Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast. James Fowler Rusling

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ vegetables. Perhaps it is too far north for Indian corn; but wheat, barley, oats and rye ought to flourish there, except in localities where the soil may be too strongly impregnated with alkali or soda. Their natural adaptation, however, is for grass, and I apprehend we shall soon have our flocks and herds, by the acre, feeding all up and down by the Platte. When you reach the North Platte the valley of course subdivides, and you continue on up the valley of the South Platte to Denver. The fertile and cultivable bottoms, of course, narrow as you advance; nevertheless, they maintain a considerable breadth nearly everywhere, despite encroaching bluffs, and around and beyond Denver are made highly productive by occasional irrigation as needed. Utilize the unfailing waters of the Platte by windmills or otherwise, as they do their streams in Italy, Egypt and China, and the Platte valley throughout its length will yet become a garden.

      The Platte itself to the eye is a broad and lusty stream, and in places, as near Fort McPherson, expands into a sea of islands, most refreshing to behold after days of dusty travel. But while in volume sufficient for a first-class river, its banks are so shifting and its sand-bars so numerous and variable, that it has always proved practically unnavigable, notwithstanding our western rivers swarm with stern-wheelers, many of which it is said only require a respectable ditch or half decent dew. Unbridged and without ferries, we found it crossed only at a few well-defined fords, and even these were so cursed by quicksands, that trains in crossing stood in great danger of bringing up at Jeddo or Pekin. Its waters were considered healthy and sweet, notwithstanding a trace of alkali, and with all its shortcomings, it seemed nevertheless a perfect God-send to that particular region. Its banks and islands were usually fringed with cottonwoods and poplars, and furnished almost the only supply of fuel to passing emigrants and travellers. The settled residents there, however, the station-keepers and ranchmen, depended more on the stunted cedars, that abounded generally in all the ravines and cañons, with which the side-bluffs of the valley are more or less seamed. Here also they procured the most of their lumber, and from here supplied thousands of ties for the Union Pacific Railroad. We were surprised to find these cedars so abundant in the cañons, where nothing tree-like was visible until you entered. Then we found the whole bottom and sides frequently lined with them to the top; but there they abruptly ceased, as if close shaven by the winds, which in certain months sweep over the Plains mercilessly.

      In both wood and lumber, however, we found the Platte valley sadly lacking, and the whole Plains country generally. Good peat had been found at Julesburg, and bituminous coal was reported near Fort Morgan; but our posts were depending for both fuel and lumber mainly on the Platte and its side cañons. At Fort Sedgwick, near Julesburg, they had been hauling wood nearly a hundred miles, at a cost to the government of over a hundred dollars per cord, there being none nearer or cheaper. Lumber cost one hundred and seventeen dollars per thousand, and shingles fifteen dollars per thousand, and were held cheap at that. The year before, lumber had cost two hundred and five dollars per thousand, and shingles in proportion. Grain (corn and oats) was wagoned from the Missouri, and cost the government, put down at Sedgwick, about seven dollars per bushel. Hay was cut in the vicinity, and cost thirty-four dollars per ton. Recently they had made a contract with shrewd operators in Denver, for lumber at ninety dollars per thousand, and wood at forty-six dollars per cord, both to come from the Rocky Mountains, over two hundred miles away; but the contractors availed themselves of cheap freights by eastward-bound wagon-trains, otherwise returning empty. At Julesburg, we were told, there was not a tree even for fifty miles; formerly there had been a scrubby cottonwood, on the south bank of the Platte there—a lone star in solitary splendor—which was regularly shown to tourists as one of its lions. But this had recently fallen down and floated away, and now Julesburg mourned its loss as "the last of the Mohicans." There was some talk of erecting a monument to its memory; but even this would have to be of "adobe," as stone was equally a rarity there.

