The U.P. Trail.
by Zane Grey.
...When I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes; how at each stage of the construction roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and l.u.s.t and death, sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, gambling, drinking, quarreling, and murdering like wolves; and then when I go on to remember that all this epical turmoil was conducted by gentlemen in frock-coats, with a view to nothing more extraordinary than a fortune and a subsequent visit to Paris--it seems to me as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live, as if it brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of social rank, and offered to some great writer the busiest, the most extended, and the most varied subject for an enduring literary work. If it be romance, if it be contrast, if it be heroism that we require, what was Troy to this?
--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON In ACROSS THE PLAINS
1
In the early sixties a trail led from the broad Missouri, swirling yellow and turgid between its green-groved borders, for miles and miles out upon the gra.s.sy Nebraska plains, turning westward over the undulating prairie, with its swales and billows and long, winding lines of cottonwoods, to a slow, vast heave of rising ground--Wyoming--where the herds of buffalo grazed and the wolf was lord and the camp-fire of the trapper sent up its curling blue smoke from beside some lonely stream; on and on over the barren lands of eternal monotony, all so gray and wide and solemn and silent under the endless sky; on, ever on, up to the bleak, black hills and into the waterless gullies and through the rocky gorges where the deer browsed and the savage lurked; then slowly rising to the pa.s.s between the great bold peaks, and across the windy uplands into Utah, with its verdant valleys, green as emeralds, and its haze-filled canons and wonderful wind-worn cliffs and walls, and its pale salt lakes, veiled in the shadows of stark and lofty rocks, dim, lilac-colored, austere, and isolated; ever onward across Nevada, and ever westward, up from desert to mountain, up into California, where the white streams rushed and roared and the stately pines towered, and seen from craggy heights, deep down, the little blue lakes gleamed like gems; finally sloping to the great descent, where the mountain world ceased and where, out beyond the golden land, asleep and peaceful, stretched the illimitable Pacific, vague and grand beneath the setting sun.
2
Deep in the Wyoming hills lay a valley watered by a stream that ran down from Cheyenne Pa.s.s; a band of Sioux Indians had an encampment there.
Viewed from the summit of a gra.s.sy ridge, the scene was colorful and idle and quiet, in keeping with the lonely, beautiful valley.
Cottonwoods and willows showed a bright green; the course of the stream was marked in dark where the water ran, and light where the sand had bleached; brown and black dots scattered over the valley were in reality grazing horses; lodge-pole tents gleamed white in the sun, and tiny bits of red stood out against the white; lazy wreaths of blue smoke rose upward.
The Wyoming hills were split by many such valleys and many such bare, gra.s.sy ridges sloped up toward the mountains. Upon the side of one ridge, the highest, there stood a solitary mustang, haltered with a la.s.so. He was a ragged, s.h.a.ggy, wild beast, and there was no saddle or bridle on him, nothing but the halter. He was not grazing, although the bleached white gra.s.s grew long and thick under his hoofs. He looked up the slope, in a direction indicated by his pointing ears, and watched a wavering movement of the long gra.s.s.
It was wild up on that ridge, bare of everything except gra.s.s, and the strange wavering had a nameless wildness in its motion. No stealthy animal accounted for that trembling--that forward undulating quiver. It wavered on to the summit of the ridge.
What a wide and wonderful prospect opened up to view from this lofty point! Ridge after ridge sloped up to the Wyoming hills, and these in turn raised their bleak, dark heads toward the mountains, looming pale and gray, with caps of snow, in the distance. Out beyond the ridges, indistinct in the glare, stretched an illimitable expanse, gray and dull--that was the prairie-land. An eagle, lord of all he surveyed, sailed round and round in the sky.
Below this gra.s.sy summit yawned a valley, narrow and long, losing itself by turns to distant east and west; and through it ran a faint, white, winding line which was the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail.
There came a moment when the wavering in the gra.s.s ceased on the extreme edge of the slope. Then it parted to disclose the hideous visage of a Sioux Indian in war paint. His dark, piercing, malignant glance was fixed upon the St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. His half-naked body rested at ease; a rifle lay under his hand.
There he watched while the hours pa.s.sed. The sun moved on in its course until it tipped the peaks with rose. Far down the valley black and white objects appeared, crawling round the bend. The Indian gave an almost imperceptible start, but there was no change in his expression. He watched as before.
These moving objects grew to be oxen and prairie-schooners--a small caravan traveling east. It wound down the trail and halted in a circle on the bank of a stream.
