Part 4 (2/2)
There are not always a sufficient number of airtight water-casks to fill a wagon-bed, but a tentfly, paulin, or wagon-cover can generally be had. In this event, the wagon-bed may be placed in the centre of one of these, the cloth brought up around the ends and sides, and secured firmly with ropes tied around transversely, and another rope fastened lengthwise around under the rim. This holds the cloth in its place, and the wagon may then be placed in the water right side upward, and managed in the same manner as in the other case. If the cloth be made of cotton, it will soon swell so as to leak but very little, and answers a very good purpose.
Another method of ferrying streams is by means of what is called by the mountaineers a ”bull-boat,” the frame-work of which is made of willows bent into the shape of a short and wide skiff, with a flat bottom. Willows grow upon the banks of almost all the streams on the prairies, and can be bent into any shape desired. To make a boat with but one hide, a number of straight willows are cut about an inch in diameter, the ends sharpened and driven into the ground, forming a frame-work in the shape of a half egg-sh.e.l.l cut through the longitudinal axis. Where these rods cross they are firmly secured with strings. A stout rod is then heated and bent around the frame in such a position that the edges of the hide, when laid over it and drawn tight, will just reach it. This rod forms the gunwale, which is secured by strings to the ribs. Small rods are then wattled in so as to make it symmetrical and strong. After which the green or soaked hide is thrown over the edges, sewed to the gunwales, and left to dry. The rods are then cut off even with the gunwale, and the boat is ready for use.
To build a boat with two or more hides: A stout pole of the desired length is placed upon the ground for a keel, the ends turned up and secured by a lariat; willow rods of the required dimensions are then cut, heated, and bent into the proper shape for knees, after which their centres are placed at equal distances upon the keel, and firmly tied with cords. The knees are retained in their proper curvature by cords around the ends. After a sufficient number of them have been placed upon the keel, two poles of suitable dimensions are heated, bent around the ends for a gunwale, and firmly lashed to each knee. Smaller willows are then interwoven, so as to model the frame.
Green or soaked hides are cut into the proper shape to fit the frame, and sewed together with buckskin strings; then the frame of the boat is placed in the middle, the hide drawn up snug around the sides, and secured with raw-hide thongs to the gunwale. The boat is then turned bottom upward and left to dry, after which the seams where they have been sewed are covered with a mixture of melted tallow and pitch: the craft is now ready for launching.
A boat of this kind is very light and serviceable, but after a while becomes water-soaked, and should always be turned bottom upward to dry whenever it is not in the water. Two men can easily build a bull-boat of three hides in two days which will carry ten men with perfect safety.
A small party traveling with a pack train and arriving upon the banks of a deep stream will not always have the time to stop or the means to make any of the boats that have been described. Should their luggage be such as to become seriously injured by a wetting, and there be an India-rubber or gutta-percha cloth disposable, or if even a green beef or buffalo hide can be procured, it may be spread out upon the ground, and the articles of baggage placed in the centre, in a square or rectangular form; the ends and sides are then brought up so as entirely to envelop the package, and the whole secured with ropes or raw hide. It is then placed in the water with a rope attached to one end, and towed across by men in the same manner as the boats before described. If hides be used they will require greasing occasionally, to prevent their becoming water-soaked.
CROSSING A STREAM.
When a mounted party with pack animals arrive upon the borders of a rapid stream, too deep to ford, and where the banks are high and abrupt, with perhaps but one place where the beasts can get out upon the opposite sh.o.r.e, it would not be safe to drive or ride them in, calculating that all will make the desired landing. Some of them will probably be carried by the swift current too far down the stream, and thereby endanger not only their own lives, but the lives of their riders. I have seen the experiment tried repeatedly, and have known several animals to be carried by the current below the point of egress, and thus drowned. Here is a simple, safe, and expeditious method of taking animals over such a stream. Suppose, for example, a party of mounted men arrive upon the bank of the stream. There will always be some good swimmers in the party, and probably others who can not swim at all. Three or four of the most expert of these are selected, and sent across with one end of a rope made of lariats tied together, while the other end is retained upon the first bank, and made fast to the neck of a gentle and good swimming horse; after which another gentle horse is brought up and made fast by a lariat around his neck to the tail of the first, and so on until all the horses are thus tied together. The men who can not swim are then mounted upon the best swimming horses and tied on, otherwise they are liable to become frightened, lose their balance, and be carried away in a rapid current; or a horse may stumble and throw his rider. After the horses have been strung out in a single line by their riders, and every thing is in readiness, the first horse is led carefully into the water, while the men on the opposite bank, pulling upon the rope, thus direct him across, and, if necessary, aid him in stemming the current. As soon as this horse strikes bottom he pulls upon those behind him, and thereby a.s.sists them in making the landing, and in this manner all are pa.s.sed over in perfect safety.
