it was, and he said forty miles. Said it was at the mouth of the American River, that is, where the American River flowed into the Sacramento River. In two days we reached the mouth of the river, but we didn't see any city. I saw a few tents, and there was an old sail boat anchored on Sacramento River up close to the bank, but that was all. I asked a man where Sacramento City was. He said, "This is the place."
We didn't expect to find much of a city, but were hardly prepared for what we found. We stretched our tent, turned our cattle out to graze and prepared for a rest. It was a delightful place. I never saw finer grass nor finer water, and we still had plenty to eat. Toward the close of the day I went down to where the sail boat was being unloaded. Four or five men were carrying provisions—flour, bacon, pickled pork, sugar, coffee, rice—in fact everything substantial to eat, out of the boat and throwing it upon the bank among the grape vines. I saw no owner. There were no police and nobody seemed to be afraid of thieves. They were not afraid either of rain, for none could be expected at that season of the year. Nor was there even any dew. Everything seemed to be safe both day and night.
Our lean old cattle fattened fast and in a little while we could hardly recognize them. It was a joy to see them eat and drink and rest after the hardships they had endured. The poor things had suffered even more than the men.
About the first of September we started back to the mines. Twenty miles up the American River we each took up a claim and went to work. Everything was placer mining. Each man had his pan and with it and the water of the river, he washed the gravel away from the loose gold. We worked there several weeks and so far as we could see, exhausted the gold that was in our claims. We found on estimating the result of our work that each man had averaged about sixteen dollars a day for every day he had worked.
About the time our claims were exhausted, we were surprised to meet Russell Hill, a cousin of mine, who had worked his way down from Oregon to Sacramento by way of Shasta City, and learning at Sacramento that we were up the American River, had come on up to see us. He had left his home in Iowa the year before and had gone to Oregon. He told us he had stopped a few days at Shasta City and believed it to be a better mining place than the American River, and urged us to go there. Accordingly we yoked up our oxen and packed our belongings into the wagons again and started. When we reached Sacramento City this time, it was not necessary to ask where the city was. The whole valley was covered with tents and lunch stands. There must have been several thousand people there. They had come in from everywhere, off the plains by caravan, up the river from San Francisco by boat, and from every other place in the world, it seemed to me. There were as yet no houses. People, men mostly, lived in tents and the lunch counters consisted of the sideboards of the wagons laid upon poles supported by forks driven in the ground. Meals were a uniform price, $1.00, but lodging was free. Just spread your blanket down on the grass anywhere and make yourself at home.
Shasta City is two hundred miles up Sacramento River and a little northwest of Sacramento City. Knight's Landing, near the mouth of Feather River, was our first stop of any consequence. We went up Feather River to where Marysville now stands and thence in a northwesterly direction back into the Sacramento Valley. This valley is about an average of twenty-five miles in width and at that time there were no towns or even camps upon it and consequently I can give little account of our progress. I only recall that about every twenty miles we came upon a ranch occupied by a few families of Spaniards. These Spaniards had made slaves of the Digger Indians who lived in mounds or huts covered with earth. The Indians raised wheat and gathered it in cane baskets. They then rubbed the wheat out of the straw and beat it into flour. These Indians went almost naked and lived, themselves, on salmon, acorns, grapes and grasshoppers. They were the most disgusting mortals I have ever seen in my life. When we passed the huts or mounds in which they lived, the pappooses would dart back into them exactly like prairie dogs. I asked an old Spaniard why he kept these filthy Indians around him, and he said they protected him from the wild Indians.
The whole valley was covered by abundant vegetation and was full of wild herds of Spanish horses and thousands of wild Spanish cattle. It was also full of many savage wild animals, grizzly, brown and black bear, California lions, panthers, wolves, wild cats and badgers. There was an abundance also of elk, deer and antelope, and we never lacked for fresh venison.
We reached Shasta late in September, and like Sacramento City, found everything but the city. One or two log cabins and a few tents made up the sum of all the improvements. We put in a few days looking over the situation and viewing prospects for getting gold and decided to spend the winter there. This made it necessary for us to look immediately into our stock of provisions, and upon going through it we found that we had hardly enough to last us. Nothing could be done but go back to Sacramento and secure an additional supply, and brother William and a man by the name of Gleason, from Iowa, who had made the trip with us up the river, started back with one wagon and four yoke of oxen. We stretched our tent and stored all the provisions we had in it in such a way as to protect them, and brother William and Gleason bade us good by.
This trip meant four hundred miles more of hardship and danger, and we hated very much to see them leave, but nothing else could be done. The boys made the trip down without trouble, so they reported upon their return, but on the way back the rainy season set in and swelled the rivers so that they were past fording much of the time. The trip ought to have been made easily in twenty-five or thirty days, but it occupied from the latter part of September until Christmas.
Hard as this trip was upon the two who made it, their sufferings were hardly to be compared to the condition of brother James and myself. We had but a small tent in which to shelter both ourselves and our provisions and such meagre equipment as we had hauled across the plains. We had been alone but a few days when brother James was taken down with the scurvy. About the 10th of October the rain set in and continued almost in a steady downpour for about three weeks. Everything was completely soaked. It was next to impossible to find fuel enough to start a fire. I had to take care of brother James and keep changing the provisions to prevent them from spoiling, had to dry the blankets and clothing three or four times a day. In all, I don't think I averaged more than two hours sleep out of the whole twenty-four during this period of continued rain. I battled along the best I could, and at the end of about three weeks it ceased to rain so hard.
I shall never forget two friends who came to my rescue at this time—Charles Laffoon and Mike Cody. Both were from St. Louis and had run a dray on the wharf on the Mississippi River, they said. They had reached Shasta a few months ahead of us and had built a log cabin. On one side of this they attached a shed which they used for a cook room and the whole made a very comfortable dwelling. Lately, however, a great many people had arrived and they had arranged a bar at one end of the main cabin and fixed up some tables at the other for a poker game. Both of these enterprises proved good money makers and they were getting along fine. After it had been raining three or four weeks, Mike came up to our tent one morning. He saw the trouble we were in and said we must not stay there. I told him I knew nothing else to do. He said he would arrange that all right; that he would make room for us in his cabin. He didn't even wait for an answer, but set to work packing things up. In a little while everything we had was moved under a roof. He fixed a bunk in the shed or cook room for my brother and brought some men up and carried him down and laid him on it. We used our own blankets of course, and I cooked our meals, but Mike and his partner took care of the rest of it. Everything was very quiet in the day time when the men were out working in the diggings, but at night things were mighty lively—drinking, gambling and fighting. We didn't mind all this, for it was so much better than the leaky old tent we had put up with for so long, and no kinder men ever lived than Mike Cody and Charles Laffoon.
