“And all we did was to wind an old chronometer3!” complained Randolph, disgustedly. “But I suppose we had to.”
The day after the arrival at the fort the Taos men, including Kit4 Carson and Lucien Maxwell, started for home, southward; the Frémont party were to continue on, eastward5, down the Platte, by the Oregon Trail, for Missouri; but at the parting it was understood that the next spring, after the lieutenant6 had made his report to the government, he was coming out with another expedition to explore along the Oregon Trail west of the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, and that he would want Kit Carson again.
Down to old Taos rode the Carson trappers, home bent7; and home they were, ere the middle of September. Taos was glad to see them and to hear their tales.
[136]
Sol Silver and his party were still out, of course, to remain until the fall fur hunt. There was the fall fur hunt for all, and the fall buffalo8 hunt to supply Bent’s Fort with winter meat. Then might the Carson men settle to a winter at Taos.
It proved to be a cold and snowy winter; but right in the midst of it, or about Christmas time, arrived excitement: three strangers, ragged9 and frost-bitten and weary, reduced almost to eating their buckskin clothing. A squad10 of Taos trappers brought them in from camp in the mountains.
One of the visitors was a half-breed guide from the trading post of Fort Uncompahgre, across near to the Grand River. Another was a tall, lean, roughly bearded man, with hair peculiarly marked in white and brown, deeply-set dark-blue eyes and large mouth. This was Dr. Marcus Whitman. The third was also a bearded man, broad-shouldered, light-blue eyed, with high forehead and calm mien11. This was Mr. A. L. Lovejoy.
Dr. Whitman was a missionary12 doctor; he had been at the Green River trapper rendezvous13 in 1835, on his way west; and in 1836 he had led a party of missionaries14 including his bride and another woman (first white women to cross the Rockies, they) from the Missouri to the mission settlements of Oregon. Mr. Lovejoy had been among those American colonists15 who last spring, under Sub-Indian Agent Dr. White, had made[137] the wagon16-wheel tracks seen by the Frémont company, up the Platte and the Sweetwater, over the South Pass, and on.
Now upon desperate mid-winter journey across continent from coast to coast was hurrying Dr. Whitman, with his brave companions, to appeal for more Americans in Oregon where the British also claimed the country. The little party had cut south, from Fort Uintah of present northeastern Utah, down through the mountains of present central Colorado, aiming for Santa Fé and for Taos, to evade17 the plains Indians and the deep snows. But the latter they had not evaded18, and they nearly had perished miserably19. Once they had swum, horses and all, an ice-encrusted river. And they had been obliged to kill their faithful dog and eat him.
Dr. Whitman and Mr. Lovejoy had left the mission headquarters on the Columbia October 3; now it was the middle of December; after a couple of weeks’ stay at Taos, to gain strength, they pushed on, for Bent’s Fort and the Santa Fé trail to Missouri.
The next event at Taos was the marriage of Kit Carson, on February of this new year 1843, to the Se?orita Josefa Jaramillo, only sixteen, much younger than he. An exceedingly handsome girl was the Se?orita Josefa, with clear creamy skin and great black eyes and dazzling teeth. The occasion was celebrated20 by a series of feasts and dances which lasted through several days and nights. At the close everybody[138] was worn out, so popular were Kit and his girlish bride.
In March Sol Silver took a party of trappers upon the regulation beaver21 hunt. The other Carson men remained in Taos, waiting.
“Wall, boy,” remarked Kit, to Oliver, when the members of the Silver party were being told off, “which would you rather do—go up among the Blackfeet, with Sol, or out among the Chinooks, with Frémont?”
“You’re liable to find it the hard trail o’ the two,” he commented, dryly.
The spring waxed and waned23, and came no word from Lieutenant Frémont, save the word that his report had been made to Congress, had spoken well of the Indian Country and of the trail through it, and that there was much talk of a big emigration, over the trail, this year, for Oregon.
Finally, about the middle of June, arrived a message from Kansas Landing, on the Missouri frontier, that the second exploring expedition of Lieutenant John Charles Frémont had started, and that the rendezvous was to be Fort St. Vrain. “White Head,” or Thomas Fitzpatrick the famous mountain-man, was the guide, and Lucien Maxwell was accompanying as far as St. Vrain, on his way to Taos.
It did not take long for the Carson party to mount[139] and ride for Bent’s, thence to proceed on northward24 for St. Vrain, 200 miles. But at Bent’s was it learned that Lucien Maxwell had hastened south, from St. Vrain, to obtain mules25 in Taos, for the lieutenant; and that the lieutenant and a party were following, along the foothills, to meet the mules.
Now, at this time Texas was striving to be free from all claims of Mexico, and armed Texans had been invading New Mexico and threatening Santa Fé and Santa Fé caravans26. This had caused the Mexican government to forbid intercourse27 back and forth28 across the border between New Mexico and foreigners; and the chance that Lieutenant Frémont might secure mules from Taos was slim. At Bent’s Kit Carson himself turned off, up the Arkansas, to meet the lieutenant and to warn him of conditions.
