Buffalo Land

Gripe did not accompany the expedition. Yet he grew so eloquent over the deep snow that stretched drearily before the little band, the gloomy mountains which frowned down defiance, and the people, far more inhospitable than either, who stood behind the natural barriers, filled to fanaticism with suspicion, fear, and hate, that we were sorry he had not been of the party. A man of such congressional qualifications as were his, might have been able to steal even the prisoners.

On other matters of Kansas history, Gripe could speak from personal experience. He had twice entered the territory during the period when the Free State and pro-slavery forces were doing battle for it. In one instance, the journey had been overland through Missouri, and in the other, up the Missouri River. On the first occasion, he had suffered numberless indignities at the hands of border ruffians, and would have been killed, had there been any thing in the least degree stronger than suspicion for them to act upon. On the other trip, the steamboat was stopped at Lexington, and a pro-slavery mob boarded the vessel, and searched for arms. The whole fabric of Kansas material which Gripe wove for us that evening was figured all over with battles, and murders, and tar-and-feather diversions. Had we been writing a history of the State, we might have accumulated a fair share of the material then and there.

Another subject this evening discussed around our camp-fire was the future of the vast plains which we had been traversing. Two or three of the settlers were ranchemen, who had lived in this region for many years. They were very enthusiastic about the section of their adoption, and affirmed stoutly that within fifteen years the whole tract would be under cultivation.

I can answer for our whole party that, beyond a doubt, the climate is healthy and the soil rich. For the first one hundred miles, after reaching the eastern boundary of the plains, springs and pure streams abound. Further west, the water supply is not so plentiful. On only one occasion, however, did we suffer any inconvenience from this, and that was upon the very headwaters of the Saline. Going into camp late, coffee was hastily prepared, and the quality of the water not noticed. It proved to be quite salty, and as we drank liberally of the coffee, and were unable afterward to find a spring, our sufferings before morning amounted to positive torture. Each one of the party found that his lungs were benefited by our sojourn on the plains. I believe that a consumptive could find decidedly more relief in Buffalo Land than among the mountains further west.

During the evening, we added considerably to our already very full notes concerning the wild tribes of the western plains. So many are the "true tales of the border" which one can hear in a few months of such journeyings as ours, that the recital of even a tithe of the number would become tiresome. The red-bearded owner of "Shed-tail" added to our store, by relating an adventure which he claimed had occurred to himself and Buffalo Bill, when they were teamsters together in an overland train. It was to the effect that while riding ahead of the wagons, to find a crossing over the Sandy, they discovered the skeleton of a man lying at the foot of a cottonwood tree. As they dismounted for the purpose of finding some means, if possible, of identifying the remains, their attention was caught by letters cut in the bark. These they deciphered sufficiently to see that it had been an attempt by some weak hand to carve a name. A broken knife, lying near the bones, told plainly enough who the worker at the epitaph had been, and other signs revealed to the frontiersmen the whole death history. The man had been assailed by savages, scalped, and left as dead. The work of the knife showed that he must have recovered sufficiently to crawl to the tree, and there make a faint effort to leave some record of his name and fate. The straggling gashes indicated that he had continued the task even while death was blinding his eyes. A few more drops of blood, and perhaps the mystery of years, now shrouding the history of some family hearth-stone, would have been cleared away.

We had no opportunity of verifying this story of red beard's, but as no occasion existed for telling a lie, and the neighbors of the narrator there present seemed much interested in the account, we accepted it as truth. It was apparently no attempt to impose upon the strangers. But I would here state, as a specimen feature of the frontier experience of all travelers, that whenever, at any of our camps, surrounding ranchemen or hunters discovered any member of our party taking notes, there were straightway spun out the toughest yarns which ever hung a tale and throttled truth.

Of one fact our journey thoroughly convinced us. Lo's forte has no connection with the fort of the pale-faces. An unguarded hunter, or a defenseless emigrant wagon, or unarmed railroad laborer, gratifies sufficiently his most warlike ambition. The savages of the plains, in their attacks upon the whites, have been like bees, stinging whenever opportunity offers, and immediately disappearing in space. Their excuses for the murders they commit have been as various as their moods. At one time it is a broken treaty, at another the killing of their buffalo, and trespassing upon the hunting-grounds, and again it is some other grievance. It may be some gratification for them to know that it is estimated that, until within the last three years, a white man's scalp atoned for each buffalo killed by his race.

In our various wars with the Indians, it is worthy of remark the bison have been like supply posts at convenient distances, to the hostile bands. Traveling without any supplies whatever, and therefore rapidly, a few moments suffice to kill a buffalo near the camping spot, and roast his flesh over the chips. The pony, meanwhile, makes a hearty meal on the grass. On the other hand, our troops, in pursuit of these bands, have had to encumber themselves with baggage wagons, or pack-mules, bearing food and forage.

