Part 7 (1/2)
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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 pus.h.i.+ng, 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.