Chapter II: Part 2

The experiences which the buffalo gave them were not limited to the fine sport of hunting him and the delicious feasts his steaks afforded. His presence seemed to kindle into life the old ancestral wildness of the ox and the horse. Without the least warning some sedate member of a team would raise his head and give the old racial snort of freedom. This would kindle the same spark in every animal of the train, and away they would stampede with wagons, inmates and all, and not to be stopped until utterly exhausted. In these stampedes people would be run over, bones would be broken, oxen dehorned, their legs broken, and things demolished generally. The simple-minded pioneer with any tendency to personify could not help but believe that the devil had gotten into his hitherto always tractable animals. I quote a pioneer’s account of a stampede, though he does not ascribe it to the presence or influence of the buffalo, as is almost always done: “After passing Devil’s Gate, a beautiful stretch of road lay before us. All at once the teams broke into a run—something started them, no one seemed to know what. It was a regular stampede as to our team. Father and mother were walking; I was walking also, and some of the children were in the wagon. Away the team went, the hardest and the wildest running I ever saw. When they stopped and we caught up with them, we found the children were not hurt, but the two wheelers were down and one of them dead. It took our team a long time to get over the scare.”

14.—“DEVIL’S GATE,” FROM SOME DISTANCE ABOVE.
]

There was still another condition in which the spirit of the buffalo made the pioneer show deference to it. This happened when a great horde of buffalo was on a stampede bearing down upon an emigrant train that happened to be passing across its trail. The moment was almost enough to bring dismay to the pioneer. Either the teams of the train were urged into something of a stampede to get out of line of the horde’s advance, or a corral was formed and volleys fired into the impending mass to divide it so as to leave the corral a safe island between a destructive flood rolling by on either hand.

Distressing accidents must almost of necessity befall them from their carrying their loaded guns commingled with household goods on their wagons. It is not strange that at least half of the journals should have records of fatalities thus caused. Under the law of mathematical probabilities, with the frequent occasion there was to remove gun or blanket thus intermixed, while the members of the family were standing around the wagon, accidents must occur. The small boy of the family during this four or five months’ trip had very many occasions to clamber out of and into the wagon while it was in motion. He, too, would come to grief with a broken leg. Any ordinary fracture, however, even though there were no surgeon at hand, would be attended to, so that no deformity resulted. If the case was one seeming to require an amputation “a butcher knife and an old dull hand saw” were improvised as surgical instruments. But I have not found that a patient survived such an operation and got well. The other great epochal events of family life, marriages and births, were not infrequent on the trail, and seemed to cause little distraction.

The experiences of the pioneers in crossing the rivers in the line of the trail were very diverse. It is reported of one of the migrations that they were not compelled to ferry until they reached the Des Chutes in Oregon. But the migration of 1844 had a serious time even with the Black Vermillion and Big Blue, tributaries of the Kansas. Where logs were available they were hollowed out and catamaran rafts made so as to fit the wheels of a wagon. Sometimes the best wagon boxes would be selected and caulked and used as flatboats. Where buffalo skins were plentiful they would be stretched around the wagon box to make it water-tight. In later stages of the journey, after their teams were more reliable, it was a common practice to raise the wagon beds several inches above the bolsters, if the depth of the stream required it, couple several teams into a train with the most reliable in front on a lead-rope, and drivers along the down-stream side of the other teams. They would then ford as trains. After the rush in 1849 ferries were established at the more important crossings, whose owners reaped rich harvests.

15.—The deeply worn Trail along the Sweetwater.
]

Their route had no rich diversity of scenic grandeur. There are most impressive natural features along the line of it, but with their slow mode of travel one phase became exceedingly monotonous before another was reached. There were the vastness and solitude of the prairies and plains, the transparency of the atmosphere that gave magnificent sweep of view. Along the North Fork of the Platte stood great sentinel rocks with interesting sculptured proportions. Among these are the Lone or Court House Rock, Chimney Rock, Castle Rock, Steamboat Rock, and Scott’s Bluff. Farther along on their journey they come to Independence Rock and Devil’s Gate on the Sweetwater, one a huge basaltic mound upon which with tar or with iron chisels they would register their names; the other a most unique breach in a granitic range with sides two hundred feet high, through which the Sweetwater flows. A week or two later they would have the exhilarating sense of standing on the backbone of the continent in South Pass, with the towering Wind River Mountains to their right and the Oregon buttes to their left. A few miles on they would drink from the Pacific springs and know they were in what was then called Oregon. Scenery most unique was still before them on their way. Some of it, like the panorama from the divide between the Green and the Bear rivers and the Soda Springs, they would enjoy. But their march from the South Pass on was a retreat. Oxen would fall helpless in their yokes, wagons would become rickety beyond repair. The trail was strewn with wreckage, and the stench from the dead cattle was appalling. The watering places along the Snake were contaminated by the stock that had perished. As soon as they reached the Blue Mountains their stock was safe from starvation, but the exertion required of their way-worn and weak oxen on the steep grades now before them was the last straw often that these creatures now could not bear. They could not let them recruit; the season was far advanced towards winter; they must press on.

Data for determining the numbers that came across the plains to Oregon during the successive years are as yet very unsatisfactory. The estimates given below for 1842 and 1843 are well founded, but the others, especially from 1847 on, are from no very tangible basis.