Among our notes, I find recorded many incidents illustrative of the aptitude which the savage mind possesses for dissimulation. For instance, in our council at Hays City, White Wolf could apparently understand only our sign language; yet when the interpreter advised the Professor, in good English, not to accept the little Mexican burro, unless content to return its weight in something much more valuable than jackass meat, the chief could not refrain from smiling. As Indians are not given to facial revelations, the colloquy must have struck him as very apropos and very amusing. We concluded then and there, that it was unsafe to talk Indian sign with the savages for effect, and meanwhile express our real sentiments to each other in English; and upon this opinion we habitually acted thereafter.

This was our last night together as a party. The Professor had signified his intention of remaining a few days longer upon the Solomon, for the purpose of studying the surrounding country. Shamus had asked a discharge, in order to engage as farm hand for Mr. Sydney—an Irish Jacob taking to agriculture as a means of obtaining his Rachel. We received numerous invitations to divide our party for the night among the settlers, and, glad to enjoy again the luxury of a roof, Sachem and I gratefully accepted the hospitabilities of a neighboring log-cabin among the trees.

The next day was busily occupied in separating from our loads such things as the Professor and Shamus required for their further sojourn in the Solomon valley. The morning following, we bade them both good-bye, and have seen neither leader or servant since. With but one mishap, the remainder of our party reached safely the more familiar haunts of civilization. Doctor Pythagoras was the victim of our exceptional misfortune. While attempting to mount his transformed prize-fighter, the metamorphosed bully struck out from the shoulder, and the doctor was floored. We found it necessary to carry him upon a rude stretcher to Solomon City, and provide him with a section on a sleeping car for transit to the East. As we shook his hand at parting, and bade him a last good-bye, he exclaimed, "My young friends, I can not die yet. I shall recover and outlive you all. I believe in the theory of the 'survival of the fittest.'"

Ever since our return, the tide of emigration, pouring onward from the Atlantic, has lapped further and further out upon the surface of the plains; and still, as truly now as when good old Bishop Berkeley first wrote the line, "the Star of Empire westward takes its way."

While I was preparing these notes for the press, I received the following characteristic letter from Sachem, dated at his haunt in New York. It was at first a puzzle, but I found the key in a note inclosed by him, which he had lately received from the Professor.

SACHEM'S LETTERTo crack a head and break a heart,Are known as Paddy's forte;In kitchen, jail, or low-back cart—No matter where—he 'll court.To don a rig, and dance a jig,Attend a wake or wedding,He 'll sell his own or neighbor's pigAnd only rag of bedding.He lives a happy, careless life,Hand to mouth, and heart in hand;Ready for either love or strife,Building castles on the sand.With peck of trouble ever full,Good measure, running over,He deals in stock—the Irish bull,And with it, lives in clover.Love's labor is the only tasteThat Paddy's mind inherits:He thinks, where maidens run to waste,The harem has its merits.And so Dobeen, upon his course,Love's gallop quick began;The gal up on the other horse,He courted, as they ran.The bows around the maid were moreThan suited to her mind;Cupid and Shamus rode before,The savage rode behind.They each pursued the maiden coy,Two wooed her a la bow;The arrow tips of one were joy,The other's tips were woe.'T is said that Shamus won the race,And saved his hair and bacon:If Mary loved his wooing pace,His heart may stop its achin'.

And this was the Professor's letter, which had evidently set the aldermanic machine to grinding doggerel again:

… "I have run down here after my mail. Am progressing finely with my studies. Shamus had an adventure yesterday. Mary and he rode over on horseback to a neighbor's, a mile away, and on the return were pursued by an Indian. Hard riding brought them in safely. Mary tells her mistress that, during the terrors of the chase, Shamus would not refrain from courting. He lashed her horse, and spurred his, and popped the question, alternately.

"I shall probably remain here a month or so longer, as I am much interested in the Flora of the Solomon Valley."

The italicized word in the last sentence is underscored, and its initial letter bears evidence of having been maliciously transformed into a capital by Sachem.

THE END

APPENDIX

PRELIMINARY TO THE APPENDIX

The officials of the new States and Territories are constantly overwhelmed with letters of inquiry from all parts of our own country and the Canadas, and even from Europe. Some of the writers wish particulars concerning the opportunities that exist for obtaining homes; others seek information as to the best points for hunting; while what to bring with them, in the way of household goods, and farming implements, or guns, dogs, etc., is the common question of nearly all.

