Christopher Carson by John S. C. Abbott (best fiction novels of all time txt) 📕

be found, in any prison in this or any other land.

My lieutenant, whose name was Texas, had but one eye and he was covered with scars. But notwithstanding the company was a hard one, it was the best I could get for my use. Almost all of them had been in many a fight. Before they had been with me three months, I have reason to believe every one of them loved me, and I know that they feared me. Only two instances of mutiny occurred in over two years and a half. Both of these I will here relate.

On one occasion I observed that some of the jacks had been kicked severely. I said to my pack-master, "Mr. Williams, how is this? Those jacks have been shamefully used. The skin is off and the wounds are bleeding. I, as you well know, hold you personally responsible for every animal. Don't let me ever see this again, sir."

As I turned to go from him, I heard him mutter something. I at once, with my hand upon my revolver, came back towards him and inquired, "what's this you're saying, sir?"

He replied, "I kicked the jacks myself and I will do it again if they bother me."

I walked to within perhaps ten paces of him and said, "If I ever catch you at it, I will shoot you like a dog."

"Two," he replied, "can play at that game," and his hand neared the butt of his revolver. I jerked out my pistol and fired at his arm. His pistol dropped to the ground.

"Don't shoot again, captain. I will do as you wish in the future."

"All right," said I. "Let me see your arm."

I had shot him through his wrist. I bound up the wound as well as I could, and it soon healed. He remained in my employ nearly four years after that, and to my knowledge was never guilty of doing me or my animals a wrong.

Another instance happened a long time after this. I was getting short of provisions, and had got to do just so much work within a certain time. So I resolved to run two instruments. As we were then running sectional lines, I could take the variations at night. So I fixed another instrument and gave it into the hands of a young man by the name of Biddleman. I assigned to him his part of the line then, and set him at work within three miles of the camp.

Returning to camp about two o'clock in the afternoon, to do some traverse work around a small lake, what was my astonishment, to see that Biddleman's party was already in camp. Upon asking him what it meant, he told me that upon running a random line, he stopped to correct the error at the half mile corner, and that his men on getting to the mile corner, instead of coming back and reporting the error as they should have done, started for camp. He, of course, followed on, as he could not do anything alone.

I at once called his party of men, told them to get their chain and pins, put the stakes, pickaxe and shovel on the line animal, and follow me. This they did. When we got to the corner where Biddleman left off work, I set my instrument, gave them an object to run by, and sent them off. They went and returned to me. I then ran another mile north, set my instrument and started them east again on random. They went and I followed them to the half mile corner, to which place they returned.

I said: "Boys, we will now go to camp. In future whether with me or Biddleman, you will continue at your work until you are directed to return."

Had I allowed either of the above transactions to have passed unpunished, I might as well have started for the States, for all order would have been at an end.

Sometimes we would see a small party of Indians at a short distance from us. I would step to my instrument, and turn the glass towards them. They would at once commence to scamper, throw sand, turn into all manner of shapes, lie down, roll over, thinking no doubt it was a gun or something that would destroy them. At one time, I attempted to cross from the sink of the Mohavè river to Providence, some sixty miles, expecting to find water at Washburn's well. This was a hole which I afterwards found dug down about ten feet in the white sand that covers this desert. On this sand not any thing grows, but musquit bush, which bears a bean that the Indians eat.

After travelling to within twelve miles of the mountain, my animals and my men all gave out. We did not have a drop of water, and my chart said that there was none short of the mountain. I told the boys that evening was coming on, and I would take some leather bottles we had and go and get some water as quickly as I could. So just before dark, I started with bottles enough to hold twenty quarts. I had a trail to follow in the dark, not over a foot in width. After what seemed to me the longest twelve miles I ever travelled, I arrived at the mountain. After following the ravine through the top, I found the spring, drank heartily, filled my bottles, and started on my return trip. I arrived at the place where I had left my men, just as the day was breaking. After giving them a good drink, I gave some to each of the animals, any one of which would drink from a canteen or bottle.

