^^m i\ V.^^ .•^^p. ♦ o i o ' ^^ ^:p^ •^ ^ PREFACE The text here used is that of the first edition, but with modernized spelling and punctuation. The spelling of Indian proper names has been changed, where necessary, to con- form to the present usage; and the form Deslauriers has been substituted for the old form Delorier. The poetical extracts which preceded the several chapters, and two or three unsuit- able passages in the text, have been omitted. With these exceptions, the original text has been followed exactly. The notes are limited to the explanation of difficulties not easily to be resolved by the aid of a dictionary or encyclopaedia. Brown University, January, 1911, CONTENTS PAGE Preface 5 Introduction 9 Bibliography 18 Author's Preface to the First Edition 19 CHAPTER page I. The Frontier. 20 II. Breaking the Ice 29 III. Fort Leavenworth 40 IV. ''Jumping Off" 44 V. The "Big Blue" 55 VI. The Platte and the Desert 74 VII. The Buffalo 88 VIII. Taking French Leave 105 IX. Scenes at Fort Laramie ». . 122 X. The War Parties .138. XI. Scenes at the Camp 161 XII. Ill Luck 182; XIII. Hunting Indians ' 190 XIV. The Ogallala Village 215 XV. The Hunting Camp 236 XVI. The Trappers 260 XVII. The Black Hills 270 7 8 Contents CHAPTER PAGE XVIII. A Mountain Hunt 275 XIX. Passage of the Mountains 287 XX. The Lonely Journey 305 XXL The Pueblo and Bent's Fort 327 XXII. Tete Rouge, the Volunteer 335 XXIII. Indian Alarms 340 XXIV. The Chase .352 XXV. The Buffalo Camp 362 XXVI. Down the Arkansas 378 XXVII. The Settlements 396 Appendix Helps to Study . .407 Theme Subjects 409 Selections for Class Reading 410 Chronological Table 411 INTRODUCTION Francis Parkman was born in Boston, September 16, 1823. He was of English ancestry, and on his mother's side could trace his descent from John Cotton, the famous Puritan divine, who came to Massachusetts in 1633. His father w^as a well-known and highly respected Unitarian minister. When he was eight years old the boy went to live with his grandfather on the border of Middlesex Fells, a wild tract of broken, picturesque country, about four thousand acres in extent, near Boston. Here for four years he was able to gratify the love for outdoor life which seems to have been inherent with him, and which later was to be shown so markedly in his books. He prepared for Harvard College at a private school in Boston, and graduated in 1844, after a creditable but not brilliant course. For the next two years he was a student at the Harvard Law School, but he had no taste for the law, and never practiced. Before the end of his sophomore j^ear in college Parkman had definitely formed a plan of writing the history of the French in America; and to the execution of this great task, the performance of which he estimated would take twenty years, his thought and energy were henceforth mainly bent. All the books on the subject to which he could get access were eagerly read. One of his summer vacations was spent in exploring the headwaters of the Magalloway river in Maine; another was passed in the region of Lake George and Lake Champlain, where he studied the topography of the country, examined battle-fields of the French and Indian wars, and gathered stories and traditions from old settlers. 10 The Oregon Trail A slight accident, necessitating a brief interruption of college studies, became also the occasion of his first trip to Europe. The journej' which forms the subject of the Oregon Trail was made immediately upon the completion of his law" studies. He had already, the previous j^ar, visited what Vsas then "the West," going as far south as St. Louis and as far north as Mackinaw and Sault St. Marie, besides visitT ing Niagara, Detroit, and other places associated with the early French occupation. What he needed, however, as the foundation of his great historical undertaking, was an inti- m.ate and first-hand acquaintance with Indian life; and such acquaintance was to be had in that day, by any one who had the courage to seek it, in almost any part of the country west of the Mississippi. In order to understand Parkm.an's journey and its sig- nificance, it is necessary to recall the geography of the coun- try in 1846. The western boundary of the United States was still the western limit of the Louisiana purchase of 1803, namely, the summit or watershed of the Rocky Mountains. The northern boundary, the forty-ninth parallel, as far as the Rockies, had been fixed by treaty with Great Britain only as late as 1842; while the treaty of 1846, extending the same line w^estward and confirming the claim of the United States to Oregon, was not signed until June 15, at which time Parkman and his companions were on their way. War with Mexico, which was to carry the boundary of the United States to the Pacific, was declared on May 13 of the same j-ear. North and w^est of Missouri and Iowa, none of the states which now occupy this great region had yet been formed. The Territory of Wisconsin, organized in 1836, included within its limits most of the country between the Great Lakes and the Missouri river, north of Iowa; and Iowa had been admitted as a state only about a year before Parkman's journey began. With the exception of Indian traders, mis- Introduction il slonaries, and soldiers, there were no white inhabitants, for no part of the country had as yet been opened to settlement. From what is now Oklahoma to the British