CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
SAD FATE OF THE POOR LEARYS--GRIEF OF THE MOTHER AND SISTERS--WE GO INSEARCH OF THE MISSING ONES--FIND THEM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE RAVINE--THEBURIAL--WILD SCENE--RETURN TO CAMP--GO ON A SPORTING EXPEDITION--MYBATTLE WITH THE HAWKS--VERY NEARLY BEATEN--SHORT COMES TO THE RESCUE--CONSEQUENCES OF INDULGING IN A FIT OF ROMANCE ON A JOURNEY--GO TO SLEEP,AND FIND THAT MY ONLY COMPANION IS A HUGE RATTLESNAKE.
I was describing our passage down the western slopes of the RockyMountains, our worthy companion Pat Leary having taken it into his headthat he had discovered a much more rapid way of reaching the bottom thanthe slow one which the rest of our party thought it prudent to pursue.As we stood on the platform immediately above the slope he had taken, wesaw him dashing on at a furious speed not at all conscious of the dangerhe was running. As his wife and daughters, however, saw his rapiddescent, they became so, and screamed out for him to stop. He was agreat favourite with us all, in spite of a few eccentricities, for hewas a capital fellow in the main; and had he not been so, the cries ofthe women would have made us anxious for his safety.
Obed and I, who were in advance of the rest of the party, could notresist the temptation of setting off to see what had become of him andto render him any assistance in our power. Leaving our wagon,therefore, in charge of two lads, we ran down the slope of the mountainas fast as our legs would carry us. On we went till we were almost doneup, but the only sign of the Learys were the ruts which their wagonwheels had made in the softer spots on the mountain side; often theyapproached fearfully near the edge of the precipice on the left, andthen apparently the animals, seeing the danger, had inclined again tothe right. We were already carried much farther down the mountain thanwe intended, and began to repent having come, and to think of our longclimb up again, when we saw, a considerable way below us, close to theprecipice, some objects moving, which, on descending farther, wediscovered to be human beings. They were lying on the ground and wavingtheir hands. As we proceeded we found that the nearest was our poorfriend Leary.
"Oh, help them!--save them! murther, murther, or they'll all be dashedto pieces," he shouted out, pointing down to the deep glen or gorgebelow us, through which rushed a rapid, roaring, foaming stream.
Two of his sons lay close to him almost stunned. Four had started inthe wagon. Where were the other two? Where was the wagon? The marksof the cart wheels verging to the left, and the broken ground at theedge of the precipice, told us too plainly what had occurred. We lookeddown the fearful ravine. No attempt we could make to aid the twounfortunate young men would avail. Far, far, down amid masses of rocksat the edge of the torrent lay a confused mass, amid which we coulddistinguish the wheel of a wagon, and the head of one of the animalswhich had drawn it, but nothing moved, no sound was heard. It was ourconviction that both men and beasts had been, long ere they reached thebottom, deprived of life.
We did not describe to the poor father what we had seen. He was hopingagainst hope that his sons had escaped. We needed no one to describe tous how the accident had occurred. The road sloped away to the left, andthe animals, losing their footing, had been forced by the impetus of thewagon over the precipice, while he and his other two lads hadmechanically leaped out at the moment it was about to make the fatalplunge. The two lads were stunned and so much bruised that when theycame to themselves they could not walk, while Leary, though less hurt,what with grief and regret at his folly and alarm, had his nerves socompletely unstrung that he lost all command over himself. To leavethem in this condition was impossible, so I volunteered to climb up themountain to hurry on some of the party with assistance; but Obed wouldnot hear of it, and insisted on my remaining while he returned. Iconsented to his proposal, and having assisted me in dragging the threemen to a distance from the precipice, off he started. My watch was avery painful one. Poor Leary was constantly raving, asking why his boysdid not come up from below there, and crying out that he would go andlook for them. I often had great difficulty in restraining him. One ofhis sons, too, was so severely hurt that I feared he would sink beforeassistance could come. The other, who was the eldest, was fullyconscious of what had occurred, and groaned and cried bitterly, blaminghimself and his father as being the cause of the death of his youngerbrothers, which was indeed too true. Many an anxious look did I cast upthe mountain in the hope of seeing my companions on their descent. Iexpected them long before they could possibly arrive, for I had notcalculated how much time it would occupy Obed in ascending, and thewagons with their wheels locked, and the trees astern in descending themountain.
