Alfred Lambourne

“ But certainly there will come one soon, a long, shivering, almost moan-like sound, as the night wind begins to steal across the waste and gently stirs the prairie grass and flowers.
Yes, after those years it is the Human Comedy; it is the never-ending drama! It is the wonder of that which grows upon one. It is the desires, hopes, trials, pleasures, sorrows of the race! ”

“ And so might then have been said of the Valley of the Platte. Day after day we trudged along, and day after day the red hills of sandstone looked down upon us, or the prairie, like the desert, stretched out its illimitable distance. The days grew into weeks, the weeks became a month, and still the cattle, freed from the yoke, hastened to slake their thirst at the [Pg 34] well-loved stream. During that month, surely, we ate, each one of us, the peck of dirt—if sand may be classed as dirt—which every man is said to eat in his life time. ”

“ Later, as the camp-fires were blazing, the full moon illuminated the fantastic scene.
Who of all those who traversed Echo Canon in [Pg 77] an ox-train will forget the shouting, the cracking of whips, the wild halloes, and the pistol-shots that resounded along the line, or the echoes, all confused by the multitude of sounds, and passing through each other like the concentric rings on a still pond when we throw in a handful of pebbles, flying from cliff to cliff, and away up in the shaggy ravine and seeming to come back at last from the sky. ”

“ We knew that the Indians who had done both the acts of driving away the cattle and applying the torch, were, in all likelihood, watching upon the road for us. Our Captain never allowed an inexperienced man to occupy too important a post, but the “tenderfoot” could serve as aid.
We, like ships that pass on the sea, sometimes spoke a returned. No gloomy recital of disappointment could turn us back. The Golden West was our goal, and those who returned were but, to us, the too timid ones. In truth, has not the dream of the Pioneer been fully realized? Those men and women who endured so much? ”

“ The third sketch is a hasty one. The sky and the river—the slow-flowing Platte, are responsive to the light of a golden sunset. The brilliant rays come from behind the huge, square, sedimentary cliffs, and which throw a shadow across the foreground. The main interest in the scene, however, is not that given by nature, but in the presence of man. It shows our long train of wagons—how slightly sketched—coming down from the bluffs, and winding toward the radiance along the dusty road. ”

“ I mean into the lives and hearts of many. But come there new joy, or come there new sorrow, the Pioneer must live the pioneer’s life. There were always the labor, the privations, a certain kind of pleasure. There was left but little time in which to brood. Except, it may be, in the silent watches of the night. There was something remarkable, too, about the manner in which the cattle became imbued with the spirit of their driver. What individuality, for instance, there was among the cattle themselves, our own four yoke, I mean, it was modified by the driver. ”

“ There was a dead woman in the wagon next to ours, and to hear the weeping and sobbing of her little children, in the dark beside [Pg 46] the corpse, was heart chilling. The poor husband trudged along on foot hurrying his single yoke of footsore cattle. Still we were far behind; liable at any moment to be cut-off by the prowling Sioux. That was a night to remember.
Here are two scenes among the Black Hills themselves, one is a very suggestive sketch showing rocks, timber-clad bluffs, and ragged peaks with the wagons of our train coming down a deep declivity into a dry torrent bed. ”

“ Surely the locomotive plays a wondrous part in the destiny of modern nations. Without its aid the country through which we are about to pass might have become as was [Pg 24] surmised by Irving, the cradle of a race inimical to the higher civilization to the East and West. Now we behold it a land giving promise of future greatness, where peace, wealth and happiness shall go hand in hand, and where already it is well-nigh impossible for the youth of today to fully comprehend the struggles and privations of its pioneer fathers. ”

“ No more the long train of dust-covered wagons, drawn by the slow and patient oxen, winds across the level plains or passes through the deep defile. No more the Pony Express or the lumbering stage-coach bring the quickest word or forms the fastest transport between the inter-mountain region and “The States.” How hard it is to understand the briefness of time that has passed since this great interior country was practically a howling wilderness, inhabited by bands of savage Indians and penetrated only by intrepid trappers or hunters! ”