While engaged in preparing "Buffalo Land" for the press, I published in a newspaper at Topeka a brief summary of the information then at my command upon the subjects above named. The result was the receipt of a large number of letters, asking for all sorts of details, many of which I found it impossible to answer through the mail. This fact, added to the requests of various public officers, whom I take pleasure in thus obliging, has induced me to attach an appendix to the present volume, containing a condensed statement of such matters (not elsewhere described in this work) as will assist parties westward bound, whether emigrants, sportsmen, or tourists.

The Appendix which follows is divided into three chapters. The first of these embodies information of especial interest to the immense army of home-seekers who, from every quarter, are turning their eyes eagerly and hopefully toward the free and boundless West. The second chapter is designed for the use of the sportsman, and the third furnishes very valuable and instructive details concerning the topography, resources, climate, etc., of the plains, and, more particularly, a description of the larger streams, with their contiguous valleys, which drain the vast area included within the limits of Buffalo Land.

W. E. W.

CHAPTER FIRST

FURTHER INFORMATION FOR THE HOME-SEEKERCOME TO THE GREAT WEST!

The Western States and Territories afford unexampled inducements to the surplus energy and capital of the East and Europe; and the field which they spread out so invitingly to the emigrant's choice is as wide as it is magnificent. Hundreds of millions of acres of rich land—embracing bottom and prairie, timber and running water—are open for settlement. Counties are to be populated, and towns built, all over the new States and Territories. Each of these latter is an empire in itself. Great Britain could be set down within the borders of any one of them, and yet leave room for some of the German principalities. The records of the Agricultural Bureau at Washington show that, wherever the new soil has been cultivated, both the yield per acre and the quality of the crops produced are better than in the older States. The balance of power is moving westward, and the capital of the nation, it can scarcely be doubted, must eventually come also.

There is no reason why people should starve in the great cities of this broad and heaven-favored land of ours. Business men, so often besieged and worried with applications for positions in their stores and counting-rooms, might with advantage tack up a copy of the Homestead Law by their desk, and keep a further supply on hand for distribution. Every few months some poet sings of the ill-paid seamstress in the crowded town, or some hideous murder brings to light the heroine of the garret-stitched shirt. Yet, meanwhile, at Denver City, house-girls have been getting from six to ten dollars per week, and thousands could find comfortable homes throughout Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, with remunerative wages. Abroad, men toil, and women work in the fields, and in one year pay out from the scanty earnings which they wring from a stingy soil more than enough to purchase one hundred and sixty acres of good land in the great and growing West.

SHOULD THERE NOT BE COMPULSORY EMIGRATION?

Except in the case of the very decrepit, or totally disabled, there can be no excuse for begging, in a country which offers every pauper a quarter-section of as rich land as the sun shines upon. I suppose the millennium will commence when laws compel the cities to drive from them the idle and vicious, and make them tillers of the soil in the wilds. Instead of brooding in the dark alleys, and breeding vice to be flung out at regular intervals upon the civilized thoroughfares, these germinators of disease and crime would be dragged forth from their purlieus and hiding-places, and disinfected in the pure atmosphere of the large prairies and grand forests. Granting that it might be a heavy burden upon their shoulders at the outset, the present generation of reformers would have the satisfaction of knowing that the sores were cleansed, and that moral and physical disease was not being propagated to suffocate their children; and even although some of the present multitude of evil-doers might not be reclaimed, most of their children certainly would be. It is more profitable to raise farmers than convicts. Instead of building jails to hold men in life-long mildew, our artisans might be building steamers and cars, to carry their products to the seaboard.

"GET A GOOD READY."

Of the immense and almost boundless tracts of Western land that invite the emigrant's choice, the larger part can be homesteaded and pre-empted, and the remainder purchased on favorable terms from the different railroads. The competition among the latter for immigration has induced low prices and superior facilities for examination.

Where a number of families are coming together, the best way, as a rule, is to select commissioners from the number, to go in advance, and spy out the land, which can be done at comparatively trifling expense. On giving satisfactory proof of their mission, such representatives are nearly always able to secure low rates of fare and freight. In this way, two or three reliable agents can select a district in which a colony may settle, and make all the necessary arrangements for its transportation, and each family save a number of dollars, which will give back compound interest in the new home.

"Get a good ready" before starting, and have your route plainly mapped out; otherwise, you will buy experience at the sacrifice of many a useful dollar. And pray that your flight be not in the winter. Come at such season as will enable you to provide at least some shelter and supplies before the inclement months come on.

Furniture and provisions can be purchased at very reasonable rates at the West, and no necessity exists, therefore, for bringing one or two car loads of broken chairs, and partially filled flour barrels. Good stock will repay transportation, but common breeds are abundant and cheap on the ground. Texas yearlings can be purchased for about six dollars per head in Kansas.