Brother William and Gleason got back on Christmas day, worn out themselves and their teams in worse condition. It was still raining. They had had a dreadful time, high water, mud, rain and no shelter. They had to expose themselves in order to keep the provisions dry.
A cabin, some distance away from the cluster of houses which was called the town, had been vacated, and we moved in, though I think Cody and Laffoon would have arranged in some way to accommodate all of us in their cabin had they thought we could do no better. The cabin was fairly comfortable. It had a good fire-place and a good roof, and these were the principal necessities. The weather was not very cold, but everything was so entirely saturated that fire was even more necessary than if the weather had been cold. We had room in the cabin for our cots and provisions, and we settled down about the first of January to spend the winter. We drove the cattle ten miles down the river to Redding's Ranch and turned them loose in his wild herd to graze until spring. About the middle of January, William took the scurvy. James had improved very little, so I now had both of them on my hands. They both lay there unable to walk a step for three months. There was but little that could be done for them, but I had a great deal on my hands doing even that and was thankful that I had been spared from the disease myself, for if I had taken down we should all have been cast upon the generosity of the wild, rough men who made up that camp. I had no fear, however, but what we would be taken care of. During the latter part of the winter, I was taken with a light attack of the same disease. I was very much afraid it would become serious, but I did not get down. I could walk flat footed on my left foot, but had to tip-toe on my right, and all through the balance of the winter I did the cooking, provided the wood, and ran the errands, hobbling along the best I could.
Besides this, we were somewhat troubled by finances. Everything was going out and nothing coming in. Everybody at work making plenty of money, but we were compelled to stay in this cabin and spend what we had made. We were rich, however, in provisions. Had enough to last us a year and they were worth more than gold. I remember that flour was worth two hundred dollars a sack, and most everything else was in proportion.
Late in March a doctor drifted into camp. He heard that we had sickness up at our cabin and came up. He looked my brothers over. He had no medicine and there was very little, if any, in the camp. He prescribed raw Irish potatoes sliced in vinegar. We had no potatoes. I went down to see if I could find them in camp. I hunted the place over and could not find any. I was going home discouraged when I met Mike Cody. I told him what I had been doing and he said if there was a potato in California, he would get it for me. Next morning a man brought a bushel up to our cabin and told us that was all the potatoes in that part of the country. I asked him what he wanted for them and he said they were paid for. When I asked him who paid him he said it was Mike Cody. I then asked what he got for them. He said seventy-five dollars. I took the potatoes and fixed them up as the doctor had told me and gave them to the boys. In a few days they began to mend and in two or three weeks were able to hobble about the cabin, and by the first of May they were well enough to take care of themselves nicely. I hadn't forgotten Mike Cody in the meantime. I went down one day and told Mike I wanted to settle for the potatoes and for the use of his cabin the early part of the winter. He said "You don't owe me anything for staying at the cabin and the potatoes were a present." Said if he could do anything else, just let him know. I thanked him the best I could, but he told me that he didn't want any thanks, and that I must not feel under obligation to him. He reminded me that on several occasions when he wanted to go out in town and have a good time, I had kept his bar and run his poker game for him, and said that paid for everything he had done for us. I knew that was only an excuse to keep me from feeling so much in debt to him, but I let it go at that and never lost an opportunity to show that I appreciated what he had done.
I ought to mention, probably, my experiences as a bar-keeper and manager of a poker game on the few occasions when I was called upon to assume those responsible positions. The bar was a broad plank which rested upon supports and extended clear across one end of the cabin. The bottles of whiskey and bowls of gold dust were kept on this plank. Mike sold nothing and had nothing to sell but whiskey. When a man wanted a drink he would hand me over his sack of gold dust. I poured out the price of a drink in the scale pan and put it over in the bowl. I then gave him his drink and handed him back his bag of gold dust. The poker game was not very hard to manage. The players had their rules and kept their guns close by to enforce them. This made everybody very cautious about observing the rules and seeing that a fair game was played. As long as the fellows remained sober I never saw any trouble over these games. Sometimes a fellow would get drunk and try to start trouble and he usually succeeded. We generally saved the lives of such fellows by taking them immediately away and putting them to bed.
About the 1st of May, Gleason, who had remained at the camp all winter, and I rigged up a couple of pack mules and went over to Trinity River, thirty miles west. There we found quite a prosperous camp where they were getting a good deal of gold. We each took up a claim and went to work, and got quite a quantity of gold. About the 1st of June, James and William, who by that time were able to ride horseback, came over and they each took a claim. By the 1st of August we had worked these claims pretty well out and decided to go on to Salmon River, forty miles farther west. While we were at Trinity River, Alfred Jack of near Camden Point, Platte County, came in and joined us. He decided to go on with us to Salmon River and we all packed up and started. The trip was without incident, except that over toward the end of our journey we came to an Indian village. We rode in toward the village and as we approached we saw the bucks all running away as fast as they could, leaving their squaws and pappooses behind. This was strange behavior and we wondered what it meant. When we got up to the village, we found a white horse which they had just shot full of arrows. This looked a little dangerous to us. We didn't know the meaning of this conduct and took it to be a sign of war. We passed on through the village, hurried after the Indians and soon overtook them. We had our guns and plenty of ammunition and were pretty well prepared for a fight with them, as against their bows and arrows, though they greatly outnumbered us. When they saw we were prepared for them and knowing as they did that we had not harmed their squaws and pappooses, they came and told us that they had run away because their dogs had run at sight of us. They didn't explain why they had shot the horse full of arrows, but I have always been of the opinion they intended to waylay and kill us if they could.
We reached Salmon River late in the afternoon and camped for the night. Next morning we took our picks, shovels and pans and went out to look for gold and found it. By noon when we gathered back at the camp every man was satisfied to make permanent camp and remain a while. We were the first in this immediate section of the country. Other parties were farther up the river and still others farther down the river, but we found no evidences at all that any white men had ever been in this particular place. We seemed to have a way of getting in ahead. We were in the lead across the plains, among the first to reach Sacramento, about the first at Shasta City, and Trinity River, and actually the first on Salmon River. We were not there long, however, until others began to come in, and in a short time all the available locations for placer mining were taken. We remained some six weeks, as I recollect, on Salmon River and panned out quite a quantity of gold; enough to pay us well for the trip but hardly as much as we anticipated we would get when we left home, after hearing the reports that came to us. Still we were satisfied and now that we all had good health, had no complaint to make. Some one who came into our camp on Salmon River brought the word that our brothers were coming across the plains from Missouri, and would get in sometime in September. We decided to go back and meet them, so we broke camp and went back to Shasta City. Here we loaded our plunder into our own wagons which had been left during our absence, and after procuring our cattle from Redding's Ranch—so fat and sleek we could hardly recognize them, we set out down Sacramento River. The trip was made without incident. It was the dry season of the year. There was plenty of game, plenty for the cattle to eat, and no trouble about fording the river. While we were in camp one night at Knight's Landing, I put a sack of dried beef which we called "jerky," under the back part of my pillow to make sure the coyotes would not get it. In this I was mistaken, for sometime that night a coyote came up and helped himself and we had no jerky for breakfast. My slumbers were not disturbed in the least by the burglar.
