CHAPTER XXXIII
THE OVERLAND IMMIGRANTS
The overland immigrants never ceased to interest us. The illness,destitution, and suffering that obtained among these people has neverbeen adequately depicted. For one outfit with healthy looking membersand adequate cattle there were dozens conducted by hollow-eyed, gauntmen, drawn by few weak animals. Women trudged wearily, carryingchildren. And the tales they brought were terrible. They told us ofthousands they had left behind in the great desert of the Humboldt Sink,fighting starvation, disease, and the loss of cattle. Women who had losttheir husbands from the deadly cholera were staggering on without foodor water, leading their children. The trail was lined with dead mulesand cattle. Some said that five thousand had perished on the plains fromcholera alone. In the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere, werethe death camps, the wagons drawn in the usual circle, the dead animalstainting the air, every living human being crippled from scurvy andother diseases. There was no fodder for the cattle, and one man told usthat he estimated, soberly, that three fourths of the draught animals onthe plains must die.
"And then where will their owners be?"
The Indians were hostile and thieving. Most of the ample provision thathad been laid in had to be thrown away to lighten the loads for theenfeebled animals. Such immigrants as got through often arrived in animpoverished condition. Many of these on the route were reduced bystarvation to living on the putrefied flesh of the dead animals alongthe road. This occasioned more sickness. The desert seemed interminable.At nightfall the struggling trains lay down exhausted with only theassurance of another scorching, burning day to follow. And when at lasta few reached the Humboldt River, they found it almost impossible toford--and the feed on the other side. In the distance showed the highforbidding ramparts of the Sierra Nevadas. A man named Delano told usthat five men drowned themselves in the Humboldt River in one day out ofsheer discouragement. Another man said he had saved the lives of hisoxen by giving some Indians fifteen dollars to swim the river and floatsome grass across to him. The water of the Humboldt had a bad effect onhorses, and great numbers died. The Indians stole others. The animalsthat remained were weak. The destruction of property was immense, foreverything that could be spared was thrown away in order to lighten theloads. The road was lined with abandoned wagons, stoves, miningimplements, clothes.
We were told these things over and over, heavily, in little snatches, bymen too wearied and discouraged and beaten even to rejoice that they hadcome through alive. They were not interested in telling us, but theytold, as though their minds were so full that they could not help it. Iremember one evening when we were feeding at our camp the members of oneof these trains, a charity every miner proffered nearly every day of theweek. The party consisted of one wagon, a half dozen gaunt, dull-eyedoxen, two men, and a crushed-looking, tragic young woman. One of the menhad in a crude way the gift of words.
He told of the crowds of people awaiting the new grass at Independencein Missouri, of the making up of the parties, the election of officersfor the trip, the discussion of routes, the visiting, the campfires, theboundless hope.
"There were near twenty thousand people waiting for the grass," said ourfriend; a statement we thought exaggerated, but one which I havesubsequently found to be not far from the truth.
By the middle of May the trail from the Missouri River to Fort Laramiewas occupied by a continuous line of wagons.
"That was fine travelling," said the immigrant in the detached way ofone who speaks of dead history. "There was grass and water; and thewagon seemed like a little house at night. Everybody was jolly. Itdidn't last long."
After Fort Laramie there were three hundred miles of plains, with littlegrass and less water.
"We thought that was a desert!" exclaimed the immigrant bitterly. "MyGod! Quite a lot turned back at Laramie. They were scared by the cholerathat broke out, scared by the stories of the desert, scared by theIndians. They went back. I suppose they're well and hearty--and kickingthemselves every gold report that goes back east."
The bright anticipations, the joy of the life, the romance of thejourney all faded before the grim reality. The monotony of the plains,the barrenness of the desert, the toil of the mountains, the terribleheat, the dust, the rains, the sickness, the tragedy of deaths hadflattened all buoyancy, and left in its stead only a sullen, doggeddetermination.
"There was lots of quarrelling, of course," said our narrator."Everybody was on edge. There were fights, that we had to settlesomehow, and bad feeling."
They had several minor skirmishes with Indians, lost from their party bydisease, suffered considerable hardships and infinite toil.
"We thought we'd had a hard time," said our friend wonderingly. "Lord!"
At the very start of the journey they had begun to realize that theywere overloaded, and had commenced to throw away superfluous goods.Several units of the party had even to abandon some of their wagons.
"We chucked everything we thought we could get along without. I know wespent all one day frying out bacon to get the grease before we threw itaway. We used the grease for our axles."