possessions, tribes of savage Indians roamed at will, hunting the buffalo and antelope that were to be found in countless multitudes on the prairies, fighting bloody battles with one another as their ancestors had done for generations, and kept in nominal subjection only by United States troops. The fertility of the soil was hardly dreamed of, and much of the country where agriculture and cattle-raising now flourish appears on maps of the time as the "Great American Desert." From the Missouri river two great overland routes gave access to the interior and to the Pacific. One, the Santa Fe trail, followed a fairly direct course from Independence, Missouri, at the junction of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, to the neighborhood of Dodge City, Kansas ; there it divided, one branch continuing up the Arkansas river to Bent's Fort, Colorado (see page 332), and thence south to the neighborhood of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and on to Santa Fe, the other crossing the Arkansas and proceeding to Las Vegas direct. The second, the Oregon trail, with branches from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and St. Joseph, Missouri, ran northwest across Kansas and Nebraska to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and thence through the mountains to the valley of the Columbia river. Both w^ere wagon routes, and the former carried for many j'ears a large and valuable overland trade with northern Mexico and southern California; while the latter, first shown about 1832 to be practicable for wagons, was the route commonly followed by emigrants who did not prefer to go to Oregon by sea. A prairie "trail" was not, of course, a regularly laid out or carefully built roadway, but a track, or series of tracks, worn deep into the sod of the unbroken prairie by the wheels of emigrant wagons, or "prairie schooners," or trampled by the feet of horses and cattle. It kept as much as possible 12 The Oregon Trail on high ground, crossing streams only when necessary, and then at good fording places. Save along the streams, the country was bare of timber, but the tall prairie grass afforded abundant forage for animals. An overland journey, filled as it was certain to be with picturesque incidents and thrilling adventure, was nevertheless slow, tedious, laborious, and dan- gerous; for in addition to the constant likelihood of Indian attacks, there was the ever-present danger of death from starvation, sickness, or exhaustion. Few large parties crossed the plains without leaving some of their number in lonely graves by the roadside. Parkman's journey occupied about five months. Leaving Boston in April, 1846, in company with a relative, Quincy Adams Shaw^, he went first to St. Louis, the trip by railroad, steamboat, and stage requiring about two weeks. Here they secured the services of two guides and procured their outfit, including in the latter a supply of presents for the Indians. Eight days on a river steamboat brought them to Inde- pendence, where the land journey really began. From this rough frontier town their route took them first to Fort Leavenworth, the principal military post on the Missouri river, and thence by the Big Blue and Platte rivers to Fort Laramie. Here Shaw, who was ill, remained, w^hile Park- man, who greatly desired to see the Indian at war, pushed on until he overtook a party of Ogillallah bound for the Black Hills to hunt buffalo, and, it was thought, almost certain to be attacked by hostile Arapahoes or Crows. To venture thus upon an expedition in which he risked his' life, and at a time, too, when he was himself so ill as hardly to be able to ride his horse, testifies to extraordinary courage and strength of will. Fortunately there was no fighting, although, as this part of the narrative shows, there was adventure in abundance. Returning in safety to Fort Laramie, the party went south through Colorado, passing Pike's Peak, to a point near the Introduction 13 Mexican border, where they met United States volunteers bound for the seat of war. Thence they continued north- eastward to Independence, by steamboat to St. Louis, and back to Boston. The story of the expedition, dictated to Shaw at Brattlc- boro, Vermont, was first published In the Knickerbocker Magazine, In 1847, under the title The Oregon Trail. In 1849 It appeared In book form, the author having the aid of Charles Eliot Norton In preparing the proofs for the press. The original title of the book was The California and Oregon Trail:' being sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life. In the fourth and later editions the title was changed to The Oregon Trail: sketches of Prairie and Rocky Alountain Life. Parkm.an was now ready for the great work which was to give him a place In the front rank of American historians. The physical difficulties with which he had to contend were so serious as to have defeated a will less strong than his ; and the courage, fortitude, and cheerfulness with w^hlch he met and conquered them make the story of his life one of the most heroic In the annals of literature. In his fragmentary Autobiography he tells us that his childhood was "neither healthful or buoyant" ; and a boyish enthusiasm for chem- istry seems to have injured rather than helped him. At col- lege he sought to overcome his physical weakness, and to prepare himself for the outdoor life which he