A little farther down the Sacramento River, while in camp one night, we were all awakened by an unusual noise. The camp fire was burning dimly and afforded enough light for us to see, not twenty yards away, a huge grizzly bear. He was sniffing around picking up scraps of meat and bone which we had thrown away. There was a good deal of quiet excitement in the camp over the discovery of this guest, but fortunately everybody had sense enough to keep still. The old fellow prowled about the camp for a long time. Sometimes he would get right up by the fire and then we had a good look at him. He paid no attention to us at all. Apparently didn't know we were in the neighborhood. At least if he knew it, he didn't let on. By and by, after satisfying himself that there were no more scraps, he walked slowly away and we could hear him rattling the bushes and crushing the dead limbs and sticks that lay upon the ground for a long distance. It was not until he had been out of hearing for quite a long time that anybody dared to speak, and then our first words to each other were of congratulation. We hadn't had very much experience with grizzly bears at that time and didn't know but what the old fellow might have attempted to piece out his meal on one of us. We were glad enough when he decided to go and hunt up some more bones and scraps and let us alone.
We reached Sacramento City about September 20th, and from there went up to Salmon Falls on the American River, where we found our brothers, Isaac, Zach and Robert, and quite a company of our Buchanan County acquaintances—Calvin James, Charles Ramsey and his family, Perry Jones, William Glenn, James Glenn, and some others whom I do not at this moment recall. Charles Ramsey's wife was the first white woman I had seen since I left St. Joseph, May 2nd, 1849.
It was a great joy to us to meet these old acquaintances and to feel that we were now not quite so lonely out in that wild country. We all remained in camp at Salmon Falls for several weeks. During this time the boys looked around to see what they had better do. Chas. Ramsey and Calvin James took up a ranch about thirty miles west of Sacramento River on Cash Creek. The five brothers of us decided that the best thing we could do was to take up a ranch also. We went over into the same neighborhood and squatted on a body of land. There was no law prescribing any amount that each man could take, and the grazing land was held largely in common. We had a good bunch of cattle and horses of our own and emigrants were continually offering their teams for sale. Isaac, Zach and Robert had brought considerable money out with them, and James, William and myself had practically all the gold we had cleaned up in mining, so we were in shape to begin the cattle business on a pretty good scale. By the first of December we had a fine herd of cattle, all branded with our particular brand, grazing on the pasture along Cash Creek.
We built a cabin close to the cabin that James and Ramsey had put up, and staked out our ranch. There were five men in the James cabin and seven in ours—six Gibson brothers and Eli Wilson. The whole valley of Cash Creek as well as much of the valley of Sacramento River, was covered with wild oats. Red clover grew wild and there were many other grasses just as good for cattle.
We had plenty of flour, sugar, coffee and such other common groceries as were to be had in the markets at Sacramento. It had cost quite a sum of money to get these provisions—I do not remember just how much, but it was fabulous almost, and the only consolation we got was out of the fact that we didn't have to buy meat. We had our own cattle if we wanted beef, but there was no need even for that when venison was so plentiful.
It must have been sometime during the first of December that we organized a hunt for the purpose of laying in a good supply of meat for the winter. We rigged up ten pack mules, went to the mountains a few miles distant and camped. From this camp we conducted our hunting expedition and in a few days had more than enough venison to last through the winter. We killed elk, deer and antelope enough to load our train. Part of this we took down to Sacramento and traded it for other provisions. We felt that we could get meat any time when we had to have it, but might not be able to get other provisions, and that an extra supply would make us feel more comfortable.
The grazing was fine all through the winter. The climate, as every one knows, is not cold and the one discomfort was the continued rain, but this had its compensations. When the rivers and sloughs filled up with water, the wild ducks and wild geese came in to feed upon the wild oats. We had little to do but look after our cattle and think about what we would like to eat. If we decided in the morning to have duck or goose, some one took the gun, went out and brought back just what we had decided upon. The rivers were full of the finest fish and they were no trouble to catch at all, so when we wanted fish, it was at hand. I have never lived at any place in my life where I felt so sure of provisions as in that cabin during that winter. We had four large greyhounds that had come across the plains with some of the emigrants and we picked them up as company. We trained them to hunt bear—that is the bear soon trained them. It was no trouble to get them to trail bear. They seemed to do this by instinct, but seemed not always to be sure of the kind of animal they were after. I judged this by watching them tackle the bear after they had overtaken it. They would dash in with as much confidence as if he were a jack rabbit or a coyote and showed plainly that they proposed to take him in and annihilate him at once. They would also show a good deal of surprise when the old bear would rise up on his hind feet and box them ten feet away. They soon learned to keep their distance and play with the bear, keeping him standing on his hind feet, watching them until we could come up close enough to get a shot. That always ended it. Sometimes the bear would take to a tree. In either case we always got him. These dogs were great company for us. If we happened not to want any bear meat, we would take the dogs and chase jack-rabbits and coyotes. They were pretty swift dogs, but it was seldom that they could pick up a jack-rabbit, and rarely ever got a coyote on a straight run, but we had as much fun and more probably than if the dogs had been able to pick them up right along.
Thus passed the winter of '50 and '51—as pleasant a period as I recall during my whole life. By the spring and early summer of '51 our cattle were fat and fine and ready to be sold for beef. We peddled them out to the butchers and miners along the Sacramento and American Rivers. They brought us an average of one hundred and fifty dollars a head. By the first of July they were all gone and we began to look for emigrants' cattle to re-stock the ranch. We supposed that emigration across the plains would continue and in order to get first chance at cattle that might be for sale, we loaded up our pack mules, crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and went down Carson River to Humboldt Desert. We were greatly surprised to find only a few straggling emigrant trains coming in and most of these were bent on settlement rather than mining and had brought their families. Of course, they had no cattle to sell. We waited until the latter part of July, and when we became convinced that no cattle were coming we had to determine the next best thing to do.