The Indian scout slid backward, and the parted gra.s.s, slowly closing, hid from his dark gaze the camp scene below. He wormed his way back well out of sight; then rising, he ran over the summit of the ridge to leap upon his mustang and ride wildly down the slope.
3
Bill Horn, leader of that caravan, had a large amount of gold which he was taking back East. No one in his party, except a girl, knew that he had the fortune.
Horn had gone West at the beginning of the gold strikes, but it was not until "53 that any success attended his labors. Later he struck it rich, and in 1865, as soon as the snow melted on the mountain pa.s.ses, he got together a party of men and several women and left Sacramento. He was a burly miner, bearded and uncouth, of rough speech and taciturn nature, and absolutely fearless.
At Ogden, Utah, he had been advised not to attempt to cross the Wyoming hills with so small a party, for the Sioux Indians had gone on the war-path.
Horn was leading his own caravan and finding for himself the trail that wound slowly eastward. He did not have a scout or hunter with him.
Eastward-traveling caravans were wont to be small and poorly outfitted, for only the homesick, the failures, the wanderers, and the lawless turned their faces from the Golden State. At the start Horn had eleven men, three women, and the girl. On the way he had killed one of the men; and another, together with his wife, had yielded to persuasion of friends at Ogden and had left the party. So when Horn halted for camp one afternoon in a beautiful valley in the Wyoming hills there were only nine men with him.
On a long journey through wild country strangers grow close together or far apart. Bill Horn did not think much of the men who had accepted the chance he offered them, and daily he grew more aloof. They were not a responsible crowd, and the best he could get out of them was the driving of oxen and camp ch.o.r.es indifferently done. He had to kill the meat and find the water and keep the watch. Upon entering the Wyoming hills region Horn showed a restlessness and hurry and anxiety. This in no wise affected the others. They continued to be aimless and careless as men who had little to look forward to.
This beautiful valley offered everything desirable for a camp site except natural cover or protection in case of attack. But Horn had to take the risk. The oxen were tired, the wagons had to be greased, and it was needful to kill meat. Here was an abundance of gra.s.s, a clear brook, wood for camp-fires, and sign of game on all sides.
"Haul round--make a circle!" Horn ordered the drivers of the oxen.
This was the first time he had given this particular order, and the men guffawed or grinned as they hauled the great, clumsy prairie-schooners into a circle. The oxen were unhitched; the camp duffle piled out; the ring of axes broke the stillness; fires were started.
Horn took his rifle and strode away up the brook to disappear in the green brush of a ravine.
It was early in the evening, with the sun not yet out of sight behind a lofty ridge that topped the valley slope. High gra.s.s, bleached white, shone brightly on the summit. Soon several columns of blue smoke curled lazily aloft until, catching the wind high up, they were swept away.
Meanwhile the men talked at their tasks.
"Say, pard, did you come along this here Laramie Trail goin" West?"
asked one.
"Nope. I hit the Santa Fe Trail," was the reply.
"How about you, Jones?"
"Same fer me."
"Wal," said another, "I went round to California by ship, an" I"d hev been lucky to drown."
"An" now we"re all goin" back poorer than when we started," remarked a third.
"Pard, you"ve said somethin"."
"Wal, I seen a heap of gold, if I didn"t find any."
"Jones, has this here Bill Horn any gold with him?"
"He acts like it," answered Jones. "An" I heerd he struck it rich out thar."
The men appeared divided in their opinions of Bill Horn. From him they drifted to talk of possible Indian raids and scouted the idea; then they wondered if the famous Pony Express had been over this Laramie Trail; finally they got on the subject of a rumored railroad to be built from East to West.
"No railroad can"t be built over this trail," said Jones, bluntly.
"Sure not. But couldn"t more level ground be dug?" asked another.
"Dug? Across them Utah deserts an" up them mountains? h.e.l.l! Men sure hev more sense than thet," exclaimed the third.
And so they talked and argued at their tasks.
The women, however, had little to say. One, the wife of the loquacious Jones, lived among past a.s.sociations of happy years that would not come again--a sober-faced, middle-aged woman. The other woman was younger, and her sad face showed traces of a former comeliness. They called her Mrs. Durade. The girl was her daughter Allie. She appeared about fifteen years old, and was slight of form. Her face did not seem to tan. It was pale. She looked tired, and was shy and silent, almost ashamed. She had long, rich, chestnut-colored hair which she wore in a braid. Her eyes were singularly large and dark, and violet in color.