“ But this imperfect little sketch cannot reveal the truth, can only suggest. Nowhere are the clouds more wonderful than when over, never is solitude more impressive than in the open prairies.
The clouds, the clouds! Yes, through many a twilight hour, I watched, lying upon the tufted prairie as the camp-fires died away, the clouds. Weird was the hectic flushing, the glow of the [Pg 38] sheet lightning among the July and August cumuli. But these clouds in the sketch are filled with portent. Not only is the prairie darkened with the approach of night, but with the coming storm. ”

“ The second sketch in the book is a view near the Missouri River. It is looking westward and shows a Nebraska landscape with a prairie fire. The scene is, indeed, a very different one from what the place would present today. A great prairie fire is sweeping across the plain and the dense whirling mass of smoke, driven before the wind, and the principal feature of the sketch, overshadows with its darkness a far-reaching landscape of low, rolling hills, clumps of trees and a winding stream, in which, however, there is not a sign of human life visible. ”

“ We knew not when this might be; yet that it was always possible gave a sort of aspect of menace to the bluffs and hills along the way.
Many a time had Captain Holladay with his natural caution gained from experience; his sagacity and knowledge, given a timely warning. The girls must not be led too far by their passion for the gathering of flowers. How often had the desire to possess some especially beautiful or brilliant, some alluring bunch of desert bloom tempted them beyond the lines of safety. Especially true was this among the Black Hills and the mountain ranges, too, beyond them. ”

“ Youth, the desire for knowledge, the thirst for gold, these have led men into the wilds; it has taken them to brave unknown dangers in unknown lands. Yes, these, the Propaganda and the love of Freedom, but neither is stronger than the desire for Religious Liberty. ”

“ Yes, and there was often a comic side to the white man’s fear. Well, indeed, a friend of mine has told it. Twelve young men comprised a company; two wagons and six yoke of oxen made up their outfit. That certainly was taking their risks in those perilous times! Yet they were unmolested. Once, indeed, they thought themselves at the mercy of the Sioux; as truly, in another way they were. Death and the scalping-knife appeared their lot. But it was all a hoax. What had been taken for the painted savage was but a party of whites with blankets over their heads to keep away the rain. ”

“ From there would come the train of wagons in which the greater number of emigrants would make “the journey.” Often there was a false alarm. Each waiting emigrant, impatient of delay, would take some far-off cloud of dust to be that made by the expected wagons. But often it was only bands of frontiersmen, Indians, or perhaps a band of antelope. Would the train never come? How long this wait! At length, well I remember the morning, the word was passed! It was the wagons for the emigrants. The half-cooked breakfast and the camp-fires were left deserted. ”

“ The picket on duty at the front of war is scarcely more important to the safety of the troops than was the Night-Guard to our Company. In those days of lawlessness in red man and white, constant vigil had to be kept. On the faithful performance of the Night-Guard’s duty our safety depended. If we were not attacked, then the cattle might be driven away, and we might be left stranded, as it were, in the wilderness. ”

“ Where will not love follow, where is it not to be found? Coquettishly the sun-bonnet may be worn; coquettishly the sun-flower may be placed at the waist, or the cactus bloom amid the dark-brown hair. By what strange and circuitous routes are lovers brought to meet! ”

“ In “The Cedar Bluffs” the wagons that are sketched corralled are not our own. They comprised a small freight train, and right glad would they have been to, and most likely they did, creep along, as it were, in our wake. There were no women or children in that train, its members were all of the daring “freighter.” These were men willing to meet with any danger. Perhaps there might be among them men inexperienced, but they must have possessed intrepid hearts. Rough of the rough, but daring they certainly were. Woe to that little band if later they met the Sioux. ”

“ He who would have found the magic waters, the home and the gold-seeker left behind them many a lonely grave. The Propagandist, the Lover of Freedom left their bones in many an unknown spot. And the Pioneers? They, too, must leave their dead. ”