The grazing of cattle had proved so much more to our liking than digging gold that we wanted to continue in that business, but we couldn't do it without cattle. We thought about the thousands of cattle back in Missouri that might be had for ten or fifteen dollars a head, and decided to return across the plains and during the winter gather up a herd and take it back the following summer. This plan seemed to suit best. Brother William was not in the best of health and didn't feel equal to the task of crossing the plains, so it was agreed that he and Eli Wilson would stay with the ranch and take care of things during the year and that the rest of us would go back.
CHAPTER IV.
Back Across the Plains.
It was now close to the first of August, 1851. We were camped at the western side of the fifty-mile desert which gave us so much trouble on our way over. We had packed provisions and equipment sufficient only to take us across the Sierra Nevada Mountains and back. We always allowed for emergency and put in plenty. The question now was whether we were well enough equipped to start on a long journey back across the plains. We made an inventory of our stock of provisions and supplies, and decided that we could make it. Brother William and Wilson took only a small quantity of supplies with them on their return journey. They were going into a country where plenty was to be found, and if they ran low, it would make no great difference. With us it was different. We had no assurances that we could get supplies of any kind at any point on the journey, at least not until we reached the outposts near St. Joseph.
As already related, we had carried our supplies from home on pack mules. We had no wagons or oxen with us and had to arrange to make the entire journey carrying our provisions and camp equipment on the mules.
After getting everything ready we bade goodby to brother William and Wilson, and started early in the morning. We entered at once upon the fifty-mile desert and traveled that day and all the following night. Our mules made better progress than the ox teams, and we reached the Carson Sink a little after daylight where we found water. We also fell in with four men who said they had started to Salt Lake, but had heard from the passing emigrants that the Indians were on the war path ahead and were afraid to go any farther alone and were waiting for company. We had heard the same story, so concluded their excuse for being there was a good one and that they had no designs upon unwary emigrants. We sized them all up and decided to take them into our company. Three of them were brothers whose names were Kilgore. The fourth was a German whose name I have forgotten. They all lived in Iowa. They seemed very much frightened at the idea of going on, and suggested that we wait for further reinforcements. We told them we had no time to waste and that we were going on and they could join us if they wanted to. They finally consented, rigged up their outfit and made ready. We traveled up the Humboldt River over the old road until we reached the head waters of that stream. There were three roads open to us from this point. One to Fort Hall on Snake River, a middle road which had been blazed since we came over, called Hedgepeth's cut-off, and the South road to Salt Lake. We took the Salt Lake road, though it was new to all of us. We struck Bear River, about one hundred and fifty miles from Salt Lake, crossed it and traveled down the East side to Weaverville and then on to Ogden. Here we rested a few days and had our mules and horses shod.
The day after we camped, Brigham Young paid us a visit. He asked us many questions, but we gave him little satisfaction. We had ten thousand dollars in gold with us and hadn't any confidence in the Mormons, so we kept close watch. A day or two after this, we took our mules and started to Salt Lake City. About twenty miles out on our journey we met a large vehicle drawn by eight big white horses, a driver on top, and a great many women and one man inside. I recognized the man as Brigham Young, but said nothing. A little farther on we overtook a man in the road and I asked him who the man and all the women were that we had met back on the road. He said it was Brigham Young and twenty of his wives.
We made a short stop at Salt Lake. There seemed to be but one road out of the valley in which the city is situated and that led us south about ten miles, thence east through a steep, rough canyon. It was at the mouth of that canyon where the Mormons later built the wall to resist the government soldiers. The road through the canyon led us finally to the top of a high range of mountains. Passing over this and down the eastern slope, we came to Ft. Bridger on Black Fork of Green River. We followed this stream down to the main prong of Black River and went thence northeasterly to Green River, thence up a prong of that river until we reached the divide at South Pass. Here, after four hundred miles over a strange road and over wild and rugged mountains and deserts, we came again to the Oregon Trail, and found a familiar road.
This portion of the road is now familiar also to the reader. It led down Sweetwater, past Independence Rock and Devil's Gate to North Platte River. Just after we crossed the North Platte, we stopped for dinner. We had eaten our meal and were resting when we saw what appeared to be a band of Indian ponies back across the river and about a mile away. We could not tell whether Indians were upon the ponies or not, but there was little doubt in our minds but that there were. We packed our mules hurriedly, saddled our horses, and started on and had made but a short distance when three Indians came running up in our rear on foot. They had dodged out from behind a boulder somewhere along the road. They appeared to be quite friendly. They said "How, How," and pointed to the good grass along the road. By these signs we understood that they wanted us to camp and were recommending the place to us. All this time the ponies were getting closer to us and all doubt that Indians were upon them was removed. When the three saw that we were not going to stop, one of them grabbed the bit of the horse ridden by one of the Kilgore boys and attempted to hold it. Kilgore threw his gun down at the Indian, who loosed his hold and ran back. One of the three during this performance dropped behind and raised a sort of flag. At this the whole band of ponies started towards us and every pony had a red-skin on his back lying close down to the pony's neck. They came galloping as fast as the ponies could carry them and in single file. As they came closer we saw that they were all painted up in war style with black feathers plaited in their hair. There must have been twenty-five or thirty of them, and there were nine of us—five Gibsons, three Kilgores, and the Dutchman. This Dutchman rode in a little cart while the rest of us were on horse-back. We had eight pack mules loaded with our camp equipment and provision, and they had to be taken care of.
We put the pack mules abreast and pushed them directly ahead of us. The first Indians to reach us appeared to be very friendly, as if they could deceive anybody by that old ruse. They said "How, How," and appeared to be very anxious for our welfare. Their purpose in this, it was plain enough to see, was to allow their companions all to come up. When the last of their party caught up they all set up a great yell and made a dash to get between us and our pack mules. Every man in our company drew his navy and each man pointed at a different Indian. We had the drop on them. They had not drawn the guns which some of them had or the bows and arrows which others carried, and the first attempt to draw a weapon meant a dead Indian and they knew it, so they halted and fell back. As soon as they were out of the way we moved up and formed a ring around the pack mules, facing outward. This seemed to please them wonderfully, for they started galloping around us, yelling and going through all manner of ferocious maneuvers, but apparently never getting in a position where they could draw a weapon. As soon as we had surrounded our mules, Zach and Robert slipped off their horses and coupled all the mules together. This would keep them from scattering out. In a moment the boys were back in their saddles and back in the ring facing outward. The Dutchman in his cart was outside of our ring. He was very much agitated for a time for fear he would get cut off from us and be taken by the Indians. He managed to dash in, however, and get right close to our line and stop his horse. This gave him a chance to get out his double barrel shot gun which he carried in the cart and get ready for action.
