Fain would the Frémont and Carson men have taken the war trail and have avenged the murder of their comrade; but their horses and mules were crippled, the country was vast and strange, they must push onward to safety. So they headed, as before, into the northward. Amidst the general mutterings of anger and bated revenge Kit Carson it was who remarked, quietly: “Wall, the Good Book says something about reaping whar we have sowed. White men did the fust killing, when the Joe Walker party shot down these hyar same Diggers, on the march across from the Salt Lake in Thirty-three. Now thar’s war, an’ thar ever will be, an’ the white man air to blame, but the Injun’ll suffer most.”
The country grew better, in appearance; cedars and pines flourished upon the hills, birds were present, and before uplifted snowy mountains of a loftier range. At the Vegas de Santa Clara, or the Meadows of Santa Clara, near to the Virgin River, the company were in southwestern Utah.
The Frémont and Carson company could delay[289] only a day at the pleasant Meadows. Soon after leaving the camping place they noted a moving cloud of dust on the trail behind; out of the dust cloud evolved hurrying figures—a little squad of horsemen.
“Whites!” pronounced Kit, at once. “Americans, too—an’ ride like trappers.” And—“If that airn’t old Joe Walker, leading ’em, I’ll eat him,” he added.
The pursuing squad, nine riders, and several pack-animals, drew on at fast trot. The foremost was a horseman splendidly large of stature, with plentiful gray whiskers covering cheeks and chin. He threw up his hand in salute; Kit and the lieutenant answered in kind.
“Hello, Kit,” he called.
“Hello, Joe. Whar you bound?”
He had arrived, and pulled short.
“Jest looking for company. Saw your sign down the trail, an’ started on to overtake ye.”
“Wall, you’ve done it,” commented Kit, coolly. Whereupon he introduced to one another the lieutenant and Captain Joe Walker, mountain-man, trapper, trader, guide.
The captain had started from Los Angeles with the annual main caravan for Santa Fé. Seeing the trail of the Frémont and Carson company, with eight men, Americans all, he boldly had set out, across the desert, to catch the expedition. That was just like old Joe Walker, Kit Carson afterwards declared. They[290] had fought with the Diggers, killing two and in turn receiving wounds among the horses; and here they were.
For such a fighter and adventurer Captain Joe Walker bore a singularly mild, although determined visage, from which clear blue eyes peered out, above the whiskers. Oliver was attracted by him at once, and was glad when he heard him agree to guide the company across the mountains, ahead. He had made a specialty of the Great Basin and the approaches to it, and had traded much among the Utes, whose country bordered it on the east of the Salt Lake. Therefore the region now toward the northeast was familiar to him.
In central Utah the Old Spanish Trail turned short, and east and southeast ran down for Santa Fé. This would be the direct route for Taos and even for Bent’s Fort; but the lieutenant wished to visit a lake called Utah Lake, near to the Salt Lake; thence cross the mountains back of the Salt Lake and working over to the head of the Arkansas River, follow it down to Bent’s Fort. The Californians Andrés Fuentes and Pablo the boy decided to stay with the company, instead of going direct to Santa Fé.
So from the turn of the Old Spanish Trail the course was still northward, with the Wasatch Mountains (the same which skirted on the east the Great Salt Lake) snowy at the right. They were greeted as[291] friends; good they looked to Kit Carson and the other mountain-men.
The Sevier River barred the way. In California a river, barring, had been crossed by means of hides removed from freshly slaughtered cattle and stretched upon sticks. The Frémont and Carson company now had no cattle left; but undefeated, out of bundles of bulrushes they fashioned sharp-pointed rafts.
At this crossing, of the Sevier River, central Utah, May 23, 1844, was killed by accident Fran?ois Badeau, who shot himself through the head in drawing toward him his gun, muzzle first. He was buried upon the bank of the stream, and there are his bones, to-day. He, too, had paid the adventurer’s price, as well as, in his case, the price of foolishness. The muzzle of a gun always is dangerous.
Lovely Utah Lake unfolded to the view. It was the property of the Ute or Utah Indians, who made of it their fishing preserve.
Only some thirty miles to the north, and connected by a river was the Great Salt Lake where in the previous September the company had encamped. Therefore had they almost completed an immense circle of 3300 miles, and after nearly nine months they were within thirty miles of the starting point.
Nevertheless, they had not crossed the Great Basin; they had only skirted it, seeking an entrance. However, even the veteran Joe Walker could give little definite information upon that unknown interior.
