The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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river still is known by his name, and it runs right into the town of Sioux City. The river washed the bank away under his grave, and in 1857 the remains were reburied, back from the river. That spot was marked by a slab in 1895, and a monument was put over it in May, 1901. I was a guest at the dedication of that obelisk. It was erected under the supervision of General Hiram Chittenden, the great engineer and great historian. It has a city park all of its own, and a marvelous landscape it commands.
“Well, poor Floyd had no memorial in those rude days, beyond a ‘seeder post.’ They did what they could and then they ‘set out under a gentle Breeze and proceeded on.’”
“Well, but Dorion knew this country, then?” John began again, after a time.
“Yes,” Rob was first to answer, “and that’s what puzzles me — how they got such exact knowledge of a wild region. I suppose it was because they had no railroads and so had to know geography. The Journal says that the Sioux River heads with the St. Peter’s (Minnesota) River, passing the head of the Des Moines; all of which is true. And it tells of the Red Pipestone quarry, on a creek coming into the Sioux. Clark puts down all those things and does not forget the local stuff. He says the ‘Countrey above the Platte has a great Similarity’ — which means the Plains as they saw them. And look, in John’s book — here he says ‘I found a verry excellent froot resembling the read Current,’ What was it — the Sarvice berry? He says it is ‘about the Common hight of a wild Plumb.’ Nothing escaped these chaps — geography, natural history, game, Indians, or anything else! They must have worked every minute of the day.”
“I think his new berry was what we used to call the buffalo berry, in our railway surveys out West,” said Uncle Dick. “It was bigger than a currant and made very fair pies.
“But now we’ve just begun to catch up with our story, for we were talking some time back where they first got a buffalo. That was about thirty or forty miles above here. By to-morrow night we’ll camp in our fifth state since we left home — Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota.”
“On our way!” sung out Rob. “We haven’t got any antelope yet, nor found a prairie dog, nor seen a single Sioux.”
“Softly, softly!” smiled the older companion. “At least we’re in the Sioux and antelope range.”
Their little tent was pitched within a short distance of the river, and their fire made shadows along the wall of willows. At times they all fell silent, bringing to mind the wild scenes of this same country in a time which now began to seem not so long ago.
“My!” said Jesse, after a time, as he sat on his bed roll, his hands clasped before his knees. “Think of it! The Plains, the buffalo, the Indians! Weren’t they the lucky guys!”
“Well, yes,” replied his uncle, “though I’d rather call them fortunate gentlemen than lucky guys. One thing sure, they were accurate when they said the ‘musquitors were verry troublesom’ in all this Missouri Valley. They had to issue nets and bars to the men, so it says, and the misquitr, or mosquiter, or musquitor, was about the only ‘anamal’ they feared. If we don’t turn in, they’ll carry us off to-night.”
CHAPTER XII
THE LOST HUNTER
“It’s a long, long way up to the Mandans!” sang John at the second camp above the Council Bluffs. “Wonder if we ever will get there before winter! Here we are, just below the Vermilion, over nine hundred and fifty miles up the river, and over three weeks out, but we’re only halfway to the Yellowstone, and still a good deal more than six hundred miles below the Mandan Villages, though I’ve counted fifty-three towns and cities we’ve passed in the river, coming this far. It certainly does look as though we’ll have to winter up there, sure enough.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” demurred Rob, consulting the pages of his own notebook. “No fellow can ask an outboard motor to do better than ours have. I’ll admit we’re just inside our forty-mile-a-day stunt, but that’s five miles an hour and only eight hours a day. I’ll bet they would have been mighty glad to do half that.”
“I’ve been wondering how they were able to spurt so much, north of the Platte,” said John.
“I’ll bet I know!” broke in Jesse. “It’s because the shores were more open, so they could use the cordelle! They’d been doing it, too, for on August 26th they made a new ‘Toe line’ out of braided elk-hide. Clark killed an elk on August 25th, and Reuben Fields killed five deer that day, and George Shannon killed an elk that day, too. So they ‘jurked the meet,’ and made the hides into a tracking line. That beats rowing or paddling to get up a river. We saw that on the Peace River and the Mackenzie, didn’t we?”
“I believe you’re right, son!” said Rob. “These long sandy reaches, where the men could trot on the line — that was where they got their mileage, I’ll warrant.”
“George Shannon?” said Uncle Dick, who was listening as he sat on his bed roll near the fire. “George Shannon, eh? Well, he didn’t bring in any more elk meat after that for many a day, that’s sure.”
“I know!” Rob nodded. “That’s the man that got lost!”
“Yes, and trouble enough it gave the party and the leaders. They sent out two men, Shields and J. Fields, to find him and the horses. That was the second day. But they didn’t find him. He didn’t show up for sixteen days. Luckily, he kept on ahead of the boat all the time, but, as we all know, the most confusing way on earth to get lost from a party is while you are on foot and the party is in a boat. Even Sir Alexander Mackenzie got lost that way, on the Findlay River; and so have we all of us.”
“Well, poor Shannon nearly starved to death. I don’t think he was a first-class hunter, either, or he’d not have gone out without his ammunition. In a country swarming with game he went for twelve days with only grapes to eat, except one rabbit that he shot with a piece of stick instead of a bullet. He held on to one horse, and lucky he did. Here’s what the Journal says about Shannon — whom Lewis himself found:
“‘He became weak and feable deturmined to lay by and wait for a tradeing boat, which is expected. Keeping one horse as a last resorse, yet a man had like to have starved to death in a land of Plenty for the want of Bullits or something to kill his meat.’”
“Where was he when they found him?” John had his map ready.
“Well, let’s see. They found him on September 11th, and they had traveled thirteen days, not counting stops, and made one hundred and sixty miles by the river. They must by then have been at least thirty miles above what is now Fort Randall, South Dakota — I should say, somewhere near Wheeler, South Dakota. Well, something of a walk for George, eh?”
“Rather!” was Jesse’s comment. “Oh, I suppose it’s easy to call him a dub, but the commanding officers didn’t.”
“But now,” went on their leader, “a lot of things have been happening since Shannon left, and here are a lot of interesting things to keep in mind. One thing is, they expected a trading boat up. That must have been from St. Louis, for Trudeau’s post. That was long before the days of the regular fur forts, and that accounts for all this country having its French names on it.
“Another thing or two: By this time, in lower South Dakota, everybody was killing buffalo and elk, great quantities of splendid meat. By now, also, in early September, they had got on the antelope range for the first time, and their first ‘goat,’ as they called it, was skinned and described. They got another new animal, which they called a ‘barkeing squirel,’ or ‘ground rat’ — on September 7th. That was the first prairie dog, a great curiosity to them — the same day they saw their first ‘goat.’ They managed to drown out one prairie dog, which I never heard of anyone else being able to do. They dug down six feet, and did not get halfway to the ‘lodge,’ as they called