At the close of 1841 the Americans in Oregon numbered possibly four hundred.

The immigration of 1842 estimated from 105 to 137
The immigration of 1843 estimated from 875 to 1,000
The immigration of 1844 estimated about 700
The immigration of 1845 estimated about 3,000
The immigration of 1846 estimated about 1,350

The above figures are taken quite closely from those given by Elwood Evans in his address before the Pioneer Association in 1877. I make the immigration of 1844, however, seven hundred, instead of four hundred and seventy-five, as he gives it.

The immigration of 1847 between 4,000 and 5,000
The immigration of 1848 about 700
The immigration of 1849 about 400
The immigration of 1850 about 2,000
The immigration of 1851 about 1,500
The immigration of 1852 about 2,500

No doubt this one summer on the plains was an ordeal under which some sensitive natures were strained and weakened for life. It may be, too, that living for five or six months, as families, on the simplest, barest necessities of life, fixed standards of living lower than they otherwise would have been. The effect, however, on strong, resourceful natures of these months on the plains could not have been other than salutary. The pioneers, when they started, were most distinctively American in their characteristics. As such they needed to be socialized. No better school could have been devised than the organization and regimen of the trip across the plains for socializing their natures.

F. G. YOUNG.

16.—The “Three Crossings” of the Sweetwater.
]

A DAY WITH THE COW COLUMN IN 1843.

By JESSE APPLEGATE.

(Read before the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1876; reprinted from
transactions of that society.)

The migration of a large body of men, women and children across the continent to Oregon was, in the year 1843, strictly an experiment; not only in respect to the members, but to the outfit of the migrating party. Before that date, two or three missionaries had performed the journey on horseback, driving a few cows with them, three or four wagons drawn by oxen had reached Fort Hall, on Snake River, but it was the honest opinion of the most of those who had traveled the route down Snake River, that no large number of cattle could be subsisted on its scanty pasturage, or wagons taken over a country so rugged and mountainous.

The emigrants were also assured that the Sioux would be much opposed to the passage of so large a body through their country, and would probably resist it on account of the emigrants’ destroying and frightening away the buffaloes, which were then diminishing in numbers.

The migrating body numbered over one thousand souls, with about one hundred and twenty wagons, drawn by six-ox teams, averaging about six yokes to the team, and several thousand loose horses and cattle.

The emigrants first organized and attempted to travel in one body, but it was soon found that no progress could be made with a body so cumbrous, and as yet so averse to all discipline. And at the crossing of the “Big Blue” it divided into two columns, which traveled in supporting distance of each other as far as Independence Rock on the Sweetwater.

From this point, all danger from Indians being over, the emigrants separated into small parties better suited to the narrow mountain paths and small pastures in their front.

Before the division on the Blue River there was some just cause for discontent in respect to loose cattle. Some of the emigrants had only their teams, while others had large herds in addition, which must share the pasture and be guarded and driven by the whole body. This discontent had its effect in the division on the Blue. Those not encumbered with or having but few loose cattle attached themselves to the light column; those having more than four or five cows had of necessity to join the heavy or cow column. Hence the cow column, being much larger than the other and much encumbered with its large herds, had to use greater exertion and observe a more rigid discipline to keep pace with the more agile consort. It is with the cow column that I propose to journey with the reader for a single day.

It is four o’clock A. M.; the sentinels on duty have discharged their rifles—the signal that the hours of sleep are over—and every wagon and tent is pouring forth its night tenants, and slow-kindling smokes begin largely to rise and float away in the morning air. Sixty men start from the corral, spreading as they make through the vast herd of cattle and horses that make a semicircle around the encampment, the most distant perhaps two miles away.

17.—“Oregon Buttes,”—taken from South Pass.
]

The herders pass to the extreme verge and carefully examine for trails beyond, to see that none of the animals have strayed or been stolen during the night. This morning no trails led beyond the outside animals in sight, and by 5 o’clock the herders begin to contract the great, moving circle, and the well-trained animals move slowly towards camp, clipping here and there a thistle or a tempting bunch of grass on the way. In about an hour five thousand animals are close up to the encampment, and the teamsters are busy selecting their teams and driving them inside the corral to be yoked. The corral is a circle one hundred yards deep, formed with wagons connected strongly with each other; the wagon in the rear being connected with the wagon in front by its tongue and ox chains. It is a strong barrier that the most vicious ox cannot break, and in case of an attack of the Sioux would be no contemptible intrenchment.

From 6 to 7 o’clock is a busy time; breakfast is to be eaten, the tents struck, the wagons loaded and the teams yoked and brought up in readiness to be attached to their respective wagons. All know when, at 7 o’clock, the signal to march sounds, that those not ready to take their proper places in the line of march must fall into the dusty rear for the day.

There are sixty wagons. They have been divided into fifteen divisions or platoons of four wagons each, and each platoon is entitled to lead in its turn. The leading platoon today will be the rear one tomorrow, and will bring up the rear unless some teamster, through indolence or negligence, has lost his place in the line, and is condemned to that uncomfortable post. It is within ten minutes of seven; the corral but now a strong barricade is everywhere broken, the teams being attached to the wagons. The women and children have taken their places in them. The pilot (a borderer who has passed his life on the verge of civilization and has been chosen to the post of leader from his knowledge of the savage and his experience in travel through roadless wastes), stands ready, in the midst of his pioneers and aids, to mount and lead the way. Ten or fifteen young men, not today on duty, form another cluster. They are ready to start on a buffalo hunt, are well mounted and well armed, as they need be, for the unfriendly Sioux have driven the buffalo out of the Platte, and the hunters must ride fifteen or twenty miles to reach them. The cow drivers are hastening, as they get ready, to the rear of their charge, to collect and prepare them for the day’s march.

