The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman [ebook reader online TXT] 📗

Then we turned westward, and moved over the hills and hollows at a slow pace toward the Black Hills. The heat no longer tormented us, for a cloud was before the sun. Yet that day shall never be marked with white in my calendar. The air began to grow fresh and cool, the distant mountains frowned more gloomily, there was a low muttering of thunder, and dense black masses of cloud rose heavily behind the broken peaks. At first they were gayly fringed with silver by the afternoon sun, but soon the thick blackness overspread the whole sky, and the desert around us was wrapped in deep gloom. I scarcely heeded it at the time, but now I cannot but feel that there was an awful sublimity in the hoarse murmuring of the thunder, in the somber shadows that involved the mountains and the plain. The storm broke.

It came upon us with a zigzag blinding flash, with a terrific crash of thunder, and with a hurricane that howled over the prairie, dashing floods of water against us. Raymond looked round, and cursed the merciless elements. There seemed no shelter near, but we discerned at length a deep ravine gashed in the level prairie, and saw half way down its side an old pine tree, whose rough horizontal boughs formed a sort of penthouse against the tempest. We found a practicable passage, and hastily descending, fastened our animals to some large loose stones at the bottom; then climbing up, we drew our blankets over our heads, and seated ourselves close beneath the old tree. Perhaps I was no competent judge of time, but it seemed to me that we were sitting there a full hour, while around us poured a deluge of rain, through which the rocks on the opposite side of the gulf were barely visible. The first burst of the tempest soon subsided, but the rain poured steadily. At length Raymond grew impatient, and scrambling out of the ravine, he gained the level prairie above.

“What does the weather look like?” asked I, from my seat under the tree.

“It looks bad,” he answered; “dark all around,” and again he descended and sat down by my side. Some ten minutes elapsed.

“Go up again,” said I, “and take another look;” and he clambered up the precipice. “Well, how is it?”

“Just the same, only I see one little bright spot over the top of the mountain.

The rain by this time had begun to abate; and going down to the bottom of the ravine, we loosened the animals, who were standing up to their knees in water. Leading them up the rocky throat of the ravine, we reached the plain above. “Am I,” I thought to myself, “the same man who a few months since, was seated, a quiet student of BELLES-LETTRES, in a cushioned arm-chair by a sea-coal fire?”

All around us was obscurity; but the bright spot above the mountaintops grew wider and ruddier, until at length the clouds drew apart, and a flood of sunbeams poured down from heaven, streaming along the precipices, and involving them in a thin blue haze, as soft and lovely as that which wraps the Apennines on an evening in spring.

Rapidly the clouds were broken and scattered, like routed legions of evil spirits. The plain lay basking in sunbeams around us; a rainbow arched the desert from north to south, and far in front a line of woods seemed inviting us to refreshment and repose. When we reached them, they were glistening with prismatic dewdrops, and enlivened by the song and flutterings of a hundred birds. Strange winged insects, benumbed by the rain, were clinging to the leaves and the bark of the trees.

Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. The animals turned eagerly to feed on the soft rich grass, while I, wrapping myself in my blanket, lay down and gazed on the evening landscape. The mountains, whose stern features had lowered upon us with so gloomy and awful a frown, now seemed lighted up with a serene, benignant smile, and the green waving undulations of the plain were gladdened with the rich sunshine. Wet, ill, and wearied as I was, my spirit grew lighter at the view, and I drew from it an augury of good for my future prospects.

When morning came, Raymond awoke, coughing violently, though I had apparently received no injury. We mounted, crossed the little stream, pushed through the trees, and began our journey over the plain beyond. And now, as we rode slowly along, we looked anxiously on every hand for traces of the Indians, not doubting that the village had passed somewhere in that vicinity; but the scanty shriveled grass was not more than three or four inches high, and the ground was of such unyielding hardness that a host might have marched over it and left scarcely a trace of its passage. Up hill and down hill, and clambering through ravines, we continued our journey. As we were skirting the foot of a hill I saw Raymond, who was some rods in advance, suddenly jerking the reins of his mule. Sliding from his seat, and running in a crouching posture up a hollow, he disappeared; and then in an instant I heard the sharp quick crack of his rifle. A wounded antelope came running on three legs over the hill. I lashed Pauline and made after him. My fleet little mare soon brought me by his side, and after leaping and bounding for a few moments in vain, he stood still, as if despairing of escape. His glistening eyes turned up toward my face with so piteous a look that it was with feelings of infinite compunction that I shot him through the head with a pistol. Raymond skinned and cut him up, and we hung the forequarters to our saddles, much rejoiced that our exhausted stock of provisions was renewed in such good time.