      Down in the valley proper, the field of vision is limited by the side bluffs, and you see but comparatively little of the country generally. But ascend the bluffs on either side, and the vast ocean of the Plains stretches boundlessly before you—not flat, but billowy with swells and ridges, an illimitable plateau, with only here and there a solitary "butte," sharply defined against the clear sky. In spring this whole vast extent is a wilderness of verdure and flowers; but the summer skies, untempered by rain, as elsewhere said, scorch and burn the ground to cinders, and long before autumn comes all vegetation there practically perishes. Even the hardy buffalo-grass becomes brown and tinder-like, and the only grazing there is in the cañons and valleys. Nevertheless our Plains have hitherto sustained buffalo by the million, and do it still, although these shaggy monsters have of late mostly disappeared from the Platte region. We did not see one in our entire trip to Denver; but a friend, who came through a month or so later, over the Smoky Hill route, where there was less travel, reported buffalo there yet by the horizon full—the whole country being substantially black with them. The short and sweet buffalo-grass is indigenous through all this region, and is said to be nutritious, even when dried up, the year round. What a magnificent range for stock these great Plains will yet afford, when the country becomes more thickly settled up! Much of this region is marked on the old maps as the "Great American Desert;" but from all we saw and heard I doubt not, as a whole, it will yet become the great stock-raising and dairy region of the Republic, whence we shall export beef and mutton, leather and wool, in exchange for cloth and steel.[3]

      We had several fine rides with brother-officers among the cañons and bluffs while stopping over to inspect our military posts en route, and a grand gallop one bright September morning over the Plains and far away after antelope. In the cañons and along the bluffs we started plenty of jack-rabbits; but the antelope were shy and apparently always on the run, so much so we could never get within shot of them. We formed a long line across the country, and as we swept forward started two or three small herds; but they were all too fleet for Uncle Sam's coursers. Subsequently we halted, and lying down tried the old hunter's trick of enticing them with a handkerchief on a ramrod, with our rifles ready to blaze away as they drew near; but they were too cunning to be caught by any such rascally flag-of-truce arrangement, and it seemed a shame to attempt it. The ride itself, however, was a great satisfaction, full of excitement, exhilaration, enjoyment. The sky was a perfect sapphire, without cloud or haze. The clear atmosphere braced one's nerves like wine, and revealed distant objects with a pre-Raphaelite distinctness. A pyramid-like "butte," off to the southwest, seemed near at hand, though more than twenty miles away. The ground was baked hard, with a thin covering of dry-grass, except in the occasional buffalo-wallows; and altogether our horses seemed to enjoy the gallop quite as much as we did ourselves. There was just a spice of danger in the ride, too, as Indians were reported prowling about, but none appeared. We left the Platte with its bluffs and cañons behind us, and out into the boundless Plains we rode, on and on, and only drew rein when we discovered that we had lost our reckoning, and were without a compass. The person charged with providing this had forgotten it, and suddenly we found ourselves at sea, without guide or headland. Fortunately we had the well-worn buffalo-trails, that there run almost due north and south—the old paths over which they formerly went to and from the Platte for water—and following up one of these, after an hour or two, we found ourselves in sight of the river again. These "trails" are no wider than ordinary cow-paths, but they are worn deep into the soil, and show by their great number and depth what countless herds of buffalo must have roamed here in other days. They are a sure guide up and down the bluffs, many of which are so precipitous that safe ascent or descent elsewhere seems impossible. But the buffalo, by a wise instinct, seems to have hit just the right point, and deserves credit for such skillful engineering.

      The population of the Platte Valley was yet mostly in futuro. The little in esse was grouped sparsely around the several Military posts—Forts Kearney, McPherson, Sedgwick and Morgan—the intervening stage-stations, and at Julesburg. The largest hamlet, perhaps five hundred inhabitants or so, was near Fort Kearney, having grown up on the outskirts of that post, and bearing the same name. Julesburg consisted of a blacksmith-shop, a grocery, a billiard-saloon, and a half-dozen houses all of adobe. It was on the South Platte, at the point of crossing for the Utah and Montana travel, which here bore away northwest for Bridger's Pass, and so did a considerable business already in canned-fruits and tangle-foot whiskey. A year afterwards, it was the terminus for awhile of the СКАЧАТЬ