Big Sandy River

“ From that point we traveled over very sandy plains and saleratus deserts, to the Little Sandy, then to what was called the Big Sandy, and thence to Green River, the last hundred miles being the most soul-trying of the whole journey, owing to being sandy and poisonous to the stock. We traveled day and night, all that the cattle could endure, and in fact more than many of the people did endure without much complaint and fault-finding. ”

“ We went by the way of Beatrice, striking the Overland trail near the Big Sandy. An ex-soldier, Tim Taylor, told us he believed the Little Sandy to be the best place in southern Nebraska. We built a ranch house on the trail at the crossing of [153] Little Sandy and engaged in freighting from the Missouri river to the Rocky Mountains. This we did for several years, receiving seven to eight cents per pound. We hauled seven thousand to eight thousand pounds on a wagon, and it required from seventy-five to eighty days to make a round trip with eight and ten yoke of oxen to a wagon. ”

“ A few creeks to cross, and inside of two days we should reach the Big Sandy. It’s about 292 thirty-five miles and there is the blaze left by the surveyors. Do you wish that? It will be harder for your feet than riding in the canoe. It may be easier on your nerves.”
“Anything, Basdel, to get away from the river! And can’t we start now? I know we shall see the Indians coming across to catch us if we stay here much longer.”
I tossed her her moccasins and quickly mended mine and put them on. ”

“ June 27.—This day, eight miles of dead level, sage, sandy plain, brought us to Big Sandy, a stream about four rods wide and from three to five inches deep. Here we lay till next morning.
June 28.—This day we followed down course of the stream on a high sage plain, destitute of anything but sage, for 17 miles. Here drove down to the stream and camped. We have good grass here and sage for fuel. Here we have one snowy range on each side of us; the Wind river and Bear River mountains, either of them not less than 40 or 50 miles of us. Weather cool and windy. The roads are very good. ”

“ After a long stage of twenty-nine miles we made Big Sandy Creek, an important influent of the Green River; the stream, then shrunken, was in breadth not less than five rods, each=16·5 feet, running with a clear, swift current through a pretty little prairillon, bright with the blue lupine, the delicate pink malvacea, the golden helianthus, purple aster acting daisy, the white mountain heath, and the green Asclepias tuberosa, [27] a weed common throughout Utah Territory. ”

“ There is being revived the plan of twenty years ago for the canalization of one of the best-known and most important rivers of the Blue Ridge Country—the Big Sandy. As a means to that end there is an organization called the Big Sandy Improvement Association and, with a mountain man, Congressman A. J. May, to espouse its cause, things look promising for the project.
The mountain men and their city co-workers get together and speak their minds and exchange views at dinner meetings down in the Big Sandy Valley. ”

“ Sandy was almost the most wonderful spot in the world. It was, as most swimming holes are, on the down-stream side of a bridge. The little river widened out, on its way through the meadows, here and there into swimming holes of greater or less desirability. There was Lob's Pond, by the mill, and Deep Pool, and Musk Rat, and Little Sandy. But Sandy was the best of them all. It was shaded on one side by great trees, and the banks were hidden from the road by alder screens. At one end there was a shelving bottom, of clean sand, where the “little kids” who couldn't swim sported in safety. ”

“ If Sandy Lake had, on emerging from the wilderness, impressed us with its rural beauty, this far transcended it in the variety and extent of outlines, and that oceanic amplitude of freshness, which so often inspires admiration in beholding the interior American lakes. ”

“ Walker, the English explorer, should return to the earth today and visit the Big Sandy country near the point where he first entered the state of Kentucky, he’d be amazed at the sight which would greet his eyes. Cities have sprung up where once was wilderness. Yet one natural beauty of the country remains unchanged: the great gorge made by Russell Fork of Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy, breaking through the mountain at an elevation of 2800 feet—The Breaks of Big Sandy. ”

“ It receives the discharges of a number of smaller lakes in the vicinity, among them one called Aitkin by Nicollet. Its principal feeders are two in number. One of these comes in at the southernmost end of the lake, and takes the name of Sandy, Sandy Lake, or Rice Lake r. The N. P. R. R. crosses this stream near McGregor, which is 12 m. by the wagon-road southward from the discharge of the lake. This river has a main branch from Manomin or Rice l.; and either this branch or the whole river is the Menomeny-sibi or Wild Oats r. of Beltrami. The other main affluent of Sandy l. ”

“ The Big Sandy finds its way to the Ohio through the roughest and wildest spurs of the Cumberland Mountains, and is a narrow, fickle stream. At low-water it is not navigable above Louisa, except for small flat-boats pushed by hand. At high-water small steamers can reach Piketon, one hundred and twenty miles from the mouth; but when there are heavy freshets the swift current, filled with floating timber, and the overhanging trees which almost touch one another from the opposite banks, render navigation almost impracticable. This was enough to intimidate a man less in earnest than Garfield. ”

“ Sandy Lake, where ended my voyaging on the Mississippi, is one of the most famous lakes of the northwest. It lies only about three miles east of the great river, and almost directly west from Lake Superior. Over the intervening route which connects the two water wonders of our country, more furs and Indian goods have been transported, than over any other trail in the wilderness. The lake received its name from the French, on account of its sandy shores, which are remarkably beautiful, abounding in agates and cornelians. ”

“ Judging from the height that drift-wood was lodged in the branches of the trees, the floods rise about fifty feet; the regular channel is thirty yards wide; on the banks red, green, and white shales are exposed, but the bed of the creek is generally sandy. A large tributary appears to join this creek from the west, in which direction a large valley extends fifteen miles. At 3 p.m. steered east, and passed to the south of a remarkable sandstone hill, which we named Mount Sandiman, and at 5.30 reached the bank of the Victoria coming from the south-south-east ”