“ And those who fell by the way—they were as those who perish in battle, but who leave the fruits of their devotion and success to others. Those young men who put their shoulders to the wheels, when [Pg 63] our wagon might have otherwise become fast in the quicksands of the Platte, and those older men and women, too, that I looked upon as they trudged toward the West with the dogged determination of age, all made possible the future commonwealth. They ate of the fruit that was raised from the soil, their sons and daughters inherited the land. ”

“ Wild clouds are coming over the peaks threatening a stormy night. It appears that the wagons must topple over, end over end, so abrupt is the descent they are making. In the second sketch, made on the evening of the following day, the train is seen winding like a serpent over the hills. In the middle distance is a valley, partly obscured by mists, and beyond it Laramie Peak, purple against the sunset clouds and sky.
Camp at Scott’s Bluffs. ”

“ Each and every one went forward to see the wagons that for so many weeks would be their homes. Some there were who had lover or relative who had preceded them the years before and [Pg 27] now their lover or relative returned for those whom they loved. All dust-covered and torn were the teamsters’ clothes. Some were bare-headed. Yes, they had raced on the road. Two captains, our own, John D. Holladay, and another equally eager, had made a wager. Each one was positive that he would reach the banks of the Missouri first. ”

“ We would have shuddered, so our Captain afterwards told us, could we have seen where the tracks of our wagon wheels were made that night.
Yes, to the emigrant company of those days, the drying up of a stream was often of serious import. Water enough might have been carried [Pg 48] to quench the thirst of human beings, but what of the many cattle? The ox that suffers too much from thirst becomes a dangerous animal. Let him scent in the distance the coveted water, and who shall curb his strength? ”

“ In making the daily start—morn or noonday—the wagons would take their place in the line with an almost mathematical accuracy. The noses of each leading yoke of cattle would nearly touch the end-board of the wagon preceding them. But soon this order was broken. Such an incident as that related in the former paragraph, or if not the actual happening, then the weakened pulling force caused by some happening of the day or week before, was the cause. And, of course, this became the more pronounced amid the mountains than upon the plains. ”

“ How unexpectedly we sometimes come upon the past—turn it up, as it were, from the mold of time as with the plow one might bring to light from out the earth some lost and forgotten thing. This book, with its buckskin covers, revivifies dead hours, makes me live again those times when life for me was new ”

“ The author is one of those who “crossed the plains.” As the years have gone and time has not only cast a sort of glamor over the event, but has given also to men an opportunity to reflect seriously and in calmness and intelligence, that same Journey assumes greatness in our eyes, both in its inception and in its achievement. It finds a prominent place in the History of the West, and will ever stand forth among events. ”

“ The young husband never saw his young wife again. One of the young women was slightly in advance of the other, and those few steps made this difference, that one was lost, the other saved. And the young woman who escaped was the writer’s sister.
Something of all the passions; something of all the passions—joy, love, hope, fear, and the others, too, must have been recorded in the pages of that diary. ”

“ From either of these great peaks, the Snowy or Fremont’s, how near we might see to the place of our destination. From these summits might we not discern other summits; mountains farther to the west; the ranges whose bases were near to the Inland Sea? Afar away it was over the [Pg 69] heights and vales, and yet it brought a message—“You are near the place of rest.”
“A Buffalo Herd.” This sketch could well have preceded several, instead of following, the one that it does. By the Sweetwater and along the reaches of the Platte, there we sighted buffalo. ”

“ At this, its steepest part, near “The Summit,” and where it is crossed by ledges of stone and littered with boulders and shale that once tore the iron from the cattle’s feet, I found an ox-shoe. The relic had lain here long. Down this road passed the Pioneers.
There is stillness around. Over “The Little [Pg 9] Mountain” arches a cloudless sky, the wide landscape is bathed in sunlight. But this place, now so quiet and deserted, may yet become the scene of animation. The broken road is to be a highway, preserved as a piece of “The Pioneer Trail.” ”