Nevada to Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to
the Colorado upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence.
Nor is Nature always in one mood throughout this grim district. It
comprises snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy
valleys. There are swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged
ca駉ns; and there are enormous plains, which in winter are white with
snow, and in summer are grey with the saline alkali dust. They all
preserve, however, the common characteristics of barrenness,
inhospitality, and misery.
There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees
or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other
hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose
sight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon
their prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps
heavily through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through
the dark ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the
rocks. These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.
In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from
the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach
stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of
alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes.
On the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain
peaks, with their rugged summits flecked with snow. In this great
stretch of country there is no sign of life, nor of anything
appertaining to life. There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no
movement upon the dull, grey earth--above all, there is absolute
silence. Listen as one may, there is no shadow of a sound in all that
mighty wilderness; nothing but silence--complete and heart-subduing
silence.
It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad
plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one
sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is
lost in the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden
down by the feet of many adventurers. Here and there there are
scattered white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out
against the dull deposit of alkali. Approach, and examine them! They
are bones: some large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate.
The former have belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. For fifteen
hundred miles one may trace this ghastly caravan route by these
scattered remains of those who had fallen by the wayside.
Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. His
appearance was such that he might have been the very genius or demon
of the region. An observer would have found it difficult to say
whether he was nearer to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and
haggard, and the brown parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the
projecting bones; his long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and
dashed with white; his eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with
an unnatural lustre; while the hand which grasped his rifle was
hardly more fleshy than that of a skeleton. As he stood, he leaned
upon his weapon for support, and yet his tall figure and the massive
framework of his bones suggested a wiry and vigorous constitution.
His gaunt face, however, and his clothes, which hung so baggily over
his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it was that gave him that
senile and decrepit appearance. The man was dying--dying from hunger
and from thirst.
He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little
elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the
great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of
savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which
might indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape
there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with
wild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had
come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to
die. "Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,"
he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.
Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless
rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had
carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too
heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the
ground with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey
parcel a little moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small,
scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled,
dimpled fists.
"You've hurt me!" said a childish voice reproachfully.
"Have I though," the man answered penitently, "I didn't go for to do
it." As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty
little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart
pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother's care.
The child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that
she had suffered less than her companion.
"How is it now?" he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the
towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.
"Kiss it and make it well," she said, with perfect gravity, shoving
the injured part up to him. "That's what mother used to do. Where's
mother?"
"Mother's gone. I guess you'll see her before long."
"Gone, eh!" said the little girl. "Funny, she didn't say good-bye;
she 'most always did if she was just goin' over to Auntie's for tea,
and now she's been away three days. Say, it's awful dry, ain't it?
Ain't there no water, nor nothing to eat?"
"No, there ain't nothing, dearie. You'll just need to be patient
awhile, and then you'll be all right. Put your head up agin me like
that, and then you'll feel bullier. It ain't easy to talk when your
lips is like leather, but I guess I'd best let you know how the cards
lie. What's that you've got?"
"Pretty things! fine things!" cried the little girl enthusiastically,
holding up two glittering fragments of mica. "When we goes back to
home I'll give them to brother Bob."
"You'll see prettier things than them soon," said the man
confidently. "You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you
though--you remember when we left the river?"
"Oh, yes."
"Well, we reckoned we'd strike another river soon, d'ye see. But
there was somethin' wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin', and it
didn't turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the
likes of you and--and--"
"And you couldn't wash yourself," interrupted his companion gravely,
staring up at his grimy visage.
"No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then
Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then,
dearie, your mother."
"Then mother's a deader too," cried the little girl dropping her face
in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.
"Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some
chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder
and we tramped it together. It don't seem as though we've improved
matters. There's an almighty small chance for us now!"
"Do you mean that we are going to die too?" asked the child, checking
her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.
"I guess that's about the size of it."
"Why didn't you say so before?" she said, laughing gleefully. "You
gave me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we'll be
with mother again."
"Yes, you will, dearie."
"And you too. I'll tell her how awful good you've been. I'll bet she
meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot
of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me
was fond of. How long will it be first?"
"I don't know--not very long." The man's eyes were fixed upon the
northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared
three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly
did they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large
brown birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and
then settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were
buzzards, the vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of
death.
"Cocks and hens," cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their
ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. "Say, did
God make this country?"
"Of course He did," said her companion, rather startled by this
unexpected question.
"He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri," the
little girl continued. "I guess somebody else made the country in
these parts. It's not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and
the trees."
"What would ye think of offering up prayer?" the man asked
diffidently.
"It ain't night yet," she answered.
"It don't matter. It ain't quite regular, but He won't mind that, you
bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the
waggon when we was on the Plains."
"Why don't you say some yourself?" the child asked, with wondering
eyes.
"I disremember them," he answered. "I hain't said none since I was
half the height o' that gun. I guess it's never too late. You say
them out, and I'll stand by and come in on the choruses."
"Then you'll need to kneel down, and me too," she said, laying the
shawl out for that purpose. "You've got to put your hands up like
this. It makes you feel kind o' good."
It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to
see it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the
little prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her
chubby face, and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to
the cloudless heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with
whom they were face to face, while the two voices--the one thin and
clear, the other deep and harsh--united in the entreaty for mercy and
forgiveness. The prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the
shadow of the boulder until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the
broad breast of her protector. He watched over her slumber for some
time, but Nature proved to be too strong for him. For three days and
three nights he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly
the eyelids drooped over the tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and
lower upon the breast, until the man's grizzled beard was mixed with
the gold tresses of his companion, and both slept the same deep and
dreamless slumber.
Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight
would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the alkali
plain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and
hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but
gradually growing higher and broader until it formed a solid,
well-defined cloud. This cloud continued to increase in size until it
became evident that it could only be raised by a great multitude of
moving creatures. In more fertile spots the observer would have come
to the conclusion that one of those great herds of bisons which graze
upon the prairie land was approaching him. This was obviously
impossible in these arid wilds. As the whirl of dust drew nearer to
the solitary bluff upon which the two castaways were reposing, the
canvas-covered tilts of waggons and the figures of armed horsemen
began to show up through the haze, and the apparition revealed itself
as being a great caravan upon its journey for the West. But what a
caravan! When the head of it had reached the base of the mountains,
the rear was not yet visible on the horizon. Right across the
enormous plain stretched the straggling array, waggons and carts, men
on horseback, and men on foot. Innumerable women who staggered along
under burdens, and children who toddled beside the waggons or peeped
out from under the white coverings. This was evidently no ordinary
party of immigrants, but rather some nomad people who had been
compelled from stress of circumstances to seek themselves a new
country. There rose through the clear air a confused clattering and
rumbling from this great mass of humanity, with the creaking of
wheels and the neighing of horses. Loud as it was, it was not
sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers above them.
At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave
ironfaced men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with
