Part 18 (1/2)

Before starting, Jim asked me to come over and spend the winter with him, saying that he was going to build a cabin on the other side of the mountains, lay in a big supply of provisions, and as after that he was going to do nothing, he wanted me to help him.

I promised to go and winter with him if it was possible for me to do so, as at this time I did not know but what I might have to go to San Francisco to have my leg treated the coming winter.

From here the emigrants were to pay Jim to pilot them across the mountains to a little mining camp called Hangtown, which was about one hundred and twenty miles east of Sacramento. They made the trip without any trouble. I saw one of the emigrants the next spring and they spoke in very high terms of Jim Beckwith.

CHAPTER XII.

COL. ELLIOTT KILLS HIS FIRST DEER, AND SECURES A FINE PAIR OF HORNS AS A PRESENT FOR HIS FATHER.--BECKWITH'S TAVERN.--SOCIETY.

Two weeks after the incidents related in the previous chapter, Capt. Mills came in with another train of emigrants, not having seen an Indian on the trip, and from this time on there was no danger of such trains going from that region through Beckwith Pa.s.s, and as the road was now broken by the other train, these emigrants could cross the Sierra Nevadas without a guide.

About this time four men with pack animals came along who claimed to be from Salt Lake. They reported that they had seen Indians one day traveling east of headquarters. I took two men and started out and was gone about a week, but did not see an Indian, or a track or sign of one, and when we returned the Colonel concluded that he had been misled by the packers.

Col. Elliott now ordered me to take fifty men, with two weeks'

provisions, and go as far as we could with that amount of rations, or until we should meet some emigrants. We were gone about three weeks, but did not see either Indians or emigrants. The fact is, that it was getting so late in the fall that the Indians had all gone south, and the emigrants were not moving on the desert at that season.

On our return the Colonel had everything ready and we pulled out for San Francisco. We camped the first night at Steamboat Springs, a place that has since grown to be a famous health resort. On the second day we pa.s.sed over the country where now stands Carson City, the capital of Nevada. At that time, this region, like all of that country then, was a wild, unsettled, sagebrush desert, or mountain wilderness.

The morning we left Eagle Valley the Colonel rode in advance of the column with me, and I saw there was something on his mind. In a little while he said he would like to kill a deer with big horns, so that he could send it--the horns--to his father in New York, who had never seen a deer, and he added that notwithstanding he--the Colonel--had been on the Pacific coast two years, he had never killed a deer in his life. I told him that I would fix it for him to get one the very next day, and he was as pleased as a child.

That night we camped by a big spring at the mouth of a great canyon, and about the spring stood a number of large pine trees.

Many persons who had pa.s.sed that way had carved their names in the bark of the trees, and among the names were two that were quite familiar to me. One of these was the name of Capt. Molujean--I wondered how he had done it without stuttering--and the other was the name of James Beckwith. On the same tree was written with lead pencil: ”Sixty miles to Beckwith's Hotel.”

On my favorite horse, Pinto, I rode out with the Colonel for a deer hunt. While riding along the canyon about two miles from where the command had camped, I saw a large doe crossing the canyon and coming down the hill toward us. I signaled the Colonel to halt and I shot the doe, breaking her neck, while sitting on my horse. I then told the Colonel to secrete himself behind a tree and he would soon see the male deer, and he would stand a good show to get a fine pair of horns. In a few moments two deer came tracking the one I had shot.

”Be ready, now,” said I, ”and when he stops let him have it.” So when the deer were within about fifty yards I gave a keen whistle and they stopped, stock still. The Colonel fired and brought the big buck to the ground. The other, which was a small one, started to run, but I sent a bullet after it that made more venison.

We now had plenty of meat, and the Colonel was as proud over killing that deer as I was over my first pair of boots.

We stopped here until the command came up, dressed the venison and went on our way rejoicing.

Soon we were ascending the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and about three o'clock we struck the snow-line.

To one who has never gone from comparative summer in a few hours'

ride, to the depths of winter and a considerable depth of snow, the sensation is a strange one. Of course, I had often done that before. But having more leisure to think of it now, and having more to do with the snow, I thought of its strangeness, and I am reminded of a little girl whom I have become acquainted with long since those days, and the effect that the first sight of snow had upon her. She was born in San Francisco, and had not seen any snow up to the time when she was three years old. Her parents were coming east with her on a railroad train, which runs over about the same ground that we were on at the time I was there with Col.

Elliott. Awakening in the morning in a sleeping-car on top of the Sierras, the little one looked out, and seeing the vast fields of whiteness, she exclaimed: ”Do look, mamma; the world is covered with sugar.”

As we ascended the mountains the snow became so deep in a little while that we were forced to camp. The next morning the herders were directed to take the stock ahead in order to tramp down the snow to make a trail, but in four miles it became so deep that it was impossible to proceed further in that manner, and then the Colonel detailed fifty men to shovel snow, but having only a few shovels, wooden ones were made that answered the purpose, and while we were shoveling, the horses were also frequently driven back and forth over the trail, and in three days we had a pa.s.sable road for the wagons.

At the end of the three days we reached the edge of the snow on the opposite side of the mountains, and there being a beautiful camping ground and the first night out of the snow for some time, the luxury of it was fully appreciated by all hands.

On a pine tree here I again saw signs of my old friend, Jim Beckwith, for there was written: ”Twenty miles to Beckwith's Hotel.” So you see that even in that faraway country, and at that early day, even the pioneer had learned the uses of out-door advertising.

The next morning we took an early start and traveled hard all day, antic.i.p.ating with much pleasure that at night we should enjoy all the luxuries of the season at Beckwith's Hotel. And we did, to the extent that this region and the markets of San Francisco could afford.

We reached [Transcriber's note: unreadable text] about sunset that evening, and the command went into camp and I went to Jim's new log house. He had built one and had started in to build the second, having two carpenters at work finis.h.i.+ng them up.

After supper Col. Elliott and all his officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, came to Jim's house, where, after a social chat and having cracked a few jokes, which latter was really a part of the business connected with this life, Col. Elliott pulled off his overcoat, laid it and his hat on a bed, stepped up near the table and said: