The Awakening of the Desert. Julius C. Birge
another body.
The muffled roar of the hoofs of the galloping mule herd, urged on by the yells of the mounted herders as they were rushing toward the corral, was the signal for the beginning of activities on the following morning. By the aid of the men the animals were driven into the enclosure. The vociferous braying of the mules mingled with the clamorous voices of the drivers, as each struggled to secure and bring into subjection his own big team of eight or ten mules. It was with remarkable celerity that the long-eared animals were harnessed to their respective wagons, and the command to roll out was given by the captain. Accompanied by the vehement shouts of the drivers and the cracking of whips, the train of forty wagons gradually uncoiled itself, stretching slowly out into the road, and in a solid line perhaps two-thirds of a mile in length "trekked" westward in a cloud of dust.
The time for our own departure soon arrived, and all who remained of the campers on the plains of Dobytown were ordered to move on. Doctor Brown's two wagons and our own teams, lined out in the van, were followed by the two outfits with the Hostetter's Bitters, and the last arrival was in the rear. All were found to be properly armed, and all other requirements of the Government being satisfied, we were soon following the windings of the trail. Among other items of freight which were being transported by our combined outfit, was a full wagon load of whiskey in four-gallon tin-box cans, and another wagon containing material for a distilling plant to be used in Idaho.
The orders of the War Department did not provide that after leaving any post a train should thereafter continue as a consolidated organization. To avoid unnecessary dust, and for other reasons, it was therefore mutually agreed among the parties composing our train that we should separate at our convenience.
With love for the country as God has made it, we gladly rolled out westward from Kearney City; away from the hybrid civilization, its dirty dives, its gambling dens and gamesters, who, like the flotsam on the crest of a rising flood, have too often been upon the surface near the front of western migration, depraving and demoralizing even the savages.
Although the writer has devoted much time to travel, none of his journeys has been the source of more profound interest than were the first months spent in those broad areas of the West in which there were no visible traces of the white man's presence. The cities and states of America have struggled to increase their population by immigration, apparently on the theory that the rate of that increase was to be the measure of growth in the happiness and prosperity of its people. When our national heritage shall have been partitioned among the nations of the earth, and the wild, wooded hillsides shall have been denuded by axe and fire, giving place for farms and cities, then they whose fortune it has been in childhood to roam through the primitive forests or over the yet free and trackless plains, would hardly exchange the memories of those years for a cycle on the streets of Constantinople or New York. Impelled by such sentiment, we soon separated from the train, to the mutual protection of which we had been assigned by the officers at Fort Kearney, and with the Browns took our chances against the Indians.
As soon as we were well away from the Fort, I again strayed out as I often did later, and with rifle upon my shoulder was soon striding over the highlands south of the river. It was a pleasant diversion to get out of the level valley, which at this point spread out some miles back to the bluffs. For a brief rest I selected an eligible spot, from which a wide view of the surrounding country was laid open. The atmosphere was wonderfully dry, clear, and exhilarating, and there seemed to be no suggestion of moisture either in the air or in all the broad landscape except in the muddy waters of the distant Platte. The thin grass, even thus early in the season, was scanty in growth and brown, as if touched by autumn.
Along the banks of the river further east we had in places observed trees, chiefly cottonwood, but from the bluff where I now stood, hardly a bush was visible save only upon the islands in the river, nearly all of which, except such newly formed sand bars as from year to year are shifted by each successive flood, were rather well wooded, – I knew not, but wondered, why.
Recalling to mind the prairies and openings of the North Mississippi River country, I remembered that in many cases those prairies ended at the banks of a stream, on the other side of which a dense and extensive forest began sharply at the water's edge. Fox, Bark and other rivers, as they were sixty years ago, were fair illustrations of this fact, but now even those forests are gone. It seemed to me that timber must at some time have grown upon all those Nebraska plains and prairies. The fact that trees still remained where protected by a stream would indicate that far-reaching and probably repeated fires have swept across those countries and stopped at the shore. The destruction of large areas of timber would increase the aridity of the climate, just as the later cultivation of what was once the plains has caused an increase in humidity.
The belief to which such reflections seemed to guide me, that those western plains were once wooded, was strengthened by the discovery of large sections of petrified wood, which I found on the high and now treeless land farther west, apparently in situ, where they had grown. My side-trip out upon these uplands was inspired quite as much by a desire to hunt game, as to formulate theories concerning the prehistoric conditions of the country. Not strange, then, that I became suddenly interested in a small herd of antelopes, which I discerned some distance to the southward, the first that I had seen under favorable conditions. Knowing their senses of smell and hearing to be wonderfully acute, I felt confident that no approach could be successfully made from the windward side, and that my movements must be carefully concealed if I hoped to get within reach of the vigilant animals, for the Henry rifle was not a long range gun. Being familiar with the oft repeated story, that expert hunters frequently attach a bright red handkerchief to the top of a ramrod, the other end of which is stuck in the ground, and that this decoy will attract the antelope, I determined to adopt that stratagem. I had a silk handkerchief, as did many men in that day. As repeating rifles have no ramrods, and no bush or stick was available, I propped up the gun, surmounted by the handkerchief, upon a little mound in sight of the game, and lying on my face, concealed in a slight depression, waited patiently for developments. The wary animals were not enticed by the sham allurement.
Any earnest hunter is willing to subject himself to any reasonable humiliation to achieve success. Therefore, upon my knees with rifle in one hand I crawled abjectly for a full hour over the gravelly soil, keeping to the leeward as much as possible. This devotional exercise was continued until I discovered that my trousers were worn through to the skin, and that the tissues were beginning to yield to abrasion, which threatened soon to reach through to the bones of my knees.
The mess certainly needed meat; therefore I adopted other tactics. Abandoning the fruitless efforts to reach the game by stealth, I rose to my feet but was instantly discovered. I sent two or three shots at a venture as the little herd faced me, but the bullets fell short of the mark, and with a few bounds the game was over the hills and far away. It became clear to me that the capture of the alert antelope, on the open plain, is quite a different undertaking from the shooting of deer in the forest. It would have been a far greater pleasure, and quite as easy, to have written that I went back to the trail for horses, and again returned with two fine antelope which were proudly exhibited amid the grateful plaudits of the admiring camp! – but the statement would lack veracity if not verisimilitude. It is true, however, that we did secure several antelope later.
A description of this out-of-door life would be incomplete if it failed to give at least a glimpse of a certain type of unanticipated events, which now and then were unfolded in our pathway; exotics quite out of their native setting, like an oil painting in a woodshed. Now, on that very night, Doctor Brown had pitched his big tent about a mile south of our camp. In the stillness of the evening, we heard issuing from it the sound of several voices in well rendered music. The familiar melodies were like a letter from home and in pleasing contrast with the yelping of prairie wolves, to which we had grown accustomed.
In the morning, when we moved out into line the Browns were in advance. The ladies sat upon their horses gracefully, as Kentucky girls usually do, using old-fashioned side saddles. The cow-girl saddle even in the West appears then not yet to have come into use. Fred addressed the young ladies, expressing appreciation of the music we heard on the preceding evening. They did not seem to have suspected that their voices would be heard at so great a distance. One of the boys, who rarely attempted to produce any music (except now and then a rollicking negro melody), spoke to