The state of my poor friends almost unnerved me, and I began to think ofgrizzly bears and wolves, and all sorts of monsters which might scent usout. Though I had my rifle at my back I could scarcely hope to defendmyself and my companions. Still I, of course, determined to do my best.As I looked towards the glen into which the wagon had shot over, I sawhigh in air several huge birds rapidly winging their flight from variousdirections, and hovering over the spot ere they made a pounce down onit. I knew too well what they were--vultures drawn by their keen scentfrom afar to their dreadful banquet. They knew, whatever we might havehoped, that death was there. At last the wagons appeared, and the soundof female voices shrieking and wailing gave me notice that Obed had toldthe poor wives and sisters of the sufferers what had occurred. It was amost piteous scene. As soon as the wagons could be safely brought to astop, some of the women threw themselves by the side of the sufferers,and hung over them, and kissed them, and embraced them convulsively,while the bereaved widows cried out for their husbands, and asked whathad become of them.
This state of things might have continued all day had not Mr Raggetarrived and somewhat restored order. He first judiciously applied suchremedies as were at hand to the sufferers, and then had them all liftedinto a wagon, and on we proceeded to the bottom of the mountain. Soonafter this we reached a spot whence what appeared a vast plain was seenstretching out before us, and became aware that we were near thetermination of the mountain portion of our journey. Here and there weobserved slight elevations, while several silvery lines meandering amidgroves marked the course of what seemed small rivulets flowing towardsthe Pacific. We afterwards found that the slight elevations turned intoconsiderable hills, the groves into vast forests, and the small rivuletsinto rapid rivers, which cost us much toil and danger to pass. We hadstill some way to descend before we reached a level spot, when, near theedge of the stream which rushed out of the gorge I have mentioned, wehalted to encamp.
Leaving the rest to make the usual arrangements, without stopping totake food, I and three of the Raggets, with Leary's sons-in-law, and oneor two others, set off up the gorge to try and find the spot where thewagon and the bodies of our late companions lay. I should say that aswe descended the mountain we had looked out for any practicable place bywhich we might reach the bottom of the gorge, but none could wediscover. We had, of course, our rifles at our backs and our axes inour belts, and either crowbars or poles in our hands. The ground wasrugged in the extreme. Sometimes we had to climb the sides of theprecipices, now to wade along the edge of the stream, running a greatrisk of being carried off by the current. Sometimes we came to marshyspots, into which we sank nearly up to our middle; then we worked ourway onward under trees, swinging ourselves from bough to bough, but thegreater part of the way we had to climb over huge boulders with crevicesbetween them, into which it would have been destruction to slip. We hadall climbed to the top of one huge rock, expecting that we should seefrom it the spot at which we were aiming, when, on looking down theopposite side, we found that there was at the bottom a watercourse witha fall of nearly twenty feet into it, while nothing could we see of thebroken wagon. We had, therefore, to slip down the way we had come up,and to progress as before. It was weary, fatiguing work. Still wepersevered; for there was, of course, a possibility that the poor youngLearys might be alive, though of this we had very little hope.
We had been deceived as to the di
stance, and we judged that we mustalready have travelled a league, or three miles. Obed suggested that wemight have passed the spot, but this I did not think possible. Ourcourse, as I mentioned, lay along the side of the torrent; butfrequently we lost sight of it, though we did not cease to hear its loudroar, as the foaming waters rushed over its rocky bed. I calculated, asI looked at it, what a mighty torrent would be shortly hurrying onward,when the snows above melted by the heat of the approaching summer. Atlength, climbing another rock, we saw not fifty yards from us the sadspectacle of which we were in search, the fragments of the wagon and thedead horses. We hurried on and soon reached the spot. Already over thehorses were hovering eight or ten huge vultures, flapping their wings asthey alighted, while with unearthly cries they tore away the flesh withtheir sharp talons and hooked beaks. They seemed inclined to disputetheir prey with us; but on Obed and I firing we killed two of them, andthe rest flew off; but we could see them hovering in the distance, readyto pounce down again as soon as we had retired.