This milling and yelling, around and around, must have kept up for ten or fifteen minutes. We didn't want to kill any of them, but we didn't propose they should get any advantage of us, and every man was on guard. By and by, Robert and Zach, who faced the road ahead, put spurs to their horses and broke through the ring, Robert turning on the Indians to the right and Zach to the left, each with a navy in each hand and the bridle reins in his mouth. This caused the Indians to break up the milling and hurry to the rear in order to keep their forces together. At the moment when they started back, two of our men put whip to the mules and forced them out through the gap as fast as they could gallop. The rest of us stood firm and steady, holding our guns on the Indians. We held them in this manner until the mules were well out of the way, then turned and galloped after them. We knew all the time that we had the Indians bluffed. They couldn't get any advantage of us and they would not fight in the open. They stood completely still after we left them and continued to watch us as long as we were in sight.
We made good haste that afternoon and traveled late. By 6:00 o'clock we were twenty-five miles away, and after supper we pressed forward until midnight. We counted that this put us a safe distance away, but to make still more certain of our position, we rode off from the trail about a mile to camp. At daylight we were moving again and the next day at noon reached Ft. Laramie. Perhaps this haste and forced marching were all unnecessary, but in dealing with the Indians, it is a good idea to put just as much distance as you can between yourself and them. Ft. Laramie offered us the first real security we had known since we crossed the Continental Divide. The whole territory, especially between Platte River and Ft. Laramie, was infested with the worst bands of Indians then known to emigrants, and many trains had been robbed and the members killed on this portion of the journey.
We found sixty thousand Indians at Ft. Laramie to draw their pay from the government. All were camped across the river north of the Fort. As we left Ft. Laramie we rode over and stopped for our mid-day meal. They gathered around us, made signs, tried to swap ponies with us and pretended to be, and were in fact at that time, very friendly with us. I remember an amusing incident that occurred at this time. Brother Isaac had a little Spanish mule which he offered to the Indians for a pony. The Indians asked if the mule was gentle. Isaac told them it was perfectly so, and in order to prove it, he jumped upon the mule bareback and with nothing but a halter to control it by. The mule had carried a pack all the way from Sacramento, but this was a new experience. He immediately bowed his back, stuck his head down between his knees, and began bucking. In a twinkle, Isaac was rolling ten feet away in the sand. I never saw anything give as much delight as this gave the Indians. They whooped and yelled and kept it up. Now and then it would subside and then break out again. We joined the Indians and laughed as heartily as they; everybody enjoyed it but brother Isaac. It was like most funny things, no fun at all to somebody.
About 2:00 o'clock we started down North Platte. The soldiers warned us to look out for scouting parties of Indians, and our own experience told us this was good advice. We met with no trouble, however, and reached the mouth of South Platte in good time. On this ride from Ft. Laramie to South Platte I think we must have seen hundreds of thousands of buffalo. They were so tame they would hardly give us the road. We had all the good buffalo beef we wanted every meal. A while before camping time, one of our party would ride ahead, pick out a good place where water and fuel could be had. He would then ride out to the closest buffalo herd, pick out a fat yearling, shoot it, and have it ready when we came up. It was short work to make a fire, make our bread, make the coffee and broil a fine buffalo steak. I have never enjoyed any meals in my life more than these. There was only one trouble about this method of getting our meat—the wolves kept us awake most of the night fighting over the carcass. In order to avoid this we usually dragged the carcass out of hearing of the camp. On the trip down from Ft. Laramie we noticed one day a great herd of buffalo far in front of us and a little to the right of the trail, which seemed to be grazing on the hillside in a circle. As we came nearer we made out the situation more clearly. Hundreds of them grazing, heads outward, formed a complete circle in which there must have been a thousand little calves all lying down. On the opposite hillside a half mile away, we saw about twenty savage wolves watching the herd. The buffalo were watching also. They knew the wolves were there and they were protecting their calves against them.
When we reached Ft. Kearney we learned that the Indians on Little Blue were on the war path, so kept on down Platte River fifty or sixty miles farther, and then passed across the country where Lincoln now stands, and reached the Missouri River at old Ft. Kearney, where Nebraska City is now situated. We crossed the Missouri River into Iowa and thence down the east side of the river. About the middle of the afternoon one day, we crossed the Missouri line, journeyed on to night, and went into camp without a guard, the first in three months. We passed Jackson's Point and Oregon, in Holt County, and reached Jimtown, Andrew County, where we stopped for the night with Drury Moore, a cousin of ours, and slept in a bed, the first in three years. Next day we reached home.
We rode up, driving our pack mules loaded with blankets, bread pans, frying pans, coffee pots, tin cups, and sacks of provisions; hair and beard long and unkempt and tanned as brown as Indians. Mother, sister Mary and brother Isaac's wife were the only members of the family at home and they came out on the portico of the house to watch us. They were not expecting us for two years, and of course, thought the caravan they saw belonged to strangers. When we began climbing off our horses and fastening the pack mules to the fence, they fell back into the house. We hitched, got over the fence, and walked up to the door without being recognized. In fact, we had a real hard time convincing them that we were really ourselves, and I am not very much surprised that they should not have known us. The dirt, sand, wind, sun and the grimy life we had led for more than six weeks without a shave or a hair cut was enough to disguise us.
We reached home about the middle of September, 1851. It was a delightful thing to be at home once more, but in order to carry out our plans we had little time to spare during this season of the year. Prairie hay grew in great quantities on the old farm and it was now in perfect condition to be cut and cured. We rested only a day or two, then sharpened up the scythes and went to work. We cut and cured twenty or thirty tons of this hay in order that we might have something to feed the cattle on as we collected them together. After this was done, we had a good long period of rest. Christmas came and we entered into the fun with the young folks. I think I shall never forget this winter at home.
About the first of January, 1852, we began buying cattle and kept it up throughout the remainder of the winter. By the first of May we had five hundred and fifty head collected upon the old farm ready to start.
CHAPTER V.
Across the Plains With Cattle.
The first days of May found us on the banks of the river at the mouth of Black Snake. Most of the men went along with the first load of cattle ferried across the river. As the cattle were driven out on the farther shore, the men corralled them and held them on a sand-bar to await the slow process of bringing the whole herd across. Elwood bottom at that time was a perfect wilderness of timber with only an Indian trail leading through it out as far as Peter's Creek. After much delay, the last of the herd was ferried over and then came the wagons, oxen, horses and mules.