It is on the stroke of seven; the rush to and fro, the cracking of whips, the loud command to oxen, and what seemed to be the inextricable confusion of the last ten minutes has ceased. Fortunately every one has been found and every teamster is at his post. The clear notes of a trumpet sound in the front; the pilot and his guards mount their horses; the leading divisions of the wagons move out of the encampment, and take up the line of march; the rest fall into their places with the precision of clock work, until the spot so lately full of life sinks back into that solitude that seems to reign over the broad plain and rushing river as the caravan draws its lazy length towards the distant El Dorado. It is with the hunters we shall briskly canter towards the bold but smooth and grassy bluffs that bound the broad valley, for we are not yet in sight of the grander but less beautiful scenery (of Chimney Rock, Court House and other bluffs, so nearly resembling giant castles and palaces), made by the passage of the Platte through the highlands near Laramie. We have been traveling briskly for more than an hour. We have reached the top of the bluff, and now have turned to view the wonderful panorama spread before us. To those who have not been on the Platte, my powers of description are wholly inadequate to convey an idea of the vast extent and grandeur of the picture, and the rare beauty and distinctness of the detail. No haze or fog obscures objects in the pure and transparent atmosphere of this lofty region. To those accustomed only to the murky air of the seaboard, no correct judgment of distance can be formed by sight, and objects which they think they can reach in a two hours’ walk may be a day’s travel away; and though the evening air is a better conductor of sound, on the high plain during the day the report of the loudest rifle sounds little louder than the bursting of a cap; and while the report can be heard but a few hundred yards, the smoke of the discharge may be seen for miles. So extended is the view from the bluff on which the hunters stand, that the broad river glowing under the morning sun like a sheet of silver, and the broader emerald valley that borders it, stretch away in the distance until they narrow at almost two points in the horizon, and when first seen, the vast pile of the Wind River Mountains though hundreds of miles away, looks clear and distinct as a white cottage on the plain.

18.—“STEAMBOAT SPRING” ON THE BANKS OF THE BEAR RIVER.
]

We are full six miles away from the line of march; though everything is dwarfed by distance, it is seen distinctly. The caravan has been about two hours in motion and is now as widely extended as a prudent regard for safety will permit. First, near the bank of the shining river is a company of horsemen; they seem to have found an obstruction, for the main body has halted while three or four ride rapidly along the bank of the creek or slough. They are hunting a favorable crossing for the wagons; while we look they have succeeded; it has apparently required no work to make it passable, for all but one of the party have passed on, and he has raised a flag, no doubt a signal to the wagons to steer their course to where he stands. The leading teamster sees him, though he is yet two miles off, and steers his course directly towards him, all the wagons following in his track. They (the wagons) form a line three-quarters of a mile in length; some of the teamsters ride upon the front of their wagons, some march beside their teams; scattered along the line companies of women are taking exercise on foot; they gather bouquets of rare and beautiful flowers that line the way; near them stalks a stately greyhound, or an Irish wolf dog, apparently proud of keeping watch and ward over his master’s wife and children. Next comes a band of horses; two or three men or boys follow them, the docile and sagacious animals scarce needing this attention, for they have learned to follow in the rear of the wagons, and know that at noon they will be allowed to graze and rest. Their knowledge of time seems as accurate as of the place they are to occupy in the line, and even a full-blown thistle will scarce tempt them to straggle or halt until the dinner hour has arrived. Not so with the large herd of horned beasts that bring up the rear; lazy, selfish and unsocial, it has been a task to get them in motion, the strong always ready to domineer over the weak, halt in the front and forbid the weak to pass them. They seem to move only in the fear of the driver’s whip; though in the morning, full to repletion, they have not been driven an hour before their hunger and thirst seem to indicate a fast of days’ duration. Through all the long day their greed is never satisfied, nor their thirst quenched, nor is there a moment of relaxation of the tedious and vexatious labors of their drivers, although to all others the march furnishes some season of relaxation or enjoyment. For the cow drivers there is none.

But from the standpoint of the hunters, the vexations are not apparent; the crack of whips and loud objurgation are lost in the distance. Nothing of the moving panorama, smooth and orderly as it appears, has more attractions for the eye than that vast square column in which all colors are mingled, moving here slowly and there briskly, as impelled by horsemen riding furiously in front and rear.

19.—“AMERICAN FALLS.”

Railroad bridge of the “Oregon Short Line.”
]

But the picture in its grandeur, its wonderful mingling of colors and distinctness of detail, is forgotten in contemplation of the singular people who give it life and animation. No other race of men with the means at their command would undertake so great a journey, none save these could successfully perform it, with no previous preparation, relying only on the fertility of their own invention to devise the means to overcome each danger and difficulty as it arose. They have undertaken to perform with slow-moving oxen a journey of two thousand miles. The way lies over trackless wastes, wide and deep rivers, ragged and lofty mountains, and is beset with hostile savages. Yet, whether it were a deep river with no tree upon its banks, a rugged defile where even a loose horse could not pass, a hill too steep for him to climb, or a threatened attack of an enemy, they are always found ready and equal to the occasion, and always conquerors. May we not call them men of destiny? They are people changed in no essential particulars from their ancestors, who have followed closely on the footsteps of the receding savage, from the Atlantic seaboard to the great Valley of the Mississippi.