DRIVING LOOSE HORSES.
In traveling with loose horses across the plains, some persons are in the habit of attaching them in pairs by their halters to a long, stout rope stretched between two wagons drawn by mules, each wagon being about half loaded. The princ.i.p.al object of the rear wagon being to hold back and keep the rope stretched, not more than two stout mules are required, as the horses aid a good deal with their heads in pulling this wagon. From thirty to forty horses may be driven very well in this manner, and, if they are wild, it is perhaps the safest method, except that of leading them with halters held by men riding beside them. The rope to which the horses are attached should be about an inch and a quarter in diameter, with loops or rings inserted at intervals sufficient to admit the horses without allowing them to kick each other, and the halter straps tied to these loops. The horses, on first starting, should have men by their sides, to accustom them to this manner of being led. The wagons should be so driven as to keep the rope continually stretched. Good drivers must be a.s.signed to these wagons, who will constantly watch the movements of the horses attached, as well as their own teams.
I have had 150 loose horses driven by ten mounted herdsmen. This requires great care for some considerable time, until the horses become gentle and accustomed to their herders. It is important to ascertain, as soon as possible after starting, which horses are wild, and may be likely to stampede and lead off the herd; such should be led, and never suffered to run loose, either on the march or in camp. Animals of this character will soon indicate their propensities, and can be secured during the first days of the march. It is desirable that all animals that will not stampede when not working should run loose on a march, as they pick up a good deal of gra.s.s along the road when traveling, and the success of an expedition, when animals get no other forage but gra.s.s, depends in a great degree upon the time given them for grazing. They will thrive much better when allowed a free range than when picketed, as they then are at liberty to select such gra.s.s as suits them. It may therefore be set down as an infallible rule never to be departed from, that all animals, excepting such as will be likely to stampede, should be turned loose for grazing immediately after arriving at the camping-place; but it is equally important that they should be carefully herded as near the camp as good gra.s.s will admit; and those that it is necessary to picket should be placed upon the best gra.s.s, and their places changed often. The ropes to which they are attached should be about forty feet long; the picket-pins, of iron, fifteen inches long, with ring and swivel at top, so that the rope shall not twist as the animal feeds around it; and the pins must be firmly driven into tenacious earth.
Animals should be herded during the day at such distances as to leave sufficient gra.s.s undisturbed around and near the camp for grazing through the night.
METHOD OF MARCHING.
Among men of limited experience in frontier life will be found a great diversity of opinion regarding the best methods of marching, and of treating animals in expeditions upon the prairies. Some will make late starts and travel during the heat of the day without nooning, while others will start early and make two marches, laying by during the middle of the day; some will picket their animals continually in camp, while others will herd them day and night, etc., etc. For mounted troops, or, indeed, for any body of men traveling with horses and mules, a few general rules may be specified which have the sanction of mature experience, and a deviation from them will inevitably result in consequences highly detrimental to the best interests of an expedition.
In ordinary marches through a country where gra.s.s and water are abundant and good, animals receiving proper attention should not fall away, even if they receive no grain; and, as I said before, they should not be made to travel faster than a walk unless absolutely necessary; neither should they be taken off the road for the purpose of hunting or chasing buffalo, as one buffalo-chase injures them more than a week of moderate riding. In the vicinity of hostile Indians, the animals must be carefully herded and guarded within protection of the camp, while those picketed should be changed as often as the gra.s.s is eaten off within the circle described by the tether-rope. At night they should be brought within the chain of sentinels and picketed as compactly as is consistent with the s.p.a.ce needed for grazing, and under no circ.u.mstances, unless the Indians are known to be near and an attack is to be expected, should they be tied up to a picket line where they can get no gra.s.s. Unless allowed to graze at night they will fall away rapidly, and soon become unserviceable. It is much better to march after nightfall, turn some distance off the road, and to encamp without fires in a depressed locality where the Indians can not track the party, and the animals may be picketed without danger.