Gaining the top of a hill, we could see along the cloudy verge of the prairie before us lines of trees and shadowy groves that marked the course of Laramie Creek. Some time before noon we reached its banks and began anxiously to search them for footprints of the Indians. We followed the stream for several miles, now on the shore and now wading in the water, scrutinizing every sand-bar and every muddy bank. So long was the search that we began to fear that we had left the trail undiscovered behind us. At length I heard Raymond shouting, and saw him jump from his mule to examine some object under the shelving bank. I rode up to his side. It was the clear and palpable impression of an Indian moccasin. Encouraged by this we continued our search, and at last some appearances on a soft surface of earth not far from the shore attracted my eye; and going to examine them I found half a dozen tracks, some made by men and some by children. Just then Raymond observed across the stream the mouth of a small branch entering it from the south. He forded the water, rode in at the opening, and in a moment I heard him shouting again, so I passed over and joined him. The little branch had a broad sandy bed, along which the water trickled in a scanty stream; and on either bank the bushes were so close that the view was completely intercepted. I found Raymond stooping over the footprints of three or four horses. Proceeding we found those of a man, then those of a child, then those of more horses; and at last the bushes on each bank were beaten down and broken, and the sand plowed up with a multitude of footsteps, and scored across with the furrows made by the lodge-poles that had been dragged through. It was now certain that we had found the trail. I pushed through the bushes, and at a little distance on the prairie beyond found the ashes of a hundred and fifty lodge fires, with bones and pieces of buffalo robes scattered around them, and in some instances the pickets to which horses had been secured still standing in the ground. Elated by our success we selected a convenient tree, and turning the animals loose, prepared to make a meal from the fat haunch of our victim.

Hardship and exposure had thriven with me wonderfully. I had gained both health and strength since leaving La Bonte’s Camp. Raymond and I made a hearty meal together in high spirits, for we rashly presumed that having found one end of the trail we should have little difficulty in reaching the other. But when the animals were led in we found that our old ill luck had not ceased to follow us close. As I was saddling Pauline I saw that her eye was as dull as lead, and the hue of her yellow coat visibly darkened. I placed my foot in the stirrup to mount, when instantly she staggered and fell flat on her side. Gaining her feet with an effort she stood by the fire with a drooping head. Whether she had been bitten by a snake or poisoned by some noxious plant or attacked by a sudden disorder, it was hard to say; but at all events her sickness was sufficiently ill-timed and unfortunate. I succeeded in a second attempt to mount her, and with a slow pace we moved forward on the trail of the Indians. It led us up a hill and over a dreary plain; and here, to our great mortification, the traces almost disappeared, for the ground was hard as adamant; and if its flinty surface had ever retained the print of a hoof, the marks had been washed away by the deluge of yesterday.

An Indian village, in its disorderly march, is scattered over the prairie, often to the width of full half a mile; so that its trail is nowhere clearly marked, and the task of following it is made doubly wearisome and difficult. By good fortune plenty of large ant-hills, a yard or more in diameter, were scattered over the plain, and these were frequently broken by the footprints of men and horses, and marked by traces of the lodge-poles. The succulent leaves of the prickly-pear, also bruised from the same causes, helped a little to guide us; so inch by inch we moved along. Often we lost the trail altogether, and then would recover it again, but late in the afternoon we found ourselves totally at fault. We stood alone without clew to guide us. The broken plain expanded for league after league around us, and in front the long dark ridge of mountains was stretching from north to south. Mount Laramie, a little on our right, towered high above the rest and from a dark valley just beyond one of its lower declivities, we discerned volumes of white smoke slowly rolling up into the clear air.

“I think,” said Raymond, “some Indians must be there. Perhaps we had better go.” But this plan was not rashly to be adopted, and we determined still to continue our search after the lost trail. Our good stars prompted us to this decision, for we afterward had reason to believe, from information given us by the Indians, that the smoke was raised as a decoy by a Crow war party.

Evening was coming on, and there was no wood or water nearer than the foot of the mountains. So thither we turned, directing our course toward the point where Laramie Creek issues forth upon the prairie.

When we reached it the bare tops of the mountains were still brightened with sunshine. The little river was breaking with a vehement and angry current from its dark prison. There was something in the near vicinity of the mountains, in the loud surging of the rapids,