But while we have been gazing at the picture in the valley, the hunters have been examining the high plain in the other direction. Some dark moving objects have been discovered in the distance, and all are closely watching them to discover what they are, for in the atmosphere of the plains a flock of crows marching miles away, or a band of buffaloes or Indians at ten times the distance look alike, and many ludicrous mistakes occur. But these are buffaloes, for two have struck their heads together and are, alternately, pushing each other back. The hunters mount and away in pursuit, and I, a poor cow-driver, must hurry back to my daily toil, and take a scolding from my fellow herders for so long playing truant.

The pilot, by measuring the ground and timing the speed of the wagons and the walk of his horses, has determined the rate of each, so as to enable him to select the nooning place, as nearly as the requisite grass and water can be had at the end of five hours’ travel of the wagons. Today, the ground being favorable, little time has been lost in preparing the road, so that he and his pioneers are at the nooning place an hour in advance of the wagons, which time is spent in preparing convenient watering places for the animals, and digging little wells near the bank of the Platte, as the teams are not unyoked, but simply turned loose from the wagons, a corral is not formed at noon, but the wagons are drawn up in columns, four abreast, the leading wagon of each platoon on the left, the platoons being formed with that in view. This brings friends together at noon as well as at night.

20.—Near summit of Blue Mountains—Meacham Station of O. R. & N. R. R.
on the Trail, and site of “Lee Encampment.”
]

Today an extra session of the council is being held, to settle a dispute that does not admit of delay, between a proprietor and a young man who has undertaken to do a man’s service on the journey for bed and board. Many such engagements exist, and much interest is taken in the manner in which this high court, from which there is no appeal, will define the rights of each party in such engagements. The council was a high court in the most exalted sense. It was a senate composed of the ablest and most respected fathers of the emigration. It exercised both legislative and judicial powers, and its laws and decisions proved it equal and worthy of the high trust reposed in it. Its sessions were usually held on days when the caravan was not moving. It first took the state of the little commonwealth into consideration; revised or repealed rules defective or obsolete, and enacted such others as the exigencies seemed to require. The common weal being cared for, it next resolved itself into a court to hear and settle private disputes and grievances. The offender and the aggrieved appeared before it; witnesses were examined, and the parties were heard by themselves and sometimes by counsel. The judges being thus made fully acquainted with the case, and being in no way influenced or cramped by technicalities, decided all cases according to their merits. There was but little use for lawyers before this court, for no plea was entertained which was calculated to hinder or defeat the ends of justice. Many of these judges have since won honors in higher spheres. They have aided to establish on the broad basis of right and universal liberty two pillars of our great Republic in the Occident. Some of the young men who appeared before them as advocates have themselves sat upon the highest judicial tribunals, commanded armies, been governors of states and taken high position in the senate of the nation.

It is now one o’clock; the bugle has sounded and the caravan has resumed its westward journey. It is in the same order, but the evening is far less animated than the morning march; a drowsiness has fallen apparently on man and beast; teamsters drop asleep on their perches and even when walking by their teams, and the words of command are now addressed to the slowly creeping oxen in the soft tenor of women or the piping treble of children, while the snores of the teamsters make a droning accompaniment. But a little incident breaks the monotony of the march. An emigrant’s wife, whose state of health has caused Doctor Whitman to travel near the wagon for the day, is now taken with violent illness. The Doctor has had the wagon driven out of the line, a tent pitched and a fire kindled. Many conjectures are hazarded in regard to this mysterious proceeding, and as to why this lone wagon is to be left behind. And we too must leave it, hasten to the front and note the proceedings, for the sun is now getting low in the west and at length the painstaking pilot is standing ready to conduct the train in the circle which he has previously measured and marked out, which is to form the invariable fortification for the night. The leading wagons follow him so nearly around the circle that but a wagon length separates them. Each wagon follows in its track, the rear closing on the front, until its tongue and ox chains will perfectly reach from one to the other, and so accurate the measure and perfect the practice, that the hindmost wagon of the train always precisely closes the gateway, as each wagon is brought into position. It is dropped from its team (the teams being inside the circle), the team unyoked and the yokes and chains are used to connect the wagon strongly with that in its front. Within ten minutes from the time the leading wagon halted, the barricade is formed, the teams unyoked and driven out to pasture. Every one is busy preparing fires of buffalo chips to cook the evening meal, pitching tents and otherwise preparing for the night. There are anxious watchers for the absent wagon, for there are many matrons who may be afflicted like its inmate before the journey is over; and they fear the strange and startling practice of this Oregon doctor will be dangerous. But as the sun goes down the absent wagon rolls into camp, the bright, speaking face and cheery look of the doctor, who rides in advance, declare without words that all is well, and both mother and child are comfortable. I would fain now and here pay a passing tribute to that noble and devoted man, Doctor Whitman. I will obtrude no other name upon the reader, nor would I his were he of our party or even living, but his stay with us was transient, though the good he did was permanent, and he has long since died at his post.