There were twenty-five men in charge of this drove of cattle. Each man had a horse, and besides this, we had a number of mules. We took three wagon loads of provisions and had four yoke of oxen to each wagon. This comprised the outfit.
The Indians occupied the land on the Kansas side of the river and they came down to see us cross. They were peaceable and harmless, and did not mean to give us any trouble. They would come up close to the trail, and stand and stare at the cattle, and this was about as bad a thing as could have been done. I don't know why it is, but cattle never liked Indians. The whole herd would pass a white man without paying any attention to him, but if an Indian stood by the wayside where the cattle could see him, he would create a great commotion, and frequently, unless the greatest care was observed, a stampede would follow.
The cattle were not used to traveling, and we experienced our greatest trouble the first week out. We had not only the Indians to contend with, but we had to break the cattle to drive, and the brush and timber were so thick that every man in the company had to be on the watch to keep from losing some of the herd. The men were as green as the cattle, and with all these hindrances we made slow progress the first period of our journey. At the end of about a week or ten days, and after we had reached the high prairie, things began to settle down. The men learned their duties and the cattle had apparently been as apt as the men. They understood exactly what was before them when the start was made in the morning. One of our company always rode ahead and it was a pretty sight to see all the cattle break away from grazing and start out after this leader as soon as the men began to crack their whips and call to them.
We made no haste. The grazing was good and the water plentiful, and we wanted our cattle to get in as good condition as possible before they reached the desert part of the journey. Ten or fifteen miles a day was counted a good day's drive. At this rate, there was plenty of time for grazing and rest. The new men with us were impatient to go faster, but those of us who had been over the journey knew too well the trials ahead to permit haste on this part of the road. We wanted to save our strength in order that we might make haste across the mountains and the alkali that lay between us and the end of our journey.
At Little Blue we overtook a train lying in camp, and learned that Cholera had broken out, and that several deaths had occurred. An old man by the name of Frost came out to where we were and said he had been waiting for us; that he had heard we would be on the road this year, and when misfortune and sickness overtook his train, he decided to wait for us. He lived on Grand River, and his son had died of the Cholera, and we wanted to take the body back home. He said he had enough of the plains and didn't care to spend the remainder of his days amid such hardships. He had forty head of choice dairy cows and asked us to buy them. We told him we had no money for that purpose with us. He said he didn't want the money, if we would give him our note it would be good enough for him. We accordingly gave him a note for six hundred dollars and he turned his little herd over to us.
Brother Isaac decided to return with Mr. Frost and wait until he heard from us, and if we succeeded in getting our cattle through without difficulty, he would bring another herd the next year. Within a week after Isaac left, brother William, who had made the trip home by way of Panama and New York, overtook us with a drove about equal in number to ours. We combined the two and all moved together, thenceforth throughout the journey.
I may anticipate a little here and say that after arriving in California, we sent the money back to take up our note given for the forty cows. It reached our father and he communicated with Mr. Frost, paid him the money and took up the note. It was pretty slow business, but it was accomplished without difficulty.
When the two herds of cattle and two companies of men were joined together, they made quite a caravan. A good many Buchanan County boys made the trip with us, among them were James and Russell Deakins, Joe and Sebastian Kessler, Rufus Huffman and a man by the name of Streeter, who went along as cook in brother William's company. There were many others, but I cannot now recall their names.
We journeyed without incident that I now recall until we reached Plum Creek, which I have described in the account of my first trip out. Close to this place the wolves attacked our cattle one night and caught a fine cow and a heifer, and before we could relieve them tore their flanks so dreadfully that they both died. The bellowing of these two raised the whole herd and came near creating a stampede. It was a very dark night. The entire company got out upon horseback and rounded up the cattle, and kept galloping around them the remainder of the night, firing their guns to frighten away the wolves. It is a wonder we didn't have more trouble with wolves than we did. The buffalo had all gone south and had not returned, and the wolves were savagely hungry and would attack most anything that offered them a chance of securing food.
We kept our course on up the Platte, taking every protection against wolves and Indians, and finally reached a point just below the junction of the two rivers. Here we decided to try a new road. We would not go up the South Platte as we had gone on our previous trip, but would cross the river and follow up the North Platte. We spent half a day sounding the bottom of the river and found we could cross by raising our wagon beds about ten inches. The banks of the stream were low, but the water was running nearly bank full. By the middle of the afternoon we had the wagon beds all raised and the banks spaded down and ready for the start. We hitched ten yoke of cattle to one wagon and drove in with five men on horseback on each side of the cattle to keep them straight. This wagon crossed over in good shape and the oxen were driven back and a second wagon taken across the same way. As the last wagon crossed, we pushed the whole drove of cattle, a thousand in all, after the wagon. The loose cattle traveled faster than the work cattle and began to bunch behind the wagon and around the oxen until we could not tell the work cattle from the loose ones, except by the yoke. The loose cattle crowded on, more and more of them gathering about the wagon until I began to think our work cattle as well as the wagon were in great danger. We took quick action to relieve the situation. I ordered fifteen or twenty of the boys to rush right in, and with their whips force the loose cattle away from the oxen. They cut and slashed, whooped and yelled, and finally got in alongside the wagon and the work cattle. They then forced the oxen as fast as they could to shore and drove them out safely on the opposite bank. This left the loose cattle without any guide as to their course across the river. The current was running swiftly and the cattle wandered off down the river, sometimes getting beyond their depth and finally when they reached the bank, it was in many places so steep they could not climb out. It was a pretty serious situation for a little while, but by and by through hard work and much racing of the horses, we got them all out on the opposite shore and rounded them up about sundown.
Next morning we started on our slow journey up North Platte and moved on day by day, passed Fort Laramie, and a few miles above it struck across the mountains along the old trail most of us had twice traveled. Scenes were familiar along this route by this time—Fremont's Peak in the distance to the north, Independence Rock and Devil's Gate, and farther on South Pass, which divides the waters of the Atlantic from the Pacific.
Green River was past fording. A couple of men from the east somewhere had constructed their wagon beds of sheet iron made in the shape of flat boats and had left home ahead of emigration and when they reached this river, unloaded and set their wagon beds on the river and were ready for business. They set our wagons over at five dollars per load, and we swam our horses and cattle after them. We chose the old trail over which we had gone in forty-nine, as better than the Hedgepeth cut-off, and so we passed Soda Springs and Fort Hall, thence down Snake River to mouth of Raft River, up Raft River and over the divide to the Humboldt, down the Humboldt, over the desert and across the Sierra Nevada Range, and down on the other side. Every spot seemed as familiar to me as my father's door yard, but the most vivid recollections came when I passed the old pine tree at Weaver Creek under which I lay sick for ten days in forty-nine.