We instantly set to work with our crowbars and poles to turn over thebroken wagon. The sight which met our eyes was sad indeed. There laythe two young men, fearfully crushed and mangled, directly under thewagon. They must have clung to it as it descended, or have beenentangled among the goods in it. They must instantly have been killed.We had wished to carry the bodies back to the camp, but in consequenceof the impracticable character of the road we had come over this wasimpossible. We hunted about till at last we discovered a sort of basinamong the rocks, into which the earth from above had washed. Here wedug two graves as deep as time would allow, and with scant ceremony,though not without a tear, we placed in them the two brothers. We knewthat prayers for them were of no avail; they had gone to their account;but we did pray that we might not thus be hurriedly snatched awaywithout a warning. There were plenty of slabs of stone on the side ofthe mountain chipped off by winter frosts and summer heats and rains,and so we placed one at the head of each grave, and then we left them tosleep on undisturbed. Probably many ages may roll by before that spotis again visited by human footsteps. So engaged had we been in ourpainful employment that we did not perceive how rapidly daylight wasdecreasing, and before we had proceeded half-a-mile on our returnjourney we came to the disagreeable conclusion that we should bebenighted before we could possibly reach the camp. Still we of coursepushed on as long as we could see our way. As we had had no food sincethe morning, we were desperately hungry; but as Obed observed, "I guesswe've plenty of water, mates, and maybe we shall kill a rattlesnake, andthat won't be bad eating."
The cold we did not much mind, though somewhat icy blasts came down theglen, for we were pretty well inured to that; but as we had had nothingsince the morning, our stomachs craved lustily for food, and I wouldhave tried my teeth on the flesh of a gaunt wolf, or even on one of thevultures we had killed, if we could have got at them. We found our wayin among a circle of boulders, and there we passed the night, and a mostunpleasant one it was. At the earliest dawn we were on foot, but ittook us nearly two hours to reach the camp. I will not describe thelamentations of the Leary family when we gave them an account of ourproceedings--the shrieks and wailing which the poor women commenced andcontinued for the greater part of the next twenty-four hours. As therewas plenty of wood, water, and grass for the cattle, we determined toremain there a day to prepare for our journey along the level country.To avoid the lamentations of the unhappy wives, as soon as I hadperformed the part of the work allotted to me for the general good, Istole from the camp to enjoy some portion of quiet. When the sun gotup, as the wind was from the west, the heat became very great, and I didnot feel inclined to move very fast.
Soon after leaving the camp, I observed several hawks hovering round aspot in the wood, the abode probably of some rabbits, hares, or othersmall game. By cautiously creeping on, I got within shot of one ofthem. I fired, and down tumbled the monster bird. He was a hugecreature, with a large hooked beak and immense claws, who, if he couldnot have carried off a lamb or a goose, would have had no trouble inflying away with a duck, or a fowl, or a rabbit. I observed where theothers went to, and followed them till I reached a tolerably accessiblecliff, at the top of which a whole colony seemed to reside; big andlittle, sires and offspring, were circling round, and making themselvesquite at home. Having a fancy to examine the nature of theirhabitations, I looked about me to see how I could get up the cliff, andwith my pole alone in hand commenced the ascent. This, from the natureof the ground, was not very difficult; and I had got within a dozen feetor so from their nests, and was standing on a broad ledge, looking up toascertain how I could best ascend higher, when they espied me, or, asthey had been all along watching me, they probably came to theconclusion that it was time to put a stop to my further proceedings. Ihad just discovered their nest, which was as large as the baskets marketwomen carry on their heads. It was composed of twigs and small sticks,none less than an inch in circumference. On the ledge below it werescattered numerous bones, and the skeletons and half-mangled bodies ofpigeons, hares, and a variety of small birds. Without muchconsideration, I constituted myself the champion of the smaller denizensof the wood, and, axe in hand, was ascending to knock the robberstronghold to pieces, when old and young, with fierce cries, made adesperate sortie to drive off the assailant of their castle. Down theycame upon me with the most desperate fury, dashing at my head and face,and evidently aiming at my eyes. I struck right and left with my axe,but it is a bad weapon for defence, and they laughed at all my efforts,only wheeling round to renew the attack.