21.—Falls of the Willamette—the objective point of the pioneers.
]

From the time he joined us on the Platte until he left us at Fort Hall, his great experience and indomitable energy were of priceless value to the migrating column. His constant advice, which we knew was based upon a knowledge of the road before us, was, “Travel, _travel_, TRAVEL; nothing else will take you to the end of your journey; nothing is wise that does not help you along; nothing is good for you that causes a moment’s delay.” His great authority as a physician and complete success in the case above referred to, saved us many prolonged and perhaps ruinous delays from similar causes, and it is no disparagement to others to say that to no other individual are the emigrants of 1843 so much indebted for the successful conclusion of their journey as to Dr. Marcus Whitman.

All able to bear arms in the party have been formed into three companies, and each of these into four watches; every third night it is the duty of one of these companies to keep watch and ward over the camp, and it is so arranged that each watch takes its turn of guard duty through the different watches of the night. Those forming the first watch tonight will be second on duty, then third and fourth, which brings them through all the watches of the night. They begin at 8 o’clock P. M., and end at 4 o’clock A. M.

It is not yet 8 o’clock when the first watch is to be set; the evening meal is just over, and the corral now free from the intrusion of cattle or horses, groups of children are scattered over it. The larger are taking a game of romps; “the wee toddling things” are being taught that great achievement that distinguishes man from the lower animals. Before a tent near the river a violin makes lively music, and some youths and maidens have improvised a dance upon the green; in another quarter a flute gives its mellow and melancholy notes to the still night air, which, as they float away over the quiet river, seem a lament for the past rather than a hope for the future. It has been a prosperous day; more than twenty miles have been accomplished of the great journey. The encampment is a good one; one of the causes that threatened much future delay has just been removed by the skill and energy of that “good angel” of the emigrants, Doctor Whitman, and it has lifted a load from the hearts of the elders. Many of these are assembled around the good doctor at the tent of the pilot (which is his home for the time being), and are giving grave attention to his wise and energetic counsel. The care-worn pilot sits aloof, quietly smoking his pipe, for he knows the brave doctor is “strengthening his hands.”

22.—The Union Pacific Building, Omaha,—site of one of the “jumping
off” points for Oregon.
]

But time passes; the watch is set for the night; the council of old men has been broken up, and each has returned to his own quarter; the flute has whispered its last lament to the deepening night; the violin is silent, and the dancers have dispersed; enamored youth have whispered a tender “good night” in the ear of blushing maidens, or stolen a kiss from the lips of some future bride—for Cupid here, as elsewhere, has been busy bringing together congenial hearts, and among these simple people he alone is consulted in forming the marriage tie. Even the doctor and the pilot have finished their confidential interview and have separated for the night. All is hushed and repose from the fatigues of the day, save the vigilant guard and the wakeful leader, who still has cares upon his mind that forbid sleep. He hears the 10 o’clock relief taking post and the “all well” report of the returned guard; the night deepens, yet he seeks not the needed repose. At length a sentinel hurries to him with the welcome report that a party is approaching—as yet too far away for its character to be determined, and he instantly hurries out in the direction in which it was seen. This he does both from inclination and duty, for in times past the camp had been unnecessarily alarmed by timid or inexperienced sentinels, causing much confusion and fright amongst women and children, and it had been a rule that all extraordinary incidents of the night should be reported directly to the pilot, who alone had the authority to call out the military strength of the column, or of so much of it as was in his judgment necessary to prevent a stampede or repel an enemy. Tonight he is at no loss to determine that the approaching party are our missing hunters, and that they have met with success, and he only waits until by some further signal he can know that no ill has happened to them. This is not long wanting. He does not even await their arrival, but the last care of the day being removed, and the last duty performed, he too seeks the rest that will enable him to go through the same routine tomorrow. But here I leave him, for my task is also done, and unlike his, it is to be repeated no more.

NOTE—A CORRECTION—Col. George B. Currey was the author of “The Tribute to the Ox Whip,” not Col. George L. Curry, as printed in this number.

COL. GEORGE L. CURRY’S TRIBUTE TO THE OX WHIP.

(Reprinted from Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association.)

My task is to call from dust and dark forgetfulness that advance banner of Americanism and progress—the ox whip. Its crack was the command “Forward to the nation.” Its sharp, keen accent proclaimed that obstacles to prayers must be overcome. It waved aloft on the prairies of the “Old West,” and pointing to the new, a vast throng took up the westward march, which, keeping step to the music of destiny, dashed across the broad Missouri, rolled a living tide up the grassy slope of the Platte, scaled the imperial heights of the Rocky Mountains, and with “the tread of a giant and shout of a conquerer” defied the heat, dust, thirst and hunger, the desert heart of the continent, leaped the Blue Mountains, paused but quailed not on the banks of the deep, wide Columbia, where again the potential crack is heard and the mighty, “rock-ribbed” walls of the Cascades are stormed, and as the line rolls bravely over the giddy summit the exultant driver gives a grand triumphant crack into the stolid face of grand old Hood, the storm-clad sentinel of the mountain fastness. The people have reached their goal. The spell is broken. The errand has lost its magic, its mission has been accomplished. A state, with freedom’s diadem effulgent on its brow salutes the eye, and dipping its young hand in the Pacific completes the baptism of human liberty and proclaims an “ocean-bound republic.” All hail and honor to the ox whip, the symbol of the grand, achieving force of its age.