adjudged neces- sary for his work, by long walks at a rapid pace, vigorous horseback riding, and severe exercise in the gymnasium ; and on his vacation trips he delighted in strenuous exertion and reckless exposure. It has often been said that the hardships of the Oregon journey, attended as it was with sickness and lack of proper food, ruined his constitution ; but It seems more probable that the experience only aggravated and made permanent a constitutional weakness already well established. Whatever the cause, there presently developed a serious 14 The Oregon Trail affection of the eyes, followed in 1851 by an attack of water on the knee which kept him in close confinement for two years, and left him permanently lame. Naturally of a nerv- ous temperament, his physical sufferings caused the irritability of his sj'stem, as he said, to centre in the head, inducing violent pains and a feeling of compression which, in connec- tion with the weakness of the eyes, permanently incapacitated him for prolonged application to books. He was rarely able to read or WTite more than a few minutes at a time, and was frequently compelled to abandon all work for months. "He never saw a perfectly w^ell day during his entire literary career." For a time he could write only by aid of a frame strung with wires, but from this he was presently emanci- pated, though he remained under the necessity of depending upon assistants and copyists, many of his readers being pupils from the public schools. It was with this enormous drawback of physical weak- ness that Parkman began and carried through his historical work. The first installment, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, appeared in 1851. Then followed an interval of fourteen years before the publication of the next part. Pioneers of France in the New World. The remaining volumes fol- lowed more rapidly. In chronological order of subjects, which is not the order of publication, the successive vol- umes, bearing as a series the title France and England in North America, stand as follows: Pioneers of France in the New World; The Jesuits in North America; LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West; The Old Regime in Can- ada; Frontenac and Neiu France; A Half Century of Con- flict; Montcalm and Wolfe; The Conspiracy of Pontiac. In the preparation of these volumes, Parkman had the archives of Europe and America searched for documents, many of which up to that time still remained in manuscript. In addition, he himself made four journeys to Europe m quest of material, besides personally visiting nearly every Introduction 15 place of importance in the United States and Canada with which his story had to do. At his death he left his collection of manuscripts to the Massachusetts Historical Society, and his books to Harvard University. Parkman did little miscellaneous writing. An entertain- ing account of his adventures on the Magalloway appeared^ in Harper s Magazine for November, 1864; and later, after his reputation as an historian was established, he wrote a few articles and reviews for periodicals. A novel, Vassal! Morton, was published in 1856. A fragment of an auto- biography was printed shortly after his death in the Pro- ceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Societj^ of which he was for some years vice-president. Parkman married in 1850 Catherine ScoUay Bigelow, daughter of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, a famous Boston physician. His wife died in 1858. During the larger part of his life he regularly passed the winter in Boston and the summer in Jam.aica Plain, then a suburb but now a part of the city. At his pleasant summ.er home on the shore of Jamaica Pond he devoted his leisure to gardening, winning special fame for his roses, of which a particularly beautiful variety, the lilium Parkmanni, bears his name. A Book of Roses, published by him in 1866, long had high repute among horticulturists. He was for several years president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and for a short time held the pro- fessorship of horticulture in the Bussey Institute, a depart- -^nent of Harvard University. Parkman was "rather above middle height, slender and cinewy, with a thin but agreeable and thoughtful face, and engaging m.anners." His ph^^sical infirmities made it impos- sible for him to mingle much in society or even to see niuch of his friends, but his friendships were warm and enduring, and his garden at Jamaica Plain was always open to visitors. Towards life, whether his own or others', his prevailing atti- tude was cheerful and buoyant, with no trace of melancholy 16 The Oregon Trail or disappointment. He was the first president of the St. Botolph Club, one of the leading social and literary clubs of Boston, and was honored with membership in numerous learned societies and with degrees from American and for- eign universities. He died at Jamaica Plain, November 8, 1893, and was buried at Mt. Auburn. Notwithstanding that the Oregon Trail is the work of a young man fresh from college, it shows clearly some of the qualities which give greatness to Parkman's work as an historian and wTiter. The language is clear, forcible, and picturesque, and at the same time easy and natural. The description of scenery, adventure, or hardship, while graphic and even at times, perhaps, over-elaborated, is always truth- ful, and