Ten times rather would I have had a combat with a dozen wolves, or ahungry grizzly. I should instantly have had both my eyes torn fromtheir sockets, had I not kept my left arm like a shield before them; andas it was, my forehead got some ugly blows which almost drove in thebone, while the blood flowing from the wounds nearly blinded me. Neverhave I felt so unmanned,--so terribly alarmed. It was like beingattacked by a host of demons. I could not seek safety in flight, for Ishould have broken my neck, as I dared not for a moment move my left armfrom before my face, while my right was fully occupied in dealing blowson every side at my fierce enemies. I shrieked out at the top of myvoice with downright terror, but I was too far from the camp, I fancied,to have any hope of being heard. Even my right arm began to get wearywith striking at the empty air, and at the same time the boldness of myassailants increased. They attacked me in rear as well as in front,darting against my neck and the back of my ears; and so terribly didthey beat me that I began fully to believe that I should be done todeath by birds. Still, had it not been for the dread of losing my eyes,I could easily have escaped.
At last, one big fellow, the father of the brood, pounced down and hitme on the temple within an inch of my right eye.
Just then, when almost in despair, I heard the voice of Sam Shortshouting out, "Throw yourself on the ground, Dick; face downward, Dick."
I did as he counselled, and the next moment a shot from his riflebrought down my chief foe, who fell close to me. Still he was not dead,and with the fury of despair, flapping his way up to me, he began tomake such determined attacks on my head, that I feared he would havebitten off my ear before I was able to disengage my right hand, withwhich I then gave him a blow on his head, which made him quiet for ever.Still the rest of the amiable family kept circling above me, giving memost disagreeable prongs, till another shot from Short's rifle killedtwo more, and the rest, discovering that I had an ally in the field,took to flight. He then came up, and having destroyed the nest, helpedme down the cliff, for I really could scarcely have descended by myself,so completely shaken were my nerves with the novel contest in which Ihad engaged. I begged Sam not to mention in camp what had occurred, buthe kept my counsel very badly, for he could not resist asking when Iwould like to go birds'-nesting again, and made so many other allusionsthat I thought it was best to tell the story, and got heartily laughedat for my pains. I, however, have always felt that it was no laughingmatter
, and that I was never in greater peril than on that occasion.
We next day proceeded on our journey, and for ten days or so made butslow progress, as we had numerous rivers to pass, and the change ofclimate from the cold of the mountains to the heat of the plains wasvery trying to man and beast. We now took to encamping during themiddle of the day, and travelling very early and late. In that way ouranimals got two unbroken rests instead of one, which was a greatadvantage.
One day, after a long morning's journey, we had camped near a streambordered by rich pastures of red and white clover. As I have hinted,although I was on the most friendly terms with all my companions, I nowand then had a longing to be by myself, to commune with my own thoughts,and to call to mind friends whose ideas and manners were so differentfrom those of my present associates. As I frequently did, therefore, Ileft the camp, and wandered on up the stream till I came to a littlegrove of sumach and cherry trees, under whose shade I sat down to enjoythe cool air, and to watch the clear water which flowed bubbling by.The sweet-scented flowers of spring were bursting out from many a bush,and encumbering the ground around me. Their balmy odours filled mynostrils, the fresh air played round my brow, and the murmur of thestream sounded in my ears, till my pleased senses became completelyovercome by the surrounding soporific influences, and wandered far awayamid the regions of dreamland: in other words, I went fast asleep. Atlast I awoke, and rubbed and rubbed my eyes; I had good reason forrubbing them, for the beautiful landscape on which they had closed wasno longer before them. There was the murmur of the stream, and thescent of the flowers, but obscurity was around me, and the stars wereglittering brightly overhead. How far in the night it was I could notguess. How to follow my companions too, was a question, as it was sodark that I could not have found my way to the camp, even if they hadbeen there. The only cause I could then assign for my having slept solong, was that I must have been surrounded by some herbs of soporificpower, though, perhaps, the perfect tranquillity of the spot, the heatof the weather, and the exertion I had of late gone through weresufficient reasons for the unusual length of my nap. Having no hopes ofovertaking my friends that night, I judged that the best thing I coulddo was to stay where I was and go to sleep again. This was, however,not very easy to do. I was lightly clad, and the night damp had made mefeel very chilly. It was not, therefore, till morning that sleep againoverpowered me. It would have been better for me had I kept awake.Suddenly I opened my eyes with a start. The sun had already risen, andwas glancing through the woods on my head. I heard a noise--a rustlingin the grass. I turned my head, and there, to my horror, I beheld ahuge rattlesnake about to spring on me.