HOMESTEAD LAWS AND REGULATIONS

The following is an epitome, by a former Register of a United States Land Office, of such laws and regulations as pertain to the securing of Government land:

The Pre-emption Act of September 4, 1841, provides, that "every person, being the head of the family, or widow, or single man over the age of twenty-one years, and being a citizen of the United States, or having filed a declaration of intention to become a citizen, as required by the naturalization laws," is authorized to enter at the Land Office one hundred and sixty acres of unappropriated Government land by complying with the requirements of said act.

It has been decided that an unmarried or single woman over the age of twenty-one years, not the head of the family, but able to meet all the requirements of the pre-emption law, has the right to claim its benefits.

Where the tract is "offered," the party must file his declaratory statements within thirty days from the date of his settlement, and within one year from the date of said settlement, must appear before the Register and Receiver, and make proof of his actual residence and cultivation of the tract, and pay for the same with cash or Military Land Warrants. When the tract has been surveyed but not offered at public sale, the claimant must file within three months from the date of settlement, and make proof and payment before the day designated in the President's Proclamation offering the land at public sale.

Should the settler, in either of the above class of cases, die before establishing his claim within the period limited by law, the title may be perfected by the executor or administrator, by making the requisite proof of settlement and cultivation, and paying the Government price; the entry to be made in the name of "the heirs" of the deceased settler.

When a person has filed his declaratory statements for one tract of land, it is not lawful for the same individual to file a second declaratory statement for another tract of land, unless the first filing was invalid in consequence of the land applied for, not being open to pre-emption, or by determination of the land against him, in case of contest, or from any other similar cause which would have prevented him from consummating a pre-emption under his declaratory statements.

Each qualified pre-empter is permitted to enter one hundred and sixty acres of either minimum or double minimum lands, subject to pre-emption, by paying the Government price, $1.25 per acre for the former class of lands, and $2.50 for the latter class.

Where a person has filed his declaratory statement for land which at the time was rated at $2.50 per acre, and the price has subsequently been reduced to $1.25 per acre, before he proves up and makes payment, he will be allowed to enter the land embraced in his declaratory statement at the last-named price, viz.: $1.25 per acre.

Final proof and payment can not be made until the party has actually resided upon the land for a period of at least six months, and made the necessary cultivation and improvements to show his good faith as an actual settler. This proof can be made by one witness.

The party who makes the first settlement in person upon a tract of public land is entitled to the right of pre-emption, provided he subsequently complies with all the requirements of the law—his right to the land commences from the date he performed the first work on the land.

When a person has filed his declaratory statement for a tract of land, and afterward relinquishes it to the Government, he forfeits his right to file again for another tract of land.

The assignment of a pre-emption right is null and void. Title to public land is not perfected until the issuance of the patent from the General Land Office, and all sales and transfers prior to the date of the patents are in violation of law.

The Act of March 27, 1854, protects the right of settlers on sections along the lines of railroads, when settlement was made prior to the withdrawal of the lands, and in such case allows the lands to be pre-empted and paid for at $1.25 per acre, by furnishing proof of inhabitancy and cultivation, as required under the Act of September 4, 1841.

The Homestead Act of May 20, 1862, provides "that any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government, or given aid or comfort to its enemies, shall be entitled to enter one quarter section or less quantity of unappropriated public land."

Under this act, one hundred and sixty acres of land subject to pre-emption at $1.25 per acre, or eighty acres at $2.50 per acre, can be entered upon application, by making affidavit "that he or she is the head of a family, or is twenty-one years of age, or shall have performed service in the army and navy of the United States, and that such application is made for his or her exclusive use or benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not, either directly or indirectly, for the use and benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever." On filing said affidavit, and payment of fees and commissions, the entry will be permitted.

Soldiers and sailors who have served ninety days can, however, take one hundred and sixty acres of the $2.50, or double minimum lands. In all other respects they are subject to the usual Homestead laws and regulations.

No certificate will be given, or patent issued, until the expiration of five years from the date of said entry; and if, at the expiration of such time, or at any time within two years thereafter, the person making such entry—or if he be dead, his widow; or in case of her death, his heirs or devisee; or in case of a widow making such entry, her heirs or devisee, in case of her death—shall prove by two credible witnesses that he or she has resided upon and cultivated the same for the term of five years immediately succeeding the date of filing the above affidavit, and shall make affidavit that no part of said land has been alienated, and that he has borne true allegiance to the Government of the United States; then he or she, if at that time a citizen of the United States, shall be entitled to a patent. In case of the death of both father and mother, leaving an infant child or children under twenty-one years of age, the right and fee shall inure to the benefit of said infant or children; and the executor, administrator, or guardian may, at any time after the death of the surviving parent, and in accordance with the law of the State in which such children for the time being have their domicil, sell said land for the benefit of said infants, but for no other purpose; and the purchaser shall acquire the absolute title from the Government and be entitled to a patent.