23.—Street, Oregon City,—about where the pioneers broke ranks.
]

THE CAMP FIRES OF THE PIONEERS.

_VINCERE EST VIVERE!_

By SAM L. SIMPSON.

[Reprinted from Transactions of Pioneer Association.]

Striking at ease his epic lyre,
The laureled Mantuan has sung
Beleagured Troy’s illustrious pyre—
The daring sail Æneas flung
To wayward gales, the voyage long
That tracks the silver wave of song;
Until the worn and weary oar
Has kissed the far Lavinian shore;
The Argo’s classic pennon streams
Along sweet horizons of dreams,—
The Mayflower has furled her wings,
And restfully at anchor swings—
Columbia chants to columned seas
The triumph of the Genoese,
And yet, stout hearts, no fitting meed
Of panegyric crowns your deed
From which a stately empire springs.

The minions of a perfumed age
Already crowd upon the stage,—
The massive manhood of the past
In many a graceful mould is cast;
And yet with calm and kindly eyes
You view the feast for others spread,
And hail the blue benignant skies
Resigned and grandly comforted.
It was for this you broke the way
Before the sunset gates of day—
For this, with godlike faith endued,
You scaled the misty crags of fate,
And, with resounding labors, hewed
The Doric pillars of the state.

There is no task for you to do—
Your tents are furled, the bugle blown—
But yet another day, and you
Will live in clustered fame alone.
The fir will chant a song of rue,
The pine will drop a wreath, may be,
And o’er the dim Cascades the stars
Will nightly roll the gleaming cars
You followed well from sea to sea.
Before your scarred battalion’s wheel
Into the mystic realm of shade,
And on your grizzled brows the seal
Of mystery is softly laid,
Once more around your old campfires,
That smoulder like fulfilled desires,
Rehearse the story of your toils
Display the hero crowned with spoils—
The glimmer of triumphant steel,
Beneath the garland and the braid.

O, further than the legions bore
The eagles of Imperial Rome—
Three thousand miles, a weary march,
You followed Hesper’s golden torch,
Until it stooped on this green shore,
And lit the rosy fires of home.
It was a solemn morn you turned
And quenched the sacred flames that burned
On hearths endeared for years and years;
It seemed your very souls grew dark
With those sweet fires—the latest spark
Was drowned in bitter, bitter tears.
A softer, sweeter sunlight wrapt
The forms of all familiar things,
And as each cord of feeling snapt
Another angel furled its wings:
The lights and shadows in the lane,
The oak beside the foot-worn stile
Whose wheeling shades a weary while
Had told the hours of joy and pain—
The vine that clambered o’er the door
And many a purple cluster bore—
The vestal flowers of household love—
The sloping roof that wore the stain
Of summer sun and winter rain,
And smoky chimney tops above—
The beauty of the orchard trees,
Bedecked with blossoms, glad with bees—
The brook that all the livelong day
Had many things to sing and say—
All these upon your vision dwell
And weave the sorrow of farewell.

And now the last good-bye is said—
Good-bye! the living and the dead
In those sad words together speak,
And all your chosen ways are bleak!
Forward! The cracking lashes send
A thrill of action down the train,—
Their brawny necks the oxen bend
With creaking yoke and clanking chain;
The horsemen gallop down the line,
And swerve around the lowing kine
That straggle loosely on the plain—
And lift glad hands to babes that laugh
And dash the buttercups like chaff.
Hurrah! the skies are jewel blue—
In tasseled green and braided gold
The robes of April are enrolled,

And hopes are high and hearts are true!
Hurrah! hurrah! the bold, the free—
The sudden sweep of ecstacy
That lifts the soul on wings of fire,
When fears consume and doubts expire,
And life, in one red torrent, leaps
To join the march of boundless deeps!

And now the sun is dropping down
And lights and shadows, red and brown
Are weaving sunset’s purple spell:
The teams are freed, the fires are made,
Like scarlet night flow’rs in the shade,
And pleasant groups before, between,
Are thronging in the fitful sheen—
The day is done, and “all is well.”

So pass the days, so fall the nights;
A banquet of renewed delights;
The old horizons lift and pass
In magic changes like a dream,
And in the heavens’ azure glass
Tomorrow’s jasper arches gleam—
With many a vale and mountain mass,
And many a singing, shining stream.
The post is dead and daisied now—
In shadow fades from heart and brow—
The air is incense, and the breeze
Is sweet with siren melodies,
And all the castled hills before
In blooming vistas sweep and soar
Like silver lace, the clouds are strewn
Along the distant, dreamy zone;
It is a happy, happy time,
As wayward as a poet’s rhyme,
And ever as the sun goes down
The west is shut with rosy bars,
And Night puts on her golden crown
And fills the vases of the stars.