[292]
“No, sir; I never have been into the desert, west o’ here,” he declared, to the lieutenant. “I’ve been in by north, along the Mary’s River, an’ I’ve been in by south, along the Spanish Trail; but not by the middle. The Diggers can tell little. But I’m pretty sure o’ one thing: there are no rivers flowing out, to any sea. The desert has its own system o’ lakes an’ rivers. It’s evaporation that drains the basin, an’ not outflowing. There’s no Buenaventura, sir.”
“I believe so, myself,” agreed the lieutenant. “I’ve prepared what I shall report; namely: ‘The Great Basin: four hundred miles long, five hundred miles wide, surrounded by lofty mountains; contents almost unknown, but believed to be rivers and lakes which have no communication with the sea, deserts and oases which have never been explored, and animals and savage tribes which no traveller has seen.’ Next time I hope to go into it, and fathom some of its mysteries. We shall be better prepared. A good place to strike next time is right through this gap of thirty miles; say by way of the south end of the Salt Lake.”
“When do you calculate to make the trip?” queried Captain Walker.
“Next spring and summer. Kit has promised to come. Do you think you will be free, captain? We’ll need a good guide for the desert; I’d like to engage you.”
“I’ll do it,” said the captain.
Entrancing to-day is this Utah Lake, of fresh water[293] lying blue between the snowy Wasatch and the hazy Oquirrh or Squirrel Ranges, with the Great Salt Lake showing silver sheen amidst the lowlands to the west of north. When on May 25 the Frémont and Carson company arrived, two villages of Utes were encamped by the lake, waiting for the fish to ascend into the rivers. These fish were salmon-trout, but not so large and so tasty as the salmon-trout of the Pyramid Lake, far across the desert.
Attractive though the spot was, the Frémont and Carson company must not linger; the Utes were greedy and troublesome, the trail yet was long, for more than a year the lieutenant had been cut off from news of home, well-nigh for a year Kit had not heard from his bride.
Under guidance of Captain Walker, up the Spanish Fork River which from eastward enters the Utah Lake they journeyed, and from the head of the Spanish Fork River north into the Uintah country of present northeastern Utah. Here, latitude 40° 27′ 45″, longitude 109° 56′ 42″, at the first forks of the Uintah River, above where it empties into the mighty Green, was the fur-trading post of Fort Uintah, whose owner, lean, swarthy Antoine Roubideau, or Robidoux, was a Taos man.
At Fort Uintah was enrolled by the lieutenant Auguste Archambeau, a Canadian Frenchman, who wished to go on to Missouri, and who enlisted as a hunter. Auguste speedily made himself a favorite, for[294] he was well built, cheerful, and a mountain-man equal to Alexander Godey.
On through rich mountain country, along the borderline of northwestern Colorado and southwestern Wyoming, rode the company; as they went, feasting upon buffalo, for the hunters’ rifles were ever busy. In the morning of June 13 the Continental Divide of the Rockies was topped, and with a cheer all hailed a little stream trickling for the east. This was the Atlantic Slope of the continent; it was the United States.
Flowers bloomed, aspens quivered, grass and bush spread fresh and green, clear and cold ran the streams, and on every side grazed buffalo, elk, and antelope. South through the North Park of Colorado turned the march, and down into Middle Park, where rise the waters of the Grand River flowing west to join with the Green.
But although glorious appeared the landscape, and “fat” it was with game, Utes, Arapahoe and Sioux made of it a battle-ground; therefore the march must be cautious. Each night the camp was fortified; by day scouts were thrown out, ahead, from high places to examine the country.
The road was one made by buffalo, but it also was one used by the Indians; and according to the moccasins found upon it, and the traces of lodge-poles, an Arapahoe village must be travelling, before. The lieutenant and Kit and all hoped that a meeting might be[295] avoided; but on the morning of June 18 Archambeau and Godey, among the scouts ahead, from a butte shook a blanket, as signal of Indians in sight!
“Close up, close up!” warned the lieutenant and Joe Walker; and in response to the word transmitted adown the line Thomas Fitzpatrick hastened his pack-train. The flankers drew in a little; and at faster pace proceeded the company, as a hollow square, animals in centre.
“Thar they come,” announced Kit. “’Rapahoes, too. Humph! Treat ’em as well as we can an’ get rid of ’em quick as we can. They’ll be spoiling for a fight.”
Along the valley were trudging and riding about thirty Indians, both women and men. They boldly met the company, and demanded presents. They claimed that they were going into the hills after roots and game; but instead, as the cavalcade resumed the march, the bucks wheeled around and galloped back in the direction where they said the............