54-40 or Fight Read online

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE WHOA-HAW TRAIL

  There are no pleasures where women are not. --Marie de Romba.

  How shall I tell of those stirring times in such way that readers wholive in later and different days may catch in full their flavor? Howshall I write now so that at a later time men may read of the wayAmerica was taken, may see what America then was and now is, and whatyet, please God! it may be? How shall be set down that keen zest of anation's youth, full of ambition and daring, full of contempt forobstacles, full of a vast and splendid hope? How shall be made plainalso that other and stronger thing which so many of those days havementioned to me, half in reticence--that feeling that, after all, thisfever of the blood, this imperious insistence upon new lands, had underit something more than human selfishness?

  I say I wish that some tongue or brush or pen might tell the story ofour people at that time. Once I saw it in part told in color and line,in a painting done by a master hand, almost one fit to record thespirit of that day, although it wrought in this instance with anotherand yet earlier time. In this old canvas, depicting an early Teutonictribal wandering, appeared some scores of human figures, men and womenhalf savage in their look, clad in skins, with fillets of hide for headcovering; men whose beards were strong and large, whose limbs, wrappedloose in hides, were strong and large; women, strong and large, who boreburdens on their backs. Yet in the faces of all these there shone, notsavagery alone, but intelligence and resolution. With them were flocksand herds and beasts of burden and carts of rude build; and beside thesetraveled children. There were young and old men and women, and some weregaunt and weary, but most were bold and strong. There were weapons forall, and rude implements, as well, of industry. In the faces of allthere was visible the spirit of their yellow-bearded leader, who madethe center of the picture's foreground.

  I saw the soul of that canvas--a splendid resolution--a look forward, apurpose, an aim to be attained at no counting of cost. I say, as I gazedat that canvas, I saw in it the columns of my own people moving westwardacross the Land, fierce-eyed, fearless, doubting nothing, fearingnothing. That was the genius of America when I myself was young. Ibelieve it still to be the spirit of a triumphant democracy, knowingits own, taking its own, holding its own. They travel yet, the dauntlessfigures of that earlier day. Let them not despair. No imaginary linewill ever hold them back, no mandate of any monarch ever can restrainthem.

  In our own caravans, now pressing on for the general movement west ofthe Missouri, there was material for a hundred canvases like yonder one,and yet more vast. The world of our great western country was then stillbefore us. A stern and warlike people was resolved to hold it andincrease it. Of these west-bound I now was one. I felt the joy of thatthought. I was going West!

  At this time, the new railroad from Baltimore extended no fartherwestward than Cumberland, yet it served to carry one well toward theOhio River at Pittsburg; whence, down the Ohio and up the Missouri toLeavenworth, my journey was to be made by steamboats. In this prosaictravel, the days passed monotonously; but at length I found myself uponthat frontier which then marked the western edge of our accepted domain,and the eastern extremity of the Oregon Trail.

  If I can not bring to the mind of one living to-day the full picture ofthose days when this country was not yet all ours, and can not restoreto the comprehension of those who never were concerned with that lifethe picture of that great highway, greatest path of all the world,which led across our unsettled countries, that ancient trail at leastmay be a memory. It is not even yet wiped from the surface of the earth.It still remains in part, marked now no longer by the rottinghead-boards of its graves, by the bones of the perished ones which oncetraveled it; but now by its ribands cut through the turf, and lined bynodding prairie flowers.

  The old trail to Oregon was laid out by no government, arranged by noengineer, planned by no surveyor, supported by no appropriation. Itsprang, a road already created, from the earth itself, covering twothousand miles of our country. Why? Because there was need for thatcountry to be covered by such a trail at such a time. Because we neededOregon. Because a stalwart and clear-eyed democracy needs America andwill have it. That was the trail over which our people outran theirleaders. If our leaders trifle again, once again we shall outrun them.

  There were at this date but four places of human residence in all thetwo thousand miles of this trail, yet recent as had been the first hoofsand wheels to mark it, it was even then a distinct and unmistakablepath. The earth has never had nor again can have its like. If it was apath of destiny, if it was a road of hope and confidence, so was it aroad of misery and suffering and sacrifice; for thus has the democracyalways gained its difficult and lasting victories. I think that it wasthere, somewhere, on the old road to Oregon, sometime in the silentwatches of the prairie or the mountain night, that there was fought outthe battle of the Old World and the New, the battle between oppressorsand those who declared they no longer would be oppressed.

  Providentially for us, an ignorance equal to that of our leaders existedin Great Britain. For us who waited on the banks of the Missouri, allthis ignorance was matter of indifference. Our men got their beliefsfrom no leaders, political or editorial, at home or abroad. They waitedonly for the grass to come.

  Now at last the grass did begin to grow upon the eastern edge of thegreat Plains; and so I saw begin that vast and splendid movement acrossour continent which in comparison dwarfs all the great people movementsof the earth. Xenophon's March of the Ten Thousand pales beside this often thousand thousands. The movements of the Goths and Huns, theVandals, the Cimri--in a way, they had a like significance with this,but in results those migrations did far less in the history of theworld; did less to prove the purpose of the world.