· · · · ·

A hundred nights, a hundred days,
Nor folded cloud nor silken haze
Mellow the sun’s midsummer blaze.
Along a brown and barren plain
In silence drags the wasted train;
The dust starts up beneath your tread,
Like angry ashes of the dead,
To blind you with a choking cloud
And wrap you in a yellow shroud.
There are no birds to sing your joy,
You have no joy for birds to sing,—
A hundred fangs your hearts destroy—
A thousand troubles fret and sting.
The desert mocks you all the while
With that dry shimmer of a smile
That dazzles on a bleaching skull,—

The bloom is withered on your cheek
You slowly move and lowly speak,
And every eye is dim and dull.
Alas, it is a lonesome land
Of bitter sage and barren sand
Under a bitter, barren sky
That never heard the robin sing,
Nor kissed the larks’s exultant wing,
Nor breathed a rose’s fragrant sigh!
A weary land—alas! alas!
The shadows of the vultures pass—
A spectral sign across your path;
The gaunt, gray wolf, with head askance
Throws back at you a scowlling glance
Of cringing hate and coward wrath.
And like a wraith accursed and banned
Fades out before your lifted hand;
A dim, sad land, forgot, forsworn
By all bright life that may not mourn—
Acrazed with glist’ning ghosts of seas
In broideries of flower and trees,
And rivers, blue and cool, that seem
To ripple as in fevered dream—
Only to taunt the thirst, and fly
From withered lips and lurid eye.

A hundred days, a hundred nights—
The goal is farther than before,
And all the changing shades and lights
Are wrought in fancy’s woof no more.
The sun is weary overhead,
And pallid deserts round you spread
A sorrowful eternity;
And if some grisly mountain here
Confront your march with forms of fear,
You turn aside and pass them by.
And all are overworn—the flesh
Is now a frayed and faded mesh
That will not mask the inward flame;
There is no longer any care
To round the speech, or speak men fair,
Or any gentle sense of shame;
The hearts of all are shifted through—
The grain drops through the windy husks
And false lights flick’ring round the true
Are quenched at last in dews and dusk.
And some are silent, some are loud
And rage like beasts among the crowd,—
And some are mild, and some are sharp
In word and deed, and snarl and carp,
And fret the camp with petty broils;
And some of temper, sweet and bland,
Do seem to bear a magic wand
That wins the secret of their toils—
Rare souls that waste like sandal-wood
In many a fragrant deed and mood;
And some invoke the wrath of God,

Or feign to kiss the burning rod,—
And some, may be, with better prayers,
Stand up in all their griefs and cares
And clinch their teeth, and do and die
Without a whine, a curse or cry.
And so the dust and grit and stain
Of travel wears into the grain;
And so the hearts and souls of men
Were darkly tried and tested then
That, in the happy after years,
When rainbows gild remembered tears,
Should any friend inquire of you
If such or such an one you knew—
I hear the answer, terse and grim,
“Ah, yes; I crossed the plains with him!”

And, lo! a moaning phantom stands,
To greet you in the lonely lands,
Among all lesser shadows, dight
With spoils of death; his meager hands
Salute you as you pass, and claim
The sacrifice that feeds his flame.
The march has broken into flight,
And wreck and ruin strew the road
The flaming phantom has bestrode;
The ox lies gasping in his yoke
Beside the wagon that he drew—
Where the forsaken campfires smoke
To hopeless skies of tawny blue;
And here are straight, still mounds that mark
The flight of life’s delusive spark—
The somber points of pause that lie
So thick in human destiny.
And oh, so dark on this bleak page
Of drifting sand and dreary sage!
The sultry levels of the day,
The night with weird enchantment fills,
And frowning forests stretch away
Along the slopes of shadow hills;
And in the solemn stillness breaks
The wild-wolf music of the plain,
As if a deeper sorrow wakes
The dreary dead in that refrain
That swells and gathers like a wail
Of woe from Pluto’s ebon pale,
And sinks in pulseless calm again.

A change at last!—an opal mist
Along the faint horizon’s rim
Is banked against the amethyst
Of summer sky—so far, so dim,
You shade your eyes, and gaze and gaze,
Until there wavers into sight
A swinging, swaying strand of white,
And then the sapphire walls and towns
That breaks the light in quiv’ring showers
And float and fade in diamond haze;—
It is the mountains!—grand and calm
As God upon his awful throne;
They build you strength and breathe you balm,
For all their templed might of stone
Is our eternal sculptured psalm!
And now your western course is led
Where grassy pampas spread and spread
The pastures of the buffalo;
And like the sudden lash of foam
When tropic tempest smite the sea
And masts are stript to ward the blow—
A ragged whirl of dust described
Upon the prairie’s sloping side
Portends a storm as swift and free,—
And lo, the herds—they come! they come!
A sweeping thunder cloud of life
Loud as Niagara, and grand
As they who rode with plume and brand
On Waterloo’s red slope of strife;
Wild as the rush of tidal waves,
That roar among the crags and caves,
The trampling besom hurls along—
A black and bounding, fiery mass
That withers, as with flame, the grass—
O! terrible—ten thousand strong!
Meanwhile, the dusty teams are stopt,
The wagon tongues are deftly dropt,
And drivers by their oxen stand
And soothe them with soft speech and hand.
And yet, with horns tossed free, and eyes
Ablaze with purple depths of ire,
A thousand servile years expire
And flashes of old nature rise,
As if a sudden spirit woke
That would not brook the chain and yoke,—
And then, the stormy pageant past,
They bow their callous necks at last,
And with a heavy stride and slow,
The dreams of liberty forego.