In descending abrupt hills and mountains one wheel of a loaded wagon should always be locked, as this relieves the wheel animals and makes every thing more secure. When the declivity is great both rear wheels should be locked, and if very abrupt, requiring great effort on the wheel animals to hold the wagon, the wheels should be rough-locked by lengthening the lock-chains so that the part which goes around the wheels will come directly upon the ground, and thus create more friction. Occasionally, however, hills are met with so nearly perpendicular that it becomes necessary to attach ropes to the rear axle, and to station men to hold back upon them and steady the vehicle down the descent. Rough-locking is a very safe method of pa.s.sing heavy artillery down abrupt declivities. There are several mountains between the Missouri River and California where it is necessary to resort to one of the two last-mentioned methods in order to descend with security. If there are no lock-chains upon wagons, the front and rear wheels on the same side may be tied together with ropes so as to lock them very firmly.
It is an old and well-established custom among men experienced in frontier life always to cross a stream upon which it is intended to encamp for the night, and this rule should never be departed from where a stream is to be forded, as a rise during the night might detain the traveler for several days in awaiting the fall of the waters.
STORMS.
In Western Texas, during the autumn and winter months, storms arise very suddenly, and, when accompanied by a north wind, are very severe upon men and animals; indeed, they are sometimes so terrific as to make it necessary for travelers to hasten to the nearest sheltered place to save the lives of their animals. When these storms come from the north, they are called ”northers;” and as, during the winter season, the temperature often undergoes a sudden change of many degrees at the time the storm sets in, the perspiration is checked, and the system receives an instantaneous shock, against which it requires great vital energy to bear up. Men and animals are not, in this mild climate, prepared for these capricious meteoric revolutions, and they not unfrequently perish under their effects.
While pa.s.sing near the head waters of the Colorado in October, 1849, I left one of my camps at an early hour in the morning under a mild and soft atmosphere, with a gentle breeze from the south, but had marched only a short distance when the wind suddenly whipped around into the north, bringing with it a furious chilling rain, and in a short time the road became so soft and heavy as to make the labor of pulling the wagons over it very exhausting upon the mules, and they came into camp in a profuse sweat, with the rain pouring down in torrents upon them.
They were turned out of harness into the most sheltered place that could be found; but, instead of eating, as was their custom, they turned their heads from the wind, and remained in that position, chilled and trembling, without making the least effort to move. The rain continued with unabated fury during the entire day and night, and on the following morning thirty-five out of one hundred and ten mules had perished, while those remaining could hardly be said to have had a spark of vitality left. They were drawn up with the cold, and could with difficulty walk. Tents and wagon-covers were cut up to protect them, and they were then driven about for some time, until a little vital energy was restored, after which they commenced eating gra.s.s, but it was three or four days before they recovered sufficiently to resume the march.
The mistake I made was in driving the mules after the ”norther” commenced. Had I gone immediately into camp, before they became heated and wearied, they would probably have eaten the gra.s.s, and this, I have no doubt, would have saved them; but as it was, their blood became heated from overwork, and the sudden chill brought on a reaction which proved fatal. If an animal will eat his forage plentifully, there is but little danger of his peris.h.i.+ng with cold. This I a.s.sert with much confidence, as I once, when traveling with about 1500 horses and mules, encountered the most terrific snow-storm that has been known within the memory of the oldest mountaineers. It commenced on the last day of April, and continued without cessation for sixty consecutive hours. The day had been mild and pleasant; the green gra.s.s was about six inches high; the trees had put out their new leaves, and all nature conspired to show that the sombre garb of winter had been permanently superseded by the smiling attire of spring. About dark, however, the wind turned into the north; it commenced to snow violently, and increased until it became a frightful tempest, filling the atmosphere with a dense cloud of driving snow, against which it was impossible to ride or walk. Soon after the storm set in, one herd of three hundred horses and mules broke away from the herdsmen who were around them, and, in spite of all their efforts, ran at full speed, directly with the wind and snow, for fifty miles before they stopped.
Three of the herdsmen followed them as far as they were able, but soon became exhausted and lost on the prairie. One of them found his way back to camp in a state of great prostration and suffering. One of the others was found dead, and the third crawling about upon his hands and knees, after the storm ceased.
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