  I watched the forming of our caravan, and I saw again that canvas whichI have mentioned, that picture of the savages who traveled a thousandyears before Christ was born. Our picture was the vaster, the moresplendid, the more enduring. Here were savages born of gentle folk inpart, who never yet had known repulse. They marched with flocks andherds and implements of husbandry. In their faces shone a light not lessfierce than that which animated the dwellers of the old Teutonicforests, but a light clearer and more intelligent. Here was thedetermined spirit of progress, here was the agreed insistence upon an_equal opportunity!_ Ah! it was a great and splendid canvas which mighthave been painted there on our Plains--the caravans west-bound with thegreening grass of spring--that hegira of Americans whose unheard commandwas but the voice of democracy itself.

  We carried with us all the elements of society, as has the Anglo-Saxonever. Did any man offend against the unwritten creed of fair play, didhe shirk duty when that meant danger to the common good, then he wasbrought before a council of our leaders, men of wisdom and fairness,chosen by the vote of all; and so he was judged and he was punished. Atthat time there was not west of the Missouri River any one who couldadminister an oath, who could execute a legal document, or perpetuateany legal testimony; yet with us the law marched _pari passu_ across theland. We had leaders chosen because they were fit to lead, and leaderswho felt full sense of responsibility to those who chose them. We hadwith us great wealth in flocks and herds--five thousand head of cattlewent West with our caravan, hundreds of horses; yet each knew his ownand asked not that of his neighbor. With us there were women and littlechildren and the gray-haired elders bent with years. Along our road weleft graves here and there, for death went with us. In our train alsowere many births, life coming to renew the cycle. At times, too, therewere rejoicings of the newly wed in our train. Our young couples foundsociety awheel valid as that abiding under permanent roof.

  At the head of our column, we bore the flag of our Republic. On ourflanks were skirmishers, like those guarding the flanks of an army. It_was_ an army--an army of our people. With us marched women. With usmarched home. _That_ was the difference between our cavalcade and thatslower and more selfish one, made up of men alon
e, which that same yearwas faring westward along the upper reaches of the Canadian Plains. Thatwas why we won. It was because women and plows were with us.

  Our great column, made up of more than one hundred wagons, was dividedinto platoons of four, each platoon leading for a day, then fallingbehind to take the bitter dust of those in advance. At noon we partedour wagons in platoons, and at night we drew them invariably into agreat barricade, circular in form, the leading wagon marking out thecircle, the others dropping in behind, the tongue of each against thetail-gate of the wagon ahead, and the last wagon closing up the gap. Ourcircle completed, the animals were unyoked and the tongues were chainedfast to the wagons next ahead; so that each night we had a sturdybarricade, incapable of being stampeded by savages, whom more than oncewe fought and defeated. Each night we set out a guard, our men takingturns, and the night watches in turn rotating, so that each man got hisshare of the entire night during the progress of his journey. Each mornwe rose to the notes of a bugle, and each day we marched in order, undercommand, under a certain schedule. Loosely connected, independent,individual, none the less already we were establishing a government. Wetook the American Republic with us across the Plains!

  This manner of travel offered much monotony, yet it had its littlepleasures. For my own part, my early experience in Western mattersplaced me in charge of our band of hunters, whose duty it was to ride atthe flanks of our caravan each day and to kill sufficient buffalo formeat. This work of the chase gave us more to do than was left for thosewho plodded along or rode bent over upon the wagon seats; yet even forthese there was some relaxation. At night we met in little socialcircles around the camp-fires. Young folk made love; old folk madeplans here as they had at home. A church marched with us as well as thelaw and courts; and, what was more, the schools went also; for by thefaint flicker of the firelight many parents taught their children eachday as they moved westward to their new homes. History shows thesechildren were well taught. There were persons of education and culturewith us.

  Music we had, and of a night time, even while the coyotes were callingand the wind whispering in the short grasses of the Plains, violin andflute would sometimes blend their voices, and I have thus heard songswhich I would not exchange in memory for others which I have heard insurroundings far more ambitious. Sometimes dances were held on thegreensward of our camps. Regularly the Sabbath day was observed by atleast the most part of our pilgrims. Upon all our party there seemed tosit an air of content and certitude. Of all our wagons, I presume onewas of greatest value. It was filled with earth to the brim, and in itwere fruit trees planted, and shrubs; and its owner carried seeds ofgarden plants. Without doubt, it was our mission and our intent to takewith us such civilization as we had left behind.

  So we marched, mingled, and, as some might have said, motley in ourpersonnel--sons of some of the best families in the South, men from theCarolinas and Virginia, Georgia and Louisiana, men from Pennsylvania andOhio; Roundhead and Cavalier, Easterner and Westerner, Germans, Yankees,Scotch-Irish--all Americans. We marched, I say, under a form ofgovernment; yet each took his original marching orders from his ownsoul. We marched across an America not yet won. Below us lay the Spanishcivilization--Mexico, possibly soon to be led by Britain, as somethought. North of us was Canada, now fully alarmed and surely led byBritain. West of us, all around us, lay the Indian tribes. Behind, neveragain to be seen by most of us who marched, lay the homes of an earliergeneration. But we marched, each obeying the orders of his own soul.Some day the song of this may be sung; some day, perhaps, its canvas maybe painted.