Our trip through Castle Valley was over, and we were once more in a railroad town, so we decided to stay a couple of days and give the horses the rest of which they were much in need.
Chapter X
Green River to Grand Junction
Sunday, June 26, we stayed in camp; that is, the horses did, but we explored Green River and the surrounding country, took a bath in the river, did our laundry work, and tried to catch some fish, but didn"t get a bite.
On one of our rambles we crossed the river and went about a mile south to a ranch house which we found deserted; the fruit trees were all dead and the alfalfa had been overflowed and killed out in places. It was an ideal place for a house here on the river bank with big cottonwood trees all around, giving plenty of shade. The house was made of cottonwood logs; in fact, almost all the ranch houses in this country are made of logs; near the river they are of cottonwood, and near the mountains of cedar or pine logs. We noticed a great number of dead orchards which were being cut out.
At noon we went uptown to a restaurant for our dinner. It is not much of a town, and most of it is new. They seem to be trying to raise fruit here, but apparently with poor success. The successful people evidently are the ones who can sell the land. The roads are very dusty and the land seems burned up. They have had no rain here in months, and we go back to our wagon feeling that it is the dryest looking country we have ever seen, and that there must be something wrong with the people. With a river flowing right by the town there should be better use made of it, but probably they do not know how. The people are not Mormons; they are newcomers and hence what might be called "tenderfeet." They will learn, and some day Green River will be a beautiful little city, but to-day it lies bare and dusty and new, baking in the sun.
Monday, Doc and I went on an exploring trip down the river and Bob stayed about the camp. We climbed up on top of a bare, ragged mountain to see what we could of the country and the river, but with not much success. The river runs through a canyon and can not be seen, and the country is much the same south of us,--hard, ragged desert b.u.t.tes.
This is evidently the beginning of the formation which later, at the Grand Canyon, is so wonderful a sight. Just below here is where the Green and the Grand Rivers come together, forming the Colorado, and from there on, I imagine, the canyon grows in depth and desolation, until near Williams it is twelve miles wide and over a mile deep.
Returning from this trip on foot we look over the horses very carefully to see what improvement they have made in the two days they have had to rest. We find they have had all they could eat and drink, and Bess seems to be in her usual good condition. Doc says she is the most wonderful horse to work and keep it up without wearing out he ever saw. She has so far been in harness every working day, against Kate and Dixie in turn, and does not seem to be as tired or sore as either of them. Dixie"s neck is still in bad shape and Kate, while apparently looking good, is really "dead on her feet," to use a slang phrase. She has never had a chance to recuperate from that setback she had in the Mojave Desert when she went blind and bled at the nose, and so in looking them over Doc says, "Well, Kate will never get to Grand Junction." He had said before that she would not get to Green River, but she was here, and apparently in pretty good shape, so I could afford to laugh and tell Doc that Kate would go as far as either of the others.
It is a hundred and twenty miles from here to Grand Junction and this is the twenty-seventh of June. When I left home I made arrangements to have Mr. Bradley and his son Norman, of Rockford, Illinois, and my son, Norman, join us at Grand Junction, Colorado, on July fourth, and go with us through Colorado. It had seemed a little foolish, sitting comfortably at home in Chicago, to say, "I will meet you at Grand Junction on July fourth." There had been a good many times since when I had thought it better to send word to them that we could not reach Grand Junction at the time I had promised, but as we seemed somehow, in spite of the many difficulties, to keep up to schedule, I had refrained from changing the date. Now that we were within one hundred and twenty miles of there, with six days in which to make it, I felt so confident that we would have no trouble in getting through a day or two ahead of time, that I sent them a telegram that we would be at Grand Junction and ready to leave July fourth. When we returned to our wagon after sending the telegram it looked like rain; in fact, we were so sure it would rain that we put down the wagon sheet and slept in the wagon. That night was the second time we had slept in the wagon since starting, six weeks before, from Los Angeles.
When we awoke the next morning we found it had rained some during the night and was still cold and cloudy. We were quite elated and as we had not had any experience with rain since leaving Los Angeles, we started off very joyously, thinking the dust would be laid and water would be plenty, but we were hardly under way before we discovered our mistake. The roads were sticky, the country was nothing but bare clay hills, and it was hard on the horses. As they were in better condition on account of their rest, we made twenty-five miles and thought we had done wonders, although we did not get into camp until late because, just before we reached the place we had picked out to camp, we stuck in the bottom of a wash and had to unload most of our stuff, including our water barrels. This was the first time I had been stalled and I was quite chagrined to think I had got into a place I could not pull out of. Doc said there had to be a first time, and that we couldn"t expect to go through without getting stuck a few times, but I got some experience here and never did it again. The boys thought I was too much "sot up" over my driving and, I think, enjoyed seeing me stuck, even if it did make us all do some hard work for a short time and delayed us half an hour in getting into camp. This is the way it happened:
We had come to a wash, down which the water was rushing over the rocks, and the trail dropped nearly straight into it. Bob rode Dixie down and then rode up stream looking for a way out on the other side.