plainly rests upon personal experience. Moreover, though the author has much to tell, he neither overweights the narrative with details nor directs attention prominently to himself ; on the contrary, he keeps constantly in view the main course of the action he is describing, and in the accounts of his own participation exhibits notable modesty and restraint. With regard to the Indian, Parkman Is under no illusion. He does not, like Cooper, create an essentially Imaginary red man equipped with attractive and heroic qualities; nor does he, like some later writers who have seen the Indian only at his worst, go to the other extreme and picture him as merely a degraded and brutal savage, better dead than alive. Parkman describes Indian life as he finds it, whether In the squalor and privation of the wigwam and camp, or the excitement of the hunt, or the ardor of war. Pie knew from personal experience that the Indian could be brave as well as cruel, talkative as well as taciturn, angry and uncontroll- able as well as self-contained, a firm friend as well as a bitter and relentless enemy; and he had no Interest in empha- sizing one quality more than the other. No writer of Ameri- can history has gauged so accurately, sympathetically, and Introduction 17 Impartially the essential traits of the Indian character, or set forth so comprehensively the every-day Indian life. The picture Is not always pleasing, but we nevertheless feel that the Indian whom we meet In his pages Is a real person, not a creature of the Imagination. Parkman's historical work as a whole Is characterized by extraordinary accuracy and range of Information, a warm but restrained sympathy with the subject, and a forcible, simple, and picturesque stjde. Later Investigators have cor- rected a few of his statements and modified a few of his judgments, but his work as a whole does not need to be done over again. He could take the point of view of his char- acters -without sacrificing his own critical judgment, and make his heroes live again In his pages. His literary style, while occasionally diffuse and lacking In rhythmical balance, Is always easy and natural, and often vivid in the highest degree. In power of description, w^hether of scenery, or men, or events, he Is easily first among American historians. He had, to be sure, the great advantage of working In what was then an unknown field, replete with historical Interest ; but he used his advantage with all the Intelligence of the scholar and the vision of the artist. It has been well said of his books that they created the history of the French In America. BIBLIOGRAPHY The best biography of Parkman is C. H. Farnham's Life of Francis Parkman (Boston, 1901). H. D. Sedgwick's Francis Parkman, in the American Men of Letters series (Boston, 1904), contains numerous extracts from letters and journals. The Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, series 2, vol. 8, contains (pp. 349-360) Parkman's auto- biography, together with an excellent memoir by O. B. Frothingham (pp. 520-562), and an account of the com- memorative proceedings of the society. The autobiography is also given by Farnham, supra, pp. 318-332. An interest- ing autobiographic letter to Martin Brimmer will be found in Sedgwick, supra, appendix. Among biographical sketches or estimates of Parkman's work, the following are especially to be commended : G. W. Cooke in New England Magazine, November, 1889 (vol. VII, pp. 248-262) ; E. L. Godkin in The Nation, Novem- ber 16, 1893 (vol. LVII, pp. 365-367); J. R. Lowell in The Century Magazine, November, 1892 (vol. XLV, pp. 44, 45) ; J. H. Ward in The Forum, December, 1893 (vol. XVI, pp. 419-428) ; Justin Winsor and John Fiske in The Atlantic Monthly, May, 1894 (vol. LXXIII, pp. 660-674). An estimate by James Schouler, in his Historical Briefs, pp. 1-15, reprinted from the Harvard Graduates Magazine, is also important. 18 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION The journey which the following narrative describes was undertaken on the writer's part with a view of studjang the manners and character of Indians In their primitive state. Although in the chapters which relate to them, he has only attempted to sketch those features of their wild and pictur- esque life which fell, in the present Instance, under his own e3^e, yet in doing so he has constantly aimed to leave an im- pression of their character correct as far as It goes. In justifying his claim to accuracy on this point, it is hardly necessary to advert to the representations given by poets and novelists, which, for the most part, are mere creations of fancy. The Indian is certainly entitled to a high rank among savages, but his good qualities are not those of an Uncas or an Outalissl. The sketches were originally published in the Knicker- bocker Magazine, commencing in February, 1847. Boston^ February 15, 1849. 