He met him at the little settlement of the Pueblo29, about seventy miles from the post. The town is to-day Pueblo, Colorado. Lieutenant Frémont immediately sent Kit back to Bent’s, with a request that the fort supply some mules, if possible.
Meanwhile the Carson men, under Ike Chamberlain, rode on to St. Vrain.
Fort St. Vrain was situated30 opposite where the St. Vrain creek31 empties into the South Platte River, not far from the present Colorado town of Greeley. It was built of adobe32 clay bricks, and was commanded by Mr. Marcelin St. Vrain, younger brother of the Ceran St. Vrain who formed one in the partnership[140] Bent, St. Vrain & Co., of the Santa Fé Trail. A slim, boyish man was Marcelin St. Vrain, with black hair, black eyes and black whiskers. His wife was a Sioux girl.
The fort was out on the plains, a short distance from the foothills. Here awaiting the return of the lieutenant from his side trip up the South Platte and down to the Arkansas was Thomas Fitzpatrick with a detachment of twenty-five of the Frémont men.
A ruddy-faced, rather heavy-set man was Thomas Fitzpatrick, with thick hair turned snow white and with his left hand crippled. A severe adventure, in the summer of 1832, with Blackfeet Indians who had chased him and forced him to hide in a cave for three days, had whitened his hair; and the bursting of his rifle had crippled his hand. The Indians called him not only “White Head” but also “Bad Hand” and “Broken Hand.”
He and Ike and the other Taos trappers greeted each other tumultuously, for all knew and respected Thomas Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick had brought the wagons33 and the heavy baggage. He was waiting and resting the animals. Lieutenant Frémont had taken one light wagon, and a cannon34—a brass35 twelve-pounder; for this second expedition was armed with a field-piece, to be used if the Indians grew too bold.
About this cannon centred much of the post gossip. Some of the rumors36 said that the cannon was to[141] be used to conquer Oregon from the British; some said that it was to be used to seize California from the Mexicans; nobody knew exactly what the plans were, save that the trail was to lead across the mountains, and west by the Snake to the Columbia, surveying the overland route until it connected with the survey north and south along the Pacific Coast in California and Oregon, made by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the Navy in 1841.
To operate the cannon piece the lieutenant had engaged at St. Louis a regular cannoneer, by name of Zindel—Louis Zindel, who had been a non-commissioned officer of artillery37 in the Prussian army. Besides, in the company was a young negro man, named Jacob Dodson, not a slave, but free born, although in service to the family of Senator Benton, the lieutenant’s father-in-law; two greenhorns, Mr. Theodore Talbot, government draughtsman of Washington, and Mr. Frederick Dwight, of Springfield, Massachusetts, who was making a tour to the Sandwich Islands by way of Vancouver; Mr. William Gilpin, also for Vancouver; and two Delaware Indians, old man and son. Then, here at St. Vrain, in the Fitzpatrick company, were two comrades of the 1842 expedition: Alexis Ayot and Baptiste Bernier, whom Oliver was glad to see. Five other members of the first expedition—Mr. Preuss, the bristly-headed German scientist, Basil Lajeunesse the fearless voyageur, Louis Ménard (a cousin of Maxwell),[142] Fran?ois Badeau and Raphael Proue—were south with the lieutenant.
Consequently, although Oliver felt somewhat disappointed that Henry Brandt and Randolph Benton were not to be along, he foresaw, by the preparations and by the make-up of the company, that it was going to be a tremendous trip.
A few days later, in rode Kit Carson with ten fine mules from Bent’s Fort; and on the morning of July 23 in rode the lieutenant and party, including Jacob Dodson the negro youth, and Sergeant38 Zindel the artillerist39, and Mr. Preuss, and Basil Lajeunesse. Lucien Maxwell was not with them. He had not come back from his trip after mules at Taos.
The lieutenant had left word at the Pueblo that he would wait at St. Vrain until the morning of the twenty-sixth. The morning of the twenty-sixth dawned, and no Maxwell had appeared. Evidently he was not coming. So the lieutenant ordered “Catch up!” and the company bustled40 for the start. At this moment arose a new complication. Lieutenant Frémont had decided41 that he ought to find a short cut from St. Vrain’s Fort across the mountains to strike the Oregon Trail somewhere near the South Pass, instead of travelling up to Fort Laramie and then turning west for the Pass. Nobody at St. Vrain’s could tell him of any trail except a danger-trail used mainly by hostile Indians. Such a trail did traverse northwest, to the Sweetwater; but it was being given[143] over to the Plains Indians when they raided the Utes and the Snakes, and to the Crows when they raided the Plains Indians, and only recently several trappers had been killed on it.
Thereupon, hearing the plans, the two Delawares announced that the mountains looked cold to them, the trail was beset42 with their enemies, they were far from their own people, and they were going home.