“ He laid down his pick, for the sun was just pitching his last lances at the snow-peaks away up yonder above the firs, above the clouds, and night was coming down with steady steps to possess this chasm in the earth.
Limber Tim untwisted himself from the sapling as Sandy came up from the mine, twisting his great shaggy beard with his right hand, while he carried his black slouch hat in his left, and the two sauntered on toward their cabin together, while Sandy's great gum boots whetted together as he walked. ”

“ A number of new businesses have been put in, and a large oil refinery is being built here, which will add considerably to Big Sandy. While Big Sandy has lost part of her business, she has gained in importance as a residence community. She has all modern conveniences which offer ideal service. With its magnificent high school, with 43 pupils coming in from all the surrounding country, with its four friendly churches, all cooperating together in the religious and moral development of the town, and the social, friendly citizenship, all combine to make Big Sandy a pleasant place to live. ”

“ Sandy Lake.—The first view of this body of water was obtained from one of those eminences situated at the influx of the west Savanna River.
This lake is bounded, on its western borders, by the delta of the Mississippi; its outlet is about two miles in length. We here first beheld the object of our search. The soil on its banks is of the richest alluvial character. From this point, dense forests and a moderately elevated soil, varying from three or four to fifteen feet, confined the view, on either side, during more than two days' march. ”

“ He fancied that he heard a noise as of ducks quacking, in the creek that emptied into the Fork just below the ford. So, making his way softly to the densely wooded bank of the creek, he parted the branches with great caution and looked in. What a sight it was! At least fifty fine black ducks were swimming around, feeding and quacking sociably together, entirely unconscious of the wide-open blue eyes that were staring at them from behind the covert of the thicket. Sandy thought them even more wonderful and beautiful than the young fawn and his dam that he had seen on the Fort Riley trail. ”

“ Three miles down the creek brought us to Little Sandy, down which we traveled six miles, through thickets and over stones or boulders of all sizes. We camped this night among dead timber. Poor grass. September 19. —This day we traveled nine miles, the most of the way over heavy sand and boulders. At the end of six miles we crossed Big Sandy. After crossing we traveled over two stout hills and encamped on a bench land at the foot of a ridge, known here by the name of Back Bone; here we found poor feed for our cattle. September 29. — This day we traveled ten miles. ”

“ We had made camp that afternoon, at the point where Rocky Brook tumbles over the last boulders to join the swift current of the Dosewallups. I am something of an angler, and Sandy knew how to treat a Dolly Varden to divide honors with a rainbow; so while the others were pitching the tents, it fell to me to push up stream with my rod and flies. The banks rose in sharp pitches under low boughs of fir, hemlock, or cedar, but I managed to keep well to the bed of the stream, working from boulder to boulder and stopping to make a cast wherever a riffle looked promising. ”

“ Shoal and eddy, swirl and silent pool, yielded good sport and harvest, as haunts of bass and salmon were entered and passed, until the inviting mouth of Little Sandy Creek suggested rest for the boatmen and a stroll for the fishers. A neat hotel, clean and well kept for so wild a region, harbors lumbermen, rivermen, and those who love the rod and gun. ”

“ The Widow sat a little way back across the cabin, a bit of work in her lap, looking up at Sandy now, and now dropping her half-sad blue eyes down to her work, and all the time, in a low sweet way, doing every word of the talking.
Sandy's hot stove kept getting hotter and hotter. He began to wish he was down with the boys at the Howling Wilderness, consulting the oracle of cocktails. All at once he seemed to discover his great long legs. They seemed to him as if they reached almost clean across the cabin, like two great anacondas going to swallow up the Widow. ”

“ It can do no harm, even if it prove to be a false alarm. They will understand the motive that sent Blue Jacket over here again. And, Sandy, perhaps father may want us to give up that long canoe trip we had planned for to-day."
At that Sandy's face fell.
"Oh! I hope not!" he exclaimed, quickly. "For I have been looking forward ever so much to exploring that country away to the east, and up the river. Pat told us that on the other shore, above, the game was thicker than any place he knew. ”

“ There is no better boat than the one we owned; and, with night at hand, and the sky as black as it is now, the women would not have let the men venture out upon the water. They are always in mortal fear lest the wily Indians lay some plan for the undoing of our settlement, and begin with luring some of its defenders away.”
Sandy, too, was beginning to secure some of his things to the novel craft which a strange decree of fate had made them accept as a means of riding the flood in safety. ”

“ Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream.
For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles ”

“ Swiftly, and very sweetly for Sandy, the days went by in the Forks; down there deep in the earth, almost in the dark of the under-world, in the cool of the forest, in the fragrance and spice and sweetness of the fir, and madrona, and tamarack for ever, dripping with dew, and dropping their fragrant gums and spices on the carpeted, mossy mountain side, filling the deep chasm with an odor found nowhere save in the heart of the Sierras, and Sandy was happy at last.
"You will please come again. You are such good company!" Sandy had come to think he was one of the best talkers in the world ”

“ The place it had taken Molly and young Keith nearly three hours to reach in leisurely fashion, Sandy gained in one, splashing through the shallows of Willow Creek at the ford below the big bend and giving Pronto the chance to cool his fetlocks and rinse out his mouth in the cold water.
Ahead lay the chimney ravine that led around into Beaver Dam Lake, in which Molly and the boy had [Pg 342] been attacked. Sandy viewed the chaparral, the trees that covered the lesser slopes, the stark cliffs above. Part of this lay in the Waterline territory. ”