19 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL CHAPTER I THE FRONTIER Last spring, 1846, was a busy season in the city of St. Louis. Not only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the journey to Oregon and California, but an unusual number of traders were making ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. Many of the emigrants, especially of those bound for California, were persons of wealth and standing. The hotels were crowded, and the gunsmiths and saddlers were kept constantly at work in providing arms and equipments for the different parties of travelers. Almost every day steamboats were leaving the levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded with passengers on their way to the frontier. In one of these, the Radnor, since snagged* and lost, my friend and relative, Quincy A, Shavv^ and myself, left St. Louis on the twenty-eighth of April, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains. The boat was loaded until the water broke alternately over her guards. Her upper deck was covered w^ith large w^agons of a peculiar form for the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for the same destination. There were also the equipments and provisions of a party of Oregon emigrants, ^ band of mules and horses, piles of saddles and harness, and a multitude of nondescript articles indispensable on the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley one might have seen ^Caught by the roots or branches of trees often found in western and southern rivers. 20 The Frontier 21 a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a "mule-killer" bejond the frontiers, and not far distant a tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels. The whole equipage was far from prepossessing in its appearance ; yet, such as it was, it was destined to a long and arduous journey, on which the persevering reader will accompany it. The passengers on board the Radnor corresponded with her freight. In her cabin w^ere Santa Fe traders, gamblers, speculators, and adventurers of various descriptions, and her steerage was crowded with Oregon emigrants, "mountain men,"^ negroes, and a part}^ of Kansas Indians who had been on a visit to St. Louis. Thus laden, the boat struggled upward for seven or eight days against the rapid current of the Missouri, grating upon snags, and hanging for two or three hours at a time upon sand-bars. We entered the mouth of the Missouri in a drizzling rain, but the w^eather soon became clear, and showed distinctl}^ the broad and turbid river, with its eddies, its sand-bars, its ragged islands, and forest-covered shores. The Missouri is constantly changing its course, wearing away its banks on one side while it forms new ones on the other. Its channel is shifting continually. Islands are formed and then washed away; and while the old forests on one side are undermined and swept off, a young growth springs up from the new soil upon the other. With all these changes, the water is so charged with mud and sand that it is per- fectly opaque, and in a few minutes deposits a sediment an inch thick in the bottom of a tumbler. The river was now high ; but M^hen we descended in the autumn it was fallen very low, and all the secrets of its treacherous shallows were exposed to view. It w^as frightful to see the dead and broken trees, thick-set as a military abatis, firmly imbedded in the sand, and all pointing down stream, ready to impale any "Trappers or hunters, not employed by a fur company. 22 The Oregon Trail unhappy steamboat that at high water should pass over that dangerous ground. In five or six days we began to see signs of the great western movement that w^as then taking place. Parties of emigrants, with their tents and wagons, would be encamped on open spots near the bank, on their way to the common rendezvous at Independence. On a rainy day, near sunset, w^e reached the landing of this place, which is situated some miles from the river, on the extreme frontier of Missouri. The scene was characteristic, for here were represented at one view the most remarkable features of this wild and enter- prising region. On the muddy shore stood some thirty or forty dark, slavish-looking Spaniards, gazing stupidly out from beneath their broad hats. They were attached to one of the Santa Fe companies,"^ whose wagons were crowded together on the banks above. In the midst of these, crouch- ing over a smoldering iire, was a group of Indians belonging to a remote Mexican tribe. One or two French^ hunters from the mountains, with their long hair and buckskin dresses, were looking at the boat; and, seated on a log close at hand, were three men w^th rifles lying across their knees. The foremost of these, a tall, strong figure, w^ith a clear blue e5'e and an open, intelligent face, might very well represent that race of restless and intrepid pioneers whose axes and rifles have opened a path from the AUeghenies to the western prairies. Fie was on his way to Oregon, probably a more congenial field to him than any that now remained on this side the great plains. Early on the next morning we reached Kansas,^ about five hundred miles from the mouth of the Missouri. Here we landed, and leaving our equipments in charge of my good friend Colonel Chick, whose log-house was the substitute for ^Trading companies. ^Canadian French, very possibly half-breeds. *The name was then used of a much larger region than the present State. The Frontier 23 a tavern, we set out in a wagon for Westport/ where we hoped to procure mules and horses for the journey. It was a remarkably fresh and beautiful May morning. The rich and luxuriant woods through which the miserable road conducted us were lighted by the bright sunshine and enlivened by a multitude of birds. We overtook on the way our late fellow-travelers, the Kansas Indians, who, adorned with all their finery, w^ere proceeding homeward at a