We then all immediately started on towards the mountain, at which place we finally arrived. When within about fifty yards of the spring, I saw a small party of Indians camped just above it. One of them, the chief, stepped forward, and in Spanish ordered me to stop. And here let me say, that almost all of the Indians, especially their chiefs, can talk Spanish. When he ordered me to stop, I burst out into a laugh, and asked him "what for." My boys in the meantime were preparing for a fight. I told them to put up their weapons, as I did not wish to commence fighting the Indians here, as there were lots of them, and we had a good deal of work to do in that vicinity. Though we might kill or capture all of this party, a larger band might attack us in the future. So I told the boys that if they would keep still, I would bother the Indians a little, and then let them go. This was agreed to. Upon my asking the chief _what for_, he said,

"This water belongs to the Indians."

I replied, "Do you call yourselves Indians? You are nothing but squaws and papooses. I was here last night, and got water under your very noses, and you did not know it."

"The white captain," the chief replied, "talks with two tongues. He lies."

"You are the one that lies," I rejoined. "Has the chief lost his eyesight? Is he so old that he cannot see the white man's trail? Let him come forward and meet his white brother alone, and he will show him his trail."

He at once advanced as I did myself. We shook hands. I pointed out my last night's trail. He saw it at once, and turning to his companions, said to them,

"The white captain has told the truth."

So we shook hands all around. I gave them some hard bread, also some bacon, and we had a good time generally all day resting at this spring. At nightfall they all departed, as silently as shadows, leaving us in full possession of the spring of water.


CHAPTER XVI.

Recollections of Mountain Life.

Position of The Spring. - The Cachè. - Kit Carson's Character and
Appearance. - Cool Bravery of a Mountain Trapper. - Untamed
Character of Many Hunters. - The Surveyor's Camp in an Indian
Territory. - Terrors from Indians. - Joe Walker. - A Mountain
Man. - Soda Lake. - Optical Illusion. - Camp on Beaver Lake. - The
Piyute Chief. Conversation with Him. - An alarm. - A Battle.


Mr. Goodyear in his interesting narrative continues: Here let me speak a word or two about water. The springs, as a general thing, are found near the summit of the mountains. In some cases I have had to pack the water a distance of forty miles, for months at a time. From a lake where it bubbled up from the bottom as warm as you would like to hold your hand in, the process of evaporation in the leather bottles rendered it soon, almost as cool as ice water.

Let us now return to our first camping ground on the Mohavè river. Here I _cached_ or buried for concealment, some of my provisions, to relieve the animals of their heavy load. If Mr. Indian does not find the _cache_, it will be all right on our return. I will explain how we do it. First, then, we send out two or three men as scouts, to see if they can discover any signs of Indians, such as footprints or trail, or smoke, or anything of that kind. Men that are used to it, can distinguish between the footprints of an Indian and a white man. They can also, at a long distance off, tell an Indian fire from a white man's.

Any mountaineer can tell by the trail, how long since persons have passed, the number of the party, as well as the number of animals. An Indian, when he makes a fire, uses half a dozen little sticks as big as your thumb, and very dry, and all the smoke the fire makes, will ascend straight up in one steady column. The white man will use, if he is a novice, the dry to kindle with, and then he will chuck on the wet wood, which will cause a great smoke.

But to return to my _cache_. I keep out my scouts all the time we are to work. "Boys, get your shovels, and dig a hole about four or five feet deep, by ten feet in length. Put a lot of wood or branches in the bottom. In with the provisions, canvas over the top, or more bushes. Cover over all with earth. Then take ashes from previous fires, and scatter over the top; then build fires over them, so as to dry the sand."

It was here in this camp that I first met Christopher Carson, or Kit Carson, as he was called. From his wide acquaintance with the Indians on both sides of the Rocky mountains; from his personal knowledge of the many tribes of the red men; from his bravery under all circumstances in which he has been placed, Kit Carson stands at the head of all the hardy pioneers of the Great West. It is now more than twenty years, since I first met him on the Mohavè river, about eighty miles from San Bernardino.

He was accompanied by an American and half a dozen Mexicans or half breeds, who were assisting him to drive some sheep. As he rode up, he saluted me with Buenos dias Señor, which means 'good day sir.' I answered the salutation in the same language, at the same time