We crossed Sacramento River on a ferry at Sacramento City and went forty miles southwest into the Suisun Valley, nearer San Francisco Bay than our first ranch. We stopped a few days on Charles Ramsey's ranch until we could locate grazing land of our own. Ramsey was a son-in-law of Calvin James, and, as heretofore related, had brought his family with my brothers on their trip out in 1850. He built a pre-emption house in a black-haw patch where Easton, Missouri, now stands. After his arrival in California in 1850, he took up a ranch in Suisun Valley and passed the remainder of his life there.
After resting a few days at Ramsey's, brother James and I went back east about ten miles to Barker Valley and located a ranch, and returned for our cattle. Our first thought was of the cattle and after they had been provided for, we thought of ourselves. We put up a substantial cabin to shelter us from the rainy season, and then built a large corral by cutting posts and setting them deep in the ground, and binding the tops together with rawhide. We then dug a deep ditch around it, after which we were sure it would hold a grizzly bear. Our ranch proved to be on land claimed by Barker, a Spaniard, who lived about ten miles away, but he gave us no trouble. He had a little village of Spaniards around him and about fifty Digger Indians who were his slaves. They were quite friendly, and we all worked together looking after the cattle.
By the time all preparations had been made for winter, the season was pretty well advanced. Through it all, we had not had time to lay in a supply of venison for the winter or to enjoy a good hunt. After everything else had been done and we had rested a few days, we rigged up our pack mules and started for the mountains. I have already described the abundance of game in this country, and on this hunt we found no exception. Deer, antelope, elk and bear in plenty. We had to watch also for California lions, wolves and wildcats. They were abundant also. We were gone on this hunt about a week. Had a camp in which we assembled over night and brought in the results of our day's work. It was great fun to sit about a big camp fire and re-count the experiences of the day. We secured all the venison we could possibly need for a long period of time, and with it set off to our cabin to spend a winter very much the same as we had spent a previous winter farther up the valley.
Our only diversion was with the gun and the dogs. Wild fowl was still abundant, and we had the choicest meats whenever we wanted them. I remember during this winter that a large herd of elk were driven out of the swamp by the water, and into an open valley near our cabin. The dogs sighted them and made for them. They singled out a monster buck and he took to the water to battle them. The dogs were plucky and swam in after him, but they had little chance, as the water was beyond their depth, while he could easily stand on the bottom. As the dogs would approach him, he would strike them with his front feet and plunger them under. We watched the proceedings for a few minutes and soon saw that our dogs would all be drowned if we let the buck alone, so one of our boys rode in and shot him with his revolver. We dragged him out and dressed him. He was a monster, and must have weighed as much as 800 pounds. His antlers were the largest I have ever seen.
CHAPTER VI.
A Bear Hunt.
By March, our cattle were fat, and we began marketing. A bunch of dairy cows shipped across San Francisco Bay to San Francisco brought two hundred dollars a head. A month later we took over one hundred beef cattle and sold them to Miller and Lucks for one hundred dollars per head, and at various intervals throughout the spring months, we culled out the fattest cattle still on hand and took them over, receiving for all of them prices ranging from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty dollars per head.
Our plan was to stay in California during this summer, and we congratulated ourselves that we were to escape the burning plains. We had very little to do, had plenty of money and plenty to eat, and I believe every man in the camp was pretty well satisfied with California.
Late in the fall, as was our custom, we organized another hunt. I would not mention it but for an incident that occurred out in the mountains which may be interesting. The party consisted of my brothers, William, James and Zack, Joe and Barsh Kessler, and myself. We reached a good place to camp late one evening and pitched our tent. Some of the boys went to work about the camp, others took their guns and went out to look for camp meat and found it. One of the boys brought down a nice deer, and brought it in in time for supper. Next morning the party was up bright and early, and took off in various directions to look for game. We had not been separated a half hour until I heard the guns popping in various directions. I was crawling along the side of a gulch making my way up the mountain, and had concluded luck was against me. Shortly after I had made this reflection, I heard the sound of brother William's gun, which I knew very well, off to my right and across the canon. Then I heard a dreadful growling and howling and knew that William had wounded a bear. In a moment I heard a second shot, but the growling continued. I ran down the side of the gulch, crossed the ravine at the bottom, and started up the other side when I saw farther up the mountain a big grizzly making his way slowly along sniffing, growling and plowing through the wild oats that covered the side of the mountain. I was satisfied it was the bear that William had wounded, and I knew it was not safe for me to get very close to him. However, I was then in safe quarters, and I decided to move on to a position where I could get a shot that would bring him down, and, if I could not do this, it was my plan to keep him in sight so I could direct William, who was on horseback, how to follow him. In passing through the brush and undergrowth, however, I lost sight of the bear. I stopped and listened, but could hear nothing. I was in fairly open ground and could see some distance away, and as the bear was quite a distance ahead, I decided to move cautiously along. I really thought the bear had gone over the mountain. I moved slowly and as I approached fairly well toward the top, I noticed a thick bunch of weeds off at a distance, but it did not occur to me that the bear had stopped there. However, I continued up the mountain, intending to leave the weeds to my left. I slipped along until I got opposite the weeds, and there to my great astonishment, I saw the bear not thirty yards from me. His eyes were set upon me and his hair all turned the wrong way. I then thought for the first time how indiscreet I had been. I had only one chance, and I took that in a hurry. I dropped my gun and started down the mountain for a scrubby tree which stood about sixty yards away. When I started to run the bear took after me. I ran with all my might and as I passed under the tree, I jumped up and grabbed the lower limb and swung myself up. The bear came growling and plowing down the mountain, and raised on his hind feet, and grabbed my boot with one of his paws just as he passed under me, but the ground was so steep and his momentum was so great that it forced him on down the side of the mountain beyond me. This gave me time to go up the tree as high as I could, though it was so small that I could not feel very secure. The bear came back growling and snarling, and came up to the tree, stood up on his hind feet with his paws around the tree, and tried to reach me. I was not over five feet above him, but he could not reach me. I pulled off my hat and threw it upon the ground. He growled and fell back after it, and tore it all to pieces. This seemed to satisfy him for he did not come back to the tree any more, but stood looking around for a while and then walked away. He went on up the side of the mountain, perhaps a hundred yards, and crawled into a thicket of chapparal brush and laid down. I called William as loud as I could but got no answer. I called again and again, and finally he heard me. The first thing he said was, "Look out, there is a wounded bear up there." I called back to him and told him it was gone, but he didn't understand me. He said, "Get back, get away from there, there is a wounded bear in the weed patch right by you." I answered and told him to come on up, and he did so. He seemed surprised to see me in a tree, but I soon related my experience and pointed out the chapparal brush in which the bear was lying.