round pace; and whatever they might have seemed on board the boat, they made a very striking and picturesque feature in the forest landscape. Westport was full of Indians, whose little shagg}^ ponies were tied by dozens along the houses and fences. Sauks and Foxes, w^ith shaved heads and painted faces, Shawnees and Delawares, fluttering in calico frocks and turbans, Wj^andots dressed like white men, and a few wretched Kansas^ wrapped in old blankets, were strolling about the streets or lounging in and out of the shops and houses. As I stood at the door of the tavern, I saw a remarkable looking person coming up the street. He had a ruddy face, garnished with the stumps of a bristly red beard and mus- tache; on one side of his head was a round cap with a knob at the top, such as Scottish laborers sometimes wear ; his coat was of a nondescript form, and made of a gray Scotch plaid, with the fringes hanging all about it; he wore pantaloons^ of coarse homespun, and hob-nailed shoes; and, to complete his equipment, a little black pipe was stuck in one corner of his mouth. In this curious attire I recognized Captain C. of the British army, who, with his brother, and Mr. R., an English gentleman, was bound on a hunting expedition across the continent. I had seen the captain and his companions at St. Louis. They had now been for some time at Westport, making preparations for their departure, and waiting for ^Now within the limits of Kansas City, Missouri. The landing was made a*' what was later known as Wayne City, Jackson County. ^Here used as a plural form. ^Parkman substituted "trousers" in later editions. 24 The Oregon Trail a re-enforcement, since they were too few In number to attempt It alone. They might, it is true, have joined some of the parties of emigrants who were on the point of setting out for Oregon and California; but they professed great disinclination to have any connection with the " Kentucky fellows." ' The captain now urged It upon us that we should join forces and proceed to the mountains in company. Feeling no greater partiality for the society of the emigrants than they did, we thought the arrangement an advantageous one, and consented to it. Our future fellow-travelers had installed themselves in a little log-house, where we found them all surrounded by saddles, harness, guns, pistols, telescopes, knives, and. In short, their complete appointments for the prairie. R., who professed a taste for natural history, sat at a table stuffing a woodpecker; the brother of the captain, who was an Irishman, was splicing a trail-rope" on the floor, as he had been an amateur sailor. The captain pointed out, with much complacency, the different articles of their outfit. " You see," said he, " that we are all old travelers. I am convinced that no party ever went upon the prairie better provided." The hunter whom they had employed, a surly looking Canadian named Sorel, and their muleteer, an Ameri- can from St. Louis, were lounging about the building. In a little log stable close at hand were their horses and mules, selected by the captain, who was an excellent judge. The alliance entered into, we left them to complete their arrangements, while we pushed our own to^ all convenient speed. The emigrants for whom our friends professed such contempt were encamped on the prairie about eight or ten miles distant, to the number of a thousand or more, and new parties were constantly passing out from Independence ^Probably an example of the ignorance of America common among English- men of that day. Few emigrants went to Oregon and California from Kentucky. 2A long rope, wound about a horse's neck or carried on the horn of the saddle, and u??d for leading or tethering an animal. iWith. ' The Frontier 25 to join them. Thej^ were in great confusioii, holding meet- ings, passing resolutions, and drawing up regulations, but unable to unite in the choice of leaders to conduct them across the prairie. Being at leisure one day, I rode over to Independence. The town w^as crowded. A multitude of shops had sprung up to furnish the emigrants and Santa Fe traders with necessaries for their journe}^; and there was an incessant hammering and banging from a dozen blacksmiths' sheds, where the heavy wagons were being repaired and the horses and oxen shod. The streets were thronged with men, horses, and mules. While I was in the town, a train of emigrant wagons from Illinois passed through to join the camp on the prairie, and stopped in the principal street. A multitude of healthy childrens' faces were peeping out from under the covers of the wagons. Here and there a buxom damsel w'as seated on horseback, holding over her sun-burnt face an old umbrella or a parasol, once gaudy enough, but now miserably faded. The men, very sober-looking country- men, stood about their oxen ; and as I passed I noticed three old fellows, who, with their long whips in their hands, were zealously discussing the doctrine of regeneration. The emi- grants, however, are not all of this stamp. Among them are some of the vilest outcasts in the country. I have often perplexed myself to divine the various motives that give impulse to this strange migration ; but whatever they may be, whether an insane hope of a better condition in life, or a desire of shaking off restraints of law and society, or mere restlessness, certain it is that multitudes bitterly repent the journey, and after they have reached, the land of promise are happy enough to escape from it. In the course of seven or eight da5^s we had brought our preparations near to a close. Meanwhile our friends had completed theirs, and becoming tired of Westport, they told us that they would set out in advance and wait at the cross- ing of the Kansas^ till we should come up. Accordingly R. ^Kansas River. 