Alas! it is a land of shades.
And mystic visions, swift alarms;
The fretted spirit flames and fades
With clanging calls to prayers or arms.
* * * The day is dying, and the sun
Hangs like a jewel rich with fire
In the deep west of your desire.
And o’er the wide plateau is rolled
A surge of crinkled sunset gold,
Bordered with shadows gray and dun.
A horseman with loose, waving hair,
Black as the blackest of despair,
Wheels into sight and gives you heed,
And on its haunches reins his steed,
All quivering like a river reed,
And sits him like a statue there,—
Transfigured in the sunset sea—
A bronze, bare sphynx of mystery!
A moment thus, in wonder lost,
His eagle plumes all backward tossed,
Then wheels again, as swift as wind,
The wild hair floating free behind.
And sunset’s crinkled surges pour
Along an empty waste once more!
But you, since that fantastic shade
Across your desert path has played,
Distrust the very ground you tread,
And shiver with a nameless dread
Till stars drop crimson, and the sky
Is wan with heartless treachery.

· · · · ·

For many days a form of white
Has flashed and faded in your sight
In fleeting glimpses, as of wings,
Our God’s bright palm in beckonings.
It is a secret nursed of each—
You dare not give the thought in speech,
So wierdly solemn is the sign—
As if, upon the western stairs,
The angels of a thousand prayers
Were come with sacred bread and wine.
Again, the still, enchanted hour
Of sunset burns in crimson flower,
And purple-hearted shadows sleep
Like clustered pansies, warm and deep,
Eastward of wreathen crag and wall.
The road that wound and wound all day
In many a dark and devious way
At last with one swift curve ascends
A rolling plain that breaks and bends
Westward, till rosy curtains fall
O’er mountains massed and magical.
Resplendent as a pearly tent
Upon the fir-fringed battlement—
Serene in sunset gold and rose,
A pyramid of splendor glows,
So vast and calm and bright your dream
Is dust and ashes in its gleam.
A maiden speaks—“He led us far—
It is the golden western star!”
And then a youth—“Our goal is won—
’Tis the pavilion of the sun.”
A gray sage, then, in undertone—
“It must be Hood, so grand and lone—
The shining citadel and throne
Of Terminus, that Roman god
Who marked the line that legions trod,
And set the limits of the world
Where Cæsar’s battle flags were furled!
Oh, for the days of dark-eyed prophetess
Who sang in Syrian wilderness
The gilded chariots’ overthrow,
To lead us for the cymbaled song
To him, the beautiful and strong,
Who dashed the brimming cup of woe
And was our cloud and flame so long!”

Forward! the crested mountains kneel
To patient tolls of fire and steel—
A way is hewn and you emerge
Upon the Cascades’ battled verge;—
And far beneath you and away
To ocean’s shining fringe of foam
And summer vail of floating spray,
Behold the land of your emprise,
Serene as tender twilight skies
When day is swooning into gloam!
It is the morning twilight now
That wraps the valley’s misted brow;
The bourgeoning and blooming dawn—
The reveille of Oregon.

How brightly on your vision, first
The pictured vales and woodlands burst,—
The lakelets set like twinkling gems
Along the prairies’ pleated hems,—
The silver crooks and rippled sweeps
Of happy rivers here and there,
And many a waterfall that leaps
In rainbow garlands through the air,—
The skirted maples and the groves
Of oak the mild home-spirit loves—
Enameled plains and crenelled hills
And tangled skeins of brooks and rills,—
Imperial forests of the fir,
All redolent of musk and myrrh,
That fling and furl their banners old,
And still their gloomy secret hold
As Time his cloudy censer fills.

· · · · ·

Where the foothills are wedded to the meadow
In the dimples that dally and pass
And the oak swings an indolent shadow
On the daisies that dial the grass.—
In the crescents of rivers; in hollows
Red-lipped in the strawberry time,
And the slope where the forests half follows,
A brooklet’s melodious rhyme,—
On the sun-rippled knolls, and the prairies,
Beloved of the wandering kine—
In the skirts of the woodland the fairies
Embroidered with rose and with vine—
There’s a tent, and a smoke that is curling
Above in the beautiful dome,
Like a guardian spirit unfurling
Soft wings o’er the temple of home.
And the ax of the woodman is ringing
All day in sylvestrian halls,
Where the chipmunk is playfully springing
And the blue-jay discordantly calls;
And the red chips are fitfully flying
On the asters that sprinkle the moss;
Where the beauty of summer is dying,
And the sun lances glimmer across;
There’s a bird that is spectrally knocking,
On a pine that is withered and bare,
For the fir-top is trembling and rocking,
In the blue of the clear upper air—
There’s a crackling of fiber—the crashing
Of a century crushed at a blow,
And the fir-trees are wringing and lashing
Their hands in a frenzy of woe!

A pheasant whirs up from the thicket
In the hush that comes after the fall,
And the squirrel retires to his wicket,
And the bluebird renounces his call;
And the panther lies crouched by the bowlder
In the gloom of the canyon anear,
And the brown bear looks over his shoulder,
And the buck blows a signal of fear;
But there’s never a pause in your duty,
And the echoing ax is not still
As you waste with the green temples of beauty
For the puncheon and rafter and sill
That are wrought in a cabin so lowly
The trees will clasp hands over head,
But the heart calls it home, and the holy
Love-lights on its hearthstone are shed.