A hundred yards above and around a bend the trail led up and out, and without thinking to walk up on my side and take a look at it myself, as soon as I saw Bob"s head coming up around the bend, I dropped right down into the stream and drove up over the boulders and, when too late, found I didn"t dare to stop on account of the sand, and brought the team around at a hard angle to climb almost straight up a slippery bank. They were winded and, with wet hoofs, had just managed to pull the wagon up out of the sand and water when they both lost their feet, but hung on until I put on the brake and let them get up and recover their breath.
I knew they could not start the wagon again alone on that grade so I told Bob I thought if we put Dixie on ahead, the three of them could do it, but they didn"t. Dixie with her sore neck refused to pull after she had tried it once, and so, admitting I was stuck and needed help, we all went at it and lightened up the load. We carried it up the hill, and then with Doc and Bob pushing, we got the wagon up and were soon in camp at a water-tank.
The place was called Crescent; at least, a sign board on the railroad near the tank had "Crescent" on it, but the sign and tank were all there was to the place. We had a good place to camp here, getting a supply of good water from the tank, and a couple of trees near by gave us a place to tie the horses, as there was no grazing near and we did not want them to stray off. We had some hay so we thought they were better off tied up with that to eat.
It still looked like rain so we slept in the wagon again. When we woke up it was raining hard. "At last we are being rained on proper," Bob said, and when I looked out I could hardly believe my eyes--everything was soaked. The horses were standing up to their knees in a miniature lake; the harness under the wagon was wet; and the rain was coming in the end of the wagon on the Doctor"s head.
I put on my boots and rubber coat and got out and rescued the horses from their predicament, moved the wagon around so the rain would not beat into the front, and we stayed inside all the morning. We had a cold breakfast, except for our oatmeal, which came hot out of the fireless cooker, but at noon we got dinner in the wagon over our kerosene stove, the heat from which dried us out, and at 2 P. M., the rain having stopped, we started on.
The roads were very heavy and slippery and the little gullies we had to cross were washed out, and we had great times getting over them.
One place we had to build a bridge, which we were able to do out of railroad ties that had floated down from the track in a gully near at hand. A mile or two farther on we came to a wash we could not cross except by cutting down the bank, but we had nothing save an axe to do it with.
We had needed a shovel badly all the afternoon, but here we must have one. We could see the station of Thompson about two miles beyond and, concluding there must be a shovel there, I crossed the wash on Dixie, and made a run for it to Thompson so as to get there and back before dark. Fortunately there was a shovel to be had. There were two in town and I got back with one in time for us to get across the wash and into Thompson by 7 P. M. Here we bought hay, bacon, and the shovel I had borrowed, and drove on to the top of a hill where we camped and prepared our supper by lantern light.
We were tired out, but had only six miles to show for the day, half of which had been spent in the wagon during the rain, and the balance mostly in digging and in building a bridge. It had been cloudy and cold, and to-night we got out our overcoats to keep ourselves warm.
Two days of the six were gone and only thirty-one of the one hundred and twenty miles were covered. It didn"t look as though we would have much time to spare, but we expected better conditions from here on, now the rain was over, and felt we could easily reach Grand Junction some time on the third of July.
The next morning, June thirtieth, we were late in starting, having been up late, for us, the night before, and it was eight-thirty before we broke camp. The same clay ridges and washes were in store for us, however. The trail was bad enough at best, running at right angles to the clay ridges, but the rain had done the rest and, as no team had been over the trail since then, we were in for a hard day"s work with axe and shovel. That shovel was worth everything to us to-day.
By way of variety we saw several coyotes and had our first breakdown.
Again Doc tried to console me by asking, "You didn"t expect to get through without a breakdown, did you?" But while I expected it some time, it surprised me when it came, and also made me mad at myself, as it was simply carelessness. I had been dropping down into washouts all the morning and pulling out again without any trouble, after the boys with the axe and shovel had made it possible. In fact, I was so used to making the hard ones that I slid carelessly down into a little one, let the brake loose just a fraction of a second too quick, hit the opposite bank, and the front wheels rolled out from under the wagon, and I walked out behind the horses and left Doc sitting on the seat alone. The reach or coupling pole had snapped about eighteen inches behind the front axle. An investigation showed we had pole enough left and if we had a brace, and a three-quarter-inch bit, we could soon make repairs. While our tool box contained almost everything else we had needed heretofore, from horseshoe nails up, we did not have a brace and bit, and we sat looking at the wreck and trying to devise ways of getting the proper-sized holes made in the reach. Doc suggested making a fire and heating a bolt and burning a hole, but there was no wood and our kerosene stove would not answer for that sort of a job.