26 The Oregon Trail and the muleteer went forward with the wagon and tent, while the captain and his brother, together with Sorel, and a trapper named Boisverd who had joined them, followed with the band of horses. The commencement of the journey w^as ominous, for the captain was scarcely a mile from West- port, riding riong in state at the head of his party, leading his intended buffalo horse^ by a rope, when a tremendous thunderstorm came on and drenched them all to the skin. They hurried on to reach the place, about seven miles off, where R. was to have had the camp in readiness to receive them. But this prudent person, when he saw the storm approaching, had selected a sheltered glade In the woods, where he pitched his tent, and was sipping a comfortable cup of coffee, while the captain galloped for miles beyond through the rain to look for him. At length the storm cleared away, and the sharp-eyed trapper succeeded in discovering his tent. R. had by this time finished his coffee, and was seated on a buffalo robe smoking his pipe. The captain was one of the most easj-tempered men in existence, so he bore his ill-luck with great composure, shared the dregs of the coffee with his brother, and laid down to sleep in his wet clothes. We ourselves had our share of the deluge. We were leading a pair of mules to Kansas w^hen the storm broke. Such sharp and incessant f^.ashes of lightning, such stunning and continuous thunder, I had never known before. The woods were completely obscured by the diagonal sheets of rain that fell with a heavy roar, and rose in spray from the ground ; and the streams rose so rapidly that we could hardly ford them. At length, looming through the rain, we saw the log-house of Colonel Chick, who received us with his usual bland hospitality; while his wife, who, though a little soured and stiffened by too frequent attendance on camp- meetings, was not behind him in hospitable feeling, supplied 'A horse for hunting buffalo. ^ The Frontier 27 us with the means of repairing our drenched and bedraggled condition. The storm, clearing away at about sunset, opened a noble prospect from the porch of the colonel's house, which stands upon a high hill. The sun streamed from the break- ing clouds upon the swift and angry Missouri, and on the immense expanse of luxuriant forest that stretched from its banks back to the distant bluffs. Returning on the 'next day to Westport, we received a message from the captain, who had ridden back to deliver it in person, but, finding that we were in Kansas, had intrusted it with an acquaintance of his named Vogel, who kept a small grocery and liquor shop. Whiskey, by the way, cir- culates more freely in Westport than is altogether safe in a place where every man carries a loaded pistol in his pocket. As we passed this establishment, we saw V'ogel's broad Ger- man face and knavish looking eyes thrust from his door. He said he had something to tell us, and invited us to take a dram. Neither his liquor nor his message was very pal- atable. The captain had returned to give us notice that R., who assumed the direction of his party, had determined upon another route from that agreed upon between us; and, instead of taking the coufse of the traders, to pass northw^ard by Fort Leavenworth,^ and follow the path marked out by the dragoons in their expedition of last summer.^ To adopt such a plan without consulting us, we looked upon as a very high-handed proceeding; but, suppressing our dissatisfaction as well as we could, we made up our minds to join them at Fort Leavenworth, where they were to wait for us. Accordingly, our preparation being now complete, we attempted one fine morning to commence our journe3^ The first step was an unfortunate one. No sooner were our ani- ^The principal military post on the Missouri, established in 1827. "During the summer of 1845, the First Regiment of Dragoons made excursions into the country west of the Missouri, one party going north nearly to British territory, another as far as the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains and the headwaters of the tributaries of the Colorado. The object was to intimidate and conciliate the Indians See pp. 45, 260, post. 2S The Oregon Trail mals put in harness than the shaft mule reared and plunged, burst ropes and straps, and nearly flung the cart into the Missouri. Finding her wholly uncontrollable, we exchanged her for another, with which we were furnished by our friend Mr. Boone of Westport, a grandson of Daniel Boone, the pioneer. This foretaste of prairie experience was very soon followed by another. Westport w^as scarcely out of sight, \vhen we encountered a deep, muddy gully, of a species that afterward became but too familiar to us; and here for the space of an hour or more the cart stuck fast. CHAPTER II BREAKING THE ICE Both Shaw and myself were tolerably inured to the vicissitudes of traveling. We had experienced them under various forms, and a birch canoe was as familiar to us as a steamboat. The