“Very well,” said Lieutenant Frémont. “Let them go. We want only men. But we must find another hunter or two, to take their places.”
“Godey’ll sign up,” advised Fitzpatrick. “You get him and you’ll have somebody almost as good as Kit.”
Alexander Godey was a young French trapper and trader at the post. Everyone seemed to like him; and although he put considerable time upon his long, wavy43 black hair, brushing it and dressing44 it with Indian care, none ventured to twit him about it. He was not a man to be twitted.
“How about him, Kit?” asked the lieutenant.
“A fine fellow,” assured Kit, generously. “I don’t know a better. Take him.”
Whereupon Godey of the silky locks was engaged.
The Snake widow of a French trapper who had been shot in a Fourth of July celebration at the fort asked the lieutenant if she might not journey with the expedition as far as the Bear River, beyond the Green, so that she could join her own people; and she was accepted, and given a small tent.
[144]
The expedition made an imposing45 sight. The Frémont party numbered some forty men, as against the twenty-five of the previous year. The Carson party were fifteen. The Frémont men were armed with Hall flint-lock breech-loading rifles, which had been adopted by the army and were thought to be a fine gun; but the Carson men were better armed, with percussion-cap rifles, and with Colt revolving46 pistols. Besides the brass twelve-pounder, there was a baggage train of twelve two-wheeled carts and a light spring-wagon for the instruments, and six pack-horses loaded with the Snake squaw’s household goods.
This was altogether too large an outfit47 with which to thread the danger-trail of the short-cut. Therefore Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand was directed to take the baggage train and about twenty-five of the men, and proceed by the customary trail from St. Vrain’s Fort up to Fort Laramie; thence by the Oregon Trail west over the South Pass and on to the British Hudson Bay Company post of Fort Hall. The lieutenant and Kit Carson would take the rest of the company through by the short cut, and meet him at Fort Hall.
For his party the lieutenant chose Kit, and Charles Preuss the bristly-headed German, and Jacob Dodson the young colored man, and Louis Zindel the Prussian artillerist, Basil Lajeunesse and his brother Fran?ois Lajeunesse, Baptiste Bernier, Louis Ménard, Raphael Proue, Baptiste Derosier, Fran?ois Badeau, Auguste Vasquez a Spanish Creole, and Henry Lee. The Snake[145] woman with her six packs (atop of one her two black-eyed, pretty little children) accompanied; and there were the Carson men.
The course from St. Vrain’s fort was northwesterly, across a rolling country. On the third day William New announced, to Oliver his partner:
“Thar she air.”
“What?”
“The Cache-à-la-Poudre, or Hide-the-Powder Creek. We follow her up, I reckon, into the mountains. Know why she has that name?”
“Trapper name,” hazarded Oliver.
“Right. Thar war some Frenchmen hyar’bouts on the creek, five or ten year ago. Injuns got after ’em, an’ they cached their powder under-ground, so’s to save it. Don’t know whether they ever found it ag’in or not, but they always referred to the creek as their ‘Hide-the-Powder’ creek, an’ the name stuck.”
The cavalcade48 turned up the creek, in the rain, and entered among rugged49, lofty mountains, their wild ravines and steep slopes thickly covered with brush and flowers. The Cache-à-la-Poudre was crooked50, and must be crossed and recrossed; the gun-carriage, overseen51 by the anxious Sergeant Zindel, and the spring wagon with its precious instruments, were hauled through each time.
Thus was traversed first by explorers and map-makers the Overland Stage Route from Denver to Salt Lake.
[146]
From the head of the Cache-à-la-Poudre they all passed over a ridge52 to the Laramie River side of the divide here; loomed53 high, bare and snowy on the west, the mighty54 Medicine Bow Mountains, which they must go around, and now they encountered a wide Indian trail and sign of Indian travel upon it.
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1
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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2
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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3
chronometer
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| n.精密的计时器 | |
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4
kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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5
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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6
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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7
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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8
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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9
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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10
squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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11
mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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12
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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13
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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14
missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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15
colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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16
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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17
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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18
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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19
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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20
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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21
beaver
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| n.海狸，河狸 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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23
waned
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| v.衰落( wane的过去式和过去分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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24
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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25
mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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26
caravans
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| （可供居住的）拖车（通常由机动车拖行）( caravan的名词复数 )； 篷车； （穿过沙漠地带的）旅行队（如商队） | |
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27
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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28
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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pueblo
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| n.（美国西南部或墨西哥等）印第安人的村庄 | |
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30
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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31
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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32
adobe
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| n.泥砖，土坯，美国Adobe公司 | |
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33
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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34
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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35
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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36
rumors
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| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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37
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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38
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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39
artillerist
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| 炮手，炮兵，炮术家 | |
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40
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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41
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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42
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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43
wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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44
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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45
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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46
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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47
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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48
cavalcade
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| n.车队等的行列 | |
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49
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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50
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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51
overseen
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| v.监督，监视( oversee的过去分词 ) | |
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52
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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53
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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54
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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