We could see in the distance a section house on the railroad and Bob thought the section men would surely have a brace and bit, and so, to save time, the boys volunteered to unload the wagon, pull out the reach, and have lunch ready by the time I had ridden over there and back. We could return the tools as we drove by.
I had a good long horseback ride in a very short time, but I didn"t get what I went after. Two j.a.ps were all I found at the section house and they had a few crowbars and shovels, but nothing else. I asked how far it was to the next place where I could get a brace and bit and was told it was twenty miles to Cisco, but the foreman would bring one next week. I knew we could make those holes easier than by riding twenty miles and back, and quicker than by having the foreman bring us a brace and bit next week, so I thanked them for a drink and hurried back.
I found dinner ready, the wagon unloaded, and the reach ready to be repaired, and better yet, Bob had found a gimlet which we had overlooked before. It was a delicate tool to use in hardwood, but after lunch we managed to get the reach ready for use and were loaded up and off again at 3 P. M. We soon found we had our front stanchions on wrong and had to raise up the wagon and turn them, so that by the time we had this done, and had stopped at the section house for water, it was 4:20 P. M., and we were only ten miles from our morning camp.
This was discouraging enough, but from here on the washes were not so frequent and, in between, the roads were good, so we made ten miles more before we camped.
We had made fifty-one miles in three days and there remained only three days in which to make sixty-nine miles, and we began to worry about the kind of roads we would find from here on, but we had met no one who could tell us. We camped near a section house called Whitehouse, but the man there didn"t know anything about wagon roads except that we were the first wagon outfit he had seen in some time, so we just hoped for better things and turned in.
"It never rains, but it pours," some one has said, and that evidently was what happened between Whitehouse and Cisco, for we were until 11 A. M. getting there, only six miles. We filled washes, mended a bridge, and were tired enough when we pulled into town. A store and postoffice, the railroad station and corral, was every building there, but it looked large to us and we were able to buy some provisions of the canned order, get a bale of alfalfa, and the storekeeper gave me one-half his supply of oats, which was just a pailful.
Still sixty-three miles to Grand Junction and we are told the trail following the railroad is washed out and in the same condition as the one we have just come over. We are advised to try getting to Grand Junction over what they call the old narrow gauge route, or old grade.
On the theory that it cannot be any worse that way, we cross over the railroad tracks and go north. The road is bad, however, and mostly uphill this afternoon, and by 7 P. M. we figure we have made only eight miles, or fourteen for the day. The horses are tired and discouraged. We camp by a mud hole for water and turn the horses loose to graze. The country is mountainous and of clay formation, and, aside from a little bunch of gra.s.s here and there, is bare.
We began to be worried about getting to Grand Junction by the third and concluded we wouldn"t try. We had not agreed to be there before the fourth anyway, we said, and so after deciding not to get there before the fourth (which decision was especially funny because we knew we couldn"t possibly get there before and perhaps not then), we turned in. We were not a very hilarious party and I think the horses had begun to tire of life as well. They certainly looked dejected.
Sat.u.r.day, July 2, was much like Friday, only, as some one remarked, "more so." Our shovel was continually in demand. We had one very long hard pull after lunch which finished Kate up entirely, and at 5:30 P.
M. we camped near a patch of gra.s.s, after making about fourteen miles, as near as we could guess, leaving us forty-one miles still to go. We crossed Cottonwood Creek about nine-thirty this morning and West.w.a.ter Creek at 4 P. M., and are probably about six miles from Bitter Creek.
Cottonwood and West.w.a.ter Creeks both had the sandy side up, and we do not expect any better of Bitter Creek.
Kate is tired out and still I do not want to put Dixie into the collar yet, as her neck is nearly well, and I want it to get entirely well before I put her in to take Kate"s place. If Kate can only hold out until we get to Grand Junction, we can rest her there, and Dixie"s neck can then probably stand the collar again. Good old Bess, she never complains, but works every day. Luckily she has not been laid up at all as yet and apparently is made of iron. She goes on day after day seemingly just as fresh as when she started.
We have two hours of daylight left, so, as Bob volunteers to make camp and get supper, Doc and I take the rifle and climb up on a mesa, where we find small pine trees and big rocks, and from which we get a beautiful view of Mt. Wagg and Mt. Tomasaki. We have been in sight of Mt. Wagg ever since we left Green River. We sat there for a full half-hour and then returned to camp.