restlessness, the love of wilds and hatred of cities, natural perhaps in early years to every unperverted, son of Adam, was not our only motive for undertaking the present journey. My companion hoped to shake off the effects of a disorder that had impaired a constitution origi- nally hardy and robust; and I was anxious to pursue some inquiries relative to the character and usages of the remote Indian nations, being already familiar with many of the border tribes. Emerging from the mud-hole where we last took leave of the reader, we pursued our way for some time along the narrow track, in the checkered sunshine and shadow of the woods, till at length, issuing forth into the broad light, we left behind us the farthest outskirts of that great forest that once spread unbroken from the western plains to the shore of the Atlantic. Looking over an intervening belt of shrub- bery, we saw the green, oceanlike expanse of prairie, stretch- ing swell over swell to the horizon. It was a mild, calm spring day; a day when one is more disposed to musing and reverie than to action, and the softest part of his nature is apt to gain the ascendency. I rode in advance of the party, as we passed through the shrubbery; and as a nook of green grass offered a strong temptation, I dismounted and lay down there. All the trees and saplings w^ere in flower, or budding into fresh leaf; the red clusters 29 30 The Oregon Trail of the maple-blossoms and the rich flowers of the Indian apple were there in profusion ; and I was half inclined to regret leaving behind the land of gardens for the rude and stern scenes of the prairie and the mountains. Meanwhile the party came in sight from out of the bushes. Foremost rode Henry Chatillon, our guide and hunter, *a fine athletic figure, mounted on a hardy gray Wyan- dot pony. He wore a white blanket-coat, a broad hat of felt, moccasins, and pantaloons of deerskin, ornamented along the seams with rows of long fringes. His knife was stuck in his belt; his bullet-pouch and powder-horn hung at his side, and his rifle laj^ before him, resting against the high pommel of his saddle, which, like all his equipments, had seen hard service and was much the worse for wear. Shaw followed close, mounted on a little sorrel horse, and leading a larger animal by a rope. His outfit, which resembled mine, had been provided with a view to use rather than ornament. It consisted of a plain, black Spanish saddle, with holsters of heavy pistols, a blanket rolled up behind it, and the trail-rope attached to his horse's neck hanging coiled in front. He carried a double-barreled smooth-bore, w^hile I boasted a rifle of some fifteen pounds weight. At that time our attire, though far from elegant,, bore some marks of civilization, and oilFered a very favorable contrast to the inimitable shab- biness of our appearance on th^e return journey. A red flan- nel shirt, belted around the waist like a frock, then constituted our upper garment ; moccasins had supplanted our failing boots; and the remaining essential portion of our attire con- sisted of an extraordinary article, manufactured by a squaw out of smoked buckskin. Our muleteer, Deslauriers, brought up the rear with his cart, w^addling ankle-deep in the mud, alternately puflBng at his pipe and ejaculating in his prairie patois: "Sacre enfant de garce!" ^ as one of the mules would seem to recoil before some abyss of unusual profundit5% The lA French Cansdian oaro. Breaking the Ice 31 cart was of the kind that one may see by scores around the market-place in Montreal/ and had a white covering to pro- tect the articles within. These were our provisions and a tent, with ammunition, blankets, and presents for the Indians. We were in all four men with eight animals ; for besides the spare horses led by Shaw and m3'self, an additional mule was driven along with us as a reserve in case of accident. After this summing up of our forces, it may not be amiss to glance at the characters of the two men who accom- panied us. Deslauriers was a Canadian, with all the characteristics of the true Jean Baptiste.^ Neither fatigue, exposure, nor hard labor could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, or his obsequious politeness to his bourgeois f and when night came he would sit down by the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell stories with the utmost contentment. In fact, the prairie was his congenial element. Henry Chatillon was of a dififer- ent stamp. When we were at St. Louis, several gentlemen of the Fur Company^ had kindly offered to procure for us a hunter and guide suited for our purposes, and on coming one afternoon to the office, we found there a tall and exceed- ingly well-dressed man, with a face so open and frank that it attracted our notice at once. We w^ere surprised at being told that it was he who wished to guide us to the mountains. He was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and from the age of fifteen years had been constantly in the neighbor- hood of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the most part by the Company to supply their forts w^ith buffalo meat. As a hunter he had but one rival in the whole region, a man named Cimoneau, with whom, to the honor of both of them, he was ^A small two-wheeled cart drawn by one horse, still common in eastern Canada. 2A common nickname for French Canadians of the lower class. ^Master.