I had had a pretty narrow call, but I was not willing to give up without the bear. The question was how could we get him. I would not risk getting down and walking up to the brush patch. One experience of that kind was enough. There was a tree standing a few yards from the thicket, and after looking the situation over a while, I told William to go and ride between the tree and the brush, and keep a close lookout, and I would get down, run to the tree, climb it, and go out on a limb that extended toward the brush where I thought perhaps I could see to get a shot. He said it was a little dangerous, but I told him I was willing to give the old bear a dare anyway, that he had caught me off my guard the first time. We waited quite a long time and heard nothing from the bear, so William concluded to try it. He rode around up the side of the mountain between the brush and the tree, and made considerable noise, but the bear lay still. He called me, and I climbed down, ran as hard as I could, and was soon up the other tree and out of danger. This was a large tree and gave me plenty of protection. After I was well up the tree, I pointed out where I had dropped my gun and William went and got it. He said he had hard work to find it, as it was almost covered with wild oats straw and dust which the bear had dragged over it in his chase after me. The gun was father's old Tennessee rifle and as true a weapon as I ever used.
William handed the gun up to me and I examined it to see if it was all right. I then climbed high up in the tree and went out on the limb that extended toward the brush. From this point I had a good view down into the thicket and I soon located the bear. I laid my gun across a limb and drew a bead on his head. At the crack of the gun he straightened out and began to tremble and kick, and I knew the fight was over. His struggles dislodged him from his position on the steep mountain side and he tumbled over and over down the slant to the bottom of the gulch. He looked as big as an ox, but not half so dreadful to me as when I was scampering away from him an hour before.
We dressed him and went to camp. The other boys were there and each had a story to tell. Ours was of big game and easily carried away the honors.
We put in a week or more at this camp and had a good time and got any quantity of venison. Everything was so free, the air and water were so pure, and the wild tent life so fascinating that I often think of those days with delight.
Shortly after our return from this hunt, Joe Kessler and I loaded our pack mules and started back across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to meet brother Isaac, who was about due with his drove of cattle from across the plains. We had heard nothing from him since he left us the summer before, but he had told us he expected to get a herd of cattle and come. We met him on Carson River, and as I recall now, there were a number of Buchanan County boys with him—William James, John Sweeney and John Bridgeman were three that I recall. They had some eight hundred or a thousand cattle, and had crossed the plains without any very great difficulty, except the suffering and hardship from the drouth and alkali which could always be expected. We got the cattle across the mountains and on the ranch without difficulty and turned the poor things out to rest and get fat.
We remained on the ranch and in the cabin until everybody was well rested and then Bridgeman and the other boys who had come out with Isaac, began to talk about a hunt. They had heard our bear and deer stories and wanted some experience of their own.
I must tell one thing that occurred on a hunt that was planned for these boys especially, although I have previously related at considerable length my hunting experiences. We had been out in the camp a day or two and had not had much luck, especially with bear; but one afternoon while we were all moving along pretty close together and somewhat contrary to our ordinary methods of hunting, we ran on to two brown bears just as they were going into a dense thicket covering about twenty acres of ground. We had no chance to get a shot before they went in. We immediately surrounded the thicket and posted men at convenient distances apart, and began an effort to dislodge them. In spite of the danger of doing so, some of the boys went into the thicket and made a great noise which drove the bears to the farther side and gave the boys on that side a fair chance for a shot, but they did not get them and the bears ran back into the thicket. The same tactics drove them from one side of the thicket to the other for an hour or more, and nobody was able to make a telling shot. By and by both got away, and everybody was deeply chagrined—especially the boys who were out for the first time.
We moved away from the thicket and down the mountain side, all still much excited, and stopped to rest in a little glade that was almost completely surrounded by thick brush. There was not a loaded gun in the crowd. As we sat there talking, a grizzly bear that looked as big as an old gray mule, walked out of the brush not twenty steps away. He raised up on his hind feet with his paws hanging down to his sides, dropped his lip and showed his teeth. I don't think I ever saw a crowd of men so badly scared. They jumped and ran in every direction. The closest tree stood between where we were sitting and the bear. Sweeney made for it.
He was beside himself. He tried to climb the tree but lost his hold and fell back. He tried again, but the tree had a smooth trunk and he slipped again. He slid down until he sat flat upon the ground with his arms and legs locked around the tree. Here he lost his head completely. His desire to get up the tree had evidently placed him there in his own imagination, for he called out: "Hand me my gun up here! Hand me my gun up here!" He then said, "Why in the hell don't you boys climb a tree?"
I stood perfectly still and kept my eye on the bear. I soon saw there was no danger in him; that he was as badly scared as we were. He stood a moment, dropped on his four paws to the ground, wheeled and went tearing back through the brush. I told the boys he couldn't understand what they were doing and took their conduct to be preparation for a great fight, and that I didn't blame him for getting scared. If the devil himself had seen them and hadn't understood that they were scared, it would have frightened him.
When we got over our scare, we loaded our guns carefully and started for camp. The boys were still excited and as we passed over the stream which flowed at the bottom of the canon, we saw where a bear had apparently, but a few minutes before been wallowing in the mud and water. The mountain sides were steep and rough and covered with brush, and our boys after their recent fright, were in almost as much terror at this evidence of nearness to a bear as they were when they could actually see him. The experienced members of the party looked into the situation for a moment and decided that we would probably get this gentleman. We climbed back up the canon, every now and then loosening a big rock and rolling it down through the brush. By and by we routed out a brown bear. He started up the mountain on the opposite side of the gulch and in plain view. I gave him a sample of what my Tennessee rifle could do and sent him rolling back to the bottom of the gulch ready to be dressed.
We remained in camp a week or two on this hunt and everybody, as usual, enjoyed it. We went back to the cabin where six Gibson brothers lived together. The cattle were little trouble, and there was nothing to do most of the time but loaf, and this didn't suit us after so much activity. We soon began to plan for the succeeding year. The cattle were not much trouble and two men could easily take care of them. James, Zack, Robert and myself volunteered to return to Missouri and bring another herd out next year, leaving William and Isaac in charge while we were gone.