Just as we sat down to eat we saw a camp wagon coming up the trail from the east. The wagon sheet was clean and it was a brand new outfit; we could see that a mile away. The team was fresh, and a man and woman sat on the front seat. Behind was a lead horse, and bringing up the rear a make-believe cowboy and cowgirl. He was carrying a rifle. While they pa.s.sed us within a hundred yards, they never saw us (apparently), and (apparently) we never saw them. We put them down as a wedding party from Grand Junction--they looked so new and acted so green.
This was the first camping outfit we have met on our trip since reaching the desert and we are nearly across to the Rocky Mountains now, so evidently they are not very numerous, and as to sociability,--well, up to date we haven"t found any one to be sociable with. If you mind your business, the other fellow minds his, and no questions are asked.
We had about forgotten the camp wagon outfit when, in taking a look about, we noticed their camp fire about two miles west at a water hole we had watered at as we pa.s.sed. They were still there when we pulled out in the morning.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WE ABANDON OUR WATER BARRELS]
As I started to hitch up I found Kate was practically "all in," so we were put to it to devise some means to reach Grand Junction by to-morrow, the fourth. We had given up getting there before and we still had forty-one miles to go, but I was bound to be there to-morrow if it took a horse, so we decided to lighten the ship, so to speak, by throwing away everything we did not need. First came the water barrels and platform. The barrels being empty were of no use to us to-day, and by making a forced march we could get to Grand Junction without them, and after that we would not need them. Then we threw overboard samples of ore, rocks, and all extra bolts and spikes; also a bunch of hay we had left, and figured we were about a hundred and fifty pounds the lighter. Then we put Dixie on the pole with Bess, padded up her collar, put a rope on the pole to take the weight off her neck, and leaving Kate to take care of herself as best she might, we started over the last few miles of desert which separated us from Grand Junction and its orchards on the western slope of the Rockies. First we took a picture of the barrels and wrote our names on them.
I did so hate to leave Kate, but I hated worse to miss being at Grand Junction on the fourth, after having only so recently confirmed the statement that we would be there. Besides, the Doctor had telegraphed Mrs. Lancaster, who was on her way home from San Francisco, that he would meet her there and for her to stop off and, as she was quite sick, he was very anxious to be there to meet her.
We had not gone far, however, before I saw that Kate was following us and I figured that if she would stay near the trail, some one would pick her up and care for her, or else she might reach Mack, which we figured could not be more than twenty miles away. We had a few very hard places to cross, but as a rule the grade was down hill and the wagon ran better without the barrels, and we pushed ahead so fast that we made camp within four miles of Mack by twelve-thirty.
While we were eating our lunch we heard Kate nicker, back up the trail, and very shortly she came up. We had lost sight of her long before and when she came up greeted her as a long-lost cousin. We gave her a feed of oats and then got her some water out of a water hole near at hand, and concluded that if she wanted to come so bad we would not discourage her; so when we started up again we thought she would follow us in to Mack where, if necessary, we could leave her. When we got nearly to town she was so far behind that Bob volunteered to wait for her and ride her in, so we left Bob and went on.
Leaving the team in front of the store, we hunted up the man who ran it and bought some hay and oats of him, also some groceries, as we were short. When we came out to the wagon there was Kate, but no Bob.
He came shortly afterward, having walked in. He said he sat down by the side of the trail to wait for Kate and he could hear her nickering as she came along, just as though she were crying, and as she came around a bend he got up to catch her, but, although she seemed hardly able to walk, she must have mistaken him for a "holdup man" for she ran by him and he never could catch up with her. So he walked in, much to his disgust and our merriment.
We were now in Colorado, having crossed the State line and left Utah behind. We found Mack a very neat little place, with about a dozen houses, and at the end of a wagon road which led straight down along the railroad track to Grand Junction, with a fence on both sides, and irrigation ditches and ranches along the way for twenty miles. It seemed like another country, sure enough. We had travelled so long in the desert and without a real road that we were surprised when we saw one, and the fences looked strange. Here were real people along the road in buggies and wagons and on horseback. We just looked, and said nothing.
We drove about four miles along this road and then made camp, fifteen or sixteen miles from Grand Junction, feeling quite sure we could get into town about noon the next day. We still had Kate with us and I told Doc we ought to feel pretty good, as we were going to "make it,"
bringing all the horses through and on schedule time. He didn"t say much, but that night as we lay on the tarpaulin trying to sleep and dodging a few rain drops from a thunder shower, I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said, "Nothing at all." About an hour after that he suddenly asked me what I was thinking about. I had supposed he was asleep long ago and was too surprised to answer at first. I had been thinking how much nicer it was camping out in the desert, and how shut in I felt between fences, and how disgusted the horses must feel to be tied to a fence post, and that if I were left to my own inclinations I would turn around and go out into the desert again. I did not want to admit this, however, as it seemed so foolish, so I quickly said, "I asked you the same thing an hour ago; you answer first."
What do you suppose he said?