They reached the head of the Humboldt. Until this point they had kepttogether, but now demoralization began. They had been told at Salt LakeCity that they had but four hundred miles to go to Sacramento. Now theydiscovered that at the Humboldt they had still more than that distanceto travel; and that before them lay the worst desert of all.
"Mind you," said our friend, "we had been travelling desperately. Ourcattle had died one by one; and we had doubled up with our teams. We hadstarved for water until our beasts were ready to drop and our owntongues had swollen in our mouths, and were scared--_scared_, Itell you--scared!"
He moistened his lips slowly, and went on. "Sometimes we took two orthree hours to go a mile, relaying back and forth. We were down to afine point. It wasn't a question of keeping our property any more; itwas a case of saving our lives. We'd abandoned a good half of our wagonsalready. When we got to the Humboldt and learned from a mountain mangoing the other way that the great desert was still before us, and whenwe had made a day or two's journey down the river toward the Sink, Itell you we lost our nerve--and our sense." He ruminated a few momentsin silence. "My God! man!" he cried. "That trail! From about halfwaydown the river the carcasses of horses and oxen were so thick that Ibelieve if they'd been laid in the road instead of alongside you couldhave walked the whole way without setting foot to ground!"
And then the river disappeared underground, and they had to face thecrossing of the Sink itself.
"That was a real desert," the immigrant told us sombrely. "There werelong white fields of alkali and drifts of ashes across them so soft thatthe cattle sank way to their bellies. They moaned and bellowed! Lord,how they moaned! And the dust rose up so thick you couldn't breathe, andthe sun beat down so fierce you felt it like something heavy on yourhead. And how the place stunk with the dead beasts!"
The party's organization broke. The march became a rout. Everybodypushed on with what strength he had. No man, woman, or child could ride;the wagons were emptied of everything but the barest necessities. Atevery stop some animal fell in the traces, and was cut out of the yoke.When a wagon came to a stop, it was abandoned, the animals detached anddriven forward.
Those who were still afoot were constantly besought by those who hadbeen forced to a standstill.
"I saw one old man, his wife and his daughter, all walking along onfoot," said the immigrant bitterly. "They were half knee deep in alkali,the sun was broiling hot, they had absolutely nothing. We couldn't helpthem. What earthly chance had they? I saw a wagon stalled, the animalslying dead in their yokes, all except one old ox. A woman and threechildren sat inside the wagon. She called to me that they hadn't hadanything to eat for three days, and begged me to take the children. Icouldn't. I could have stopped and died there with her, but I couldn'tput another pound on my wagon and hope to get through. We were allwalking alongside; even Sue, here."
The wom
an raised her tragic face.
"We left our baby there," she said; and stared back again into the coalsof the fire.
"We made it," resumed the immigrant. "We got to the Truckee Riversomehow, and we rested there three days. I don't know what became of therest of our train; dead perhaps."
We told him of the immigrant register or bulletin board at Morton's.
"I must look that over," said he. "I don't know how long it took us tocross the mountains. Those roads are terrible; and our cattle were weak.We were pretty near out of grub too. Most of the people have no food atall. Well, here we are! But there are thousands back of us. What arethey going to do? And when the mountains fill with snow----"
After the trio, well fed for the first time in months, had turned in, wesat talking about our fire. We were considerably subdued and sobered;for this was the first coherent account we had heard at first hand. Twothings impressed us--the tragedy, the futility. The former aspect hit usall; the latter struck strongly at Old and Cal. Those youngsters, wisein the ways of the plains, were filled with sad surprise over theincompetence of it all.
"But thar ain't no manner of _use_ in it!" cried Old. "They arejust bullin' at it plumb regardless! They ain't handled their cattleright! They ain't picked their route right--why, the old Mormon traildown by the Carson Sink is better'n that death-trap across the Humboldt.And cut-offs! What license they all got chasin' every fool cut-offreported in? Most of 'em is all right fer pack-trains and all wrong ferwagons! Oh, Lord!"
"They don't know," said I, "poor devils, they don't know. They wereraised on farms and in the cities."
Johnny had said nothing. His handsome face looked very sombre in thefirelight.
"Jim," said he, "we're due for a trip to-night; but I want you topromise me one thing--just keep these people here, and feed them upuntil we get back. Tell them I've got a job for them. Will you do it?"
I tried to pump Johnny as to his intentions, but could get nothing outof him; and so promised blindly. About two o'clock I was roused from mysleep by a soft moving about. Thrusting my head from the tent I made outthe dim figures of our horsemen, mounted, and moving quietly away downthe trail.