Chapter IV: Part 4

Dinner was served to the pirates on deck. Cacasotte took his place by the bow of the boat, so as to be near the most dangerous of the robbers. This robber was a powerful man, well armed. When Cacasotte saw that the others had taken their places as he had directed, he gave the signal, and then pushed the huge robber at his side into the water. In three minutes the powerful Cacasotte had thrown fourteen of the robbers into the waves. The other men had also done their best. The deck was cleared of the pirates, who had to swim for their lives. The robbers who remained in the boat were too few to resist. Beausoleil found himself again master of his barge, thanks to the coolness and courage of Cacasotte.

But the bargemen dared not go on up the river. Against the stream they would have to go slowly, and there would be danger from the robbers remaining at Cottonwood Creek: so they kept on down the river to New Orleans.

The next year ten boats left New Orleans in company. These barges carried small cannons, and their crew were all armed. When they reached Cottonwood Creek, men were seen on shore; but when an armed force was landed, the robbers had fled. The long, low hut which had been their dwelling remained. There were also several flatboats loaded with valuable goods taken from captured barges. This plunder was carried to St. Louis, and restored to the rightful owners. For fifty years afterwards this was known as "The Year of the Ten Boats." Cacasotte's brave victory was not soon forgotten.

OLD-FASHIONED TELEGRAPHS.

THE MUSKET TELEGRAPH.

There are many people living who can remember when there were no telegraphs such as we have now. The telephone is still younger. Railroads are not much older than telegraphs. Horses and stagecoaches were slow. How did people send messages quickly when there were no telegraph wires?

When colonies in America were first settled by white people, there were wars with the Indians. The Indians would creep into a neighborhood and kill all the people they could, and then they would get away before the soldiers could overtake them. But the white people made a plan to catch them.

Whenever the Indians attacked a settlement, the settler who saw them first took his gun and fired it three times. Bang, bang, bang! went the gun. The settlers who lived near the man who fired the gun heard the sound. They knew that three shots following one another quickly, meant that the Indians had come.

Every settler who heard the three shots took his gun and fired three times. It was bang, bang, bang! again. Then, as soon as he had fired, he went in the direction of the first shots. Every man who had heard three shots, fired three more, and went toward the shots he had heard. Farther and farther away the settlers heard the news, and sent it along by firing so that others might hear. Soon little companies of men were coming swiftly in every direction. The Indians were sure to be beaten off or killed.

This was a kind of telegraph. But there were no wires; there was no electricity; only one flint-lock musket waking up another flintlock musket, till a hundred guns had been fired, and a hundred men were marching to the battle.

TELEGRAPHING BY FIRE.

The firing of signal guns was telegraphing by sound. It used only the hearing. But there were other ways of telegraphing that used the sight. These have been known for thousands of years. They were known even to savage people.

The Indians on the plains use fires to telegraph to one another. Sometimes they build one fire, sometimes they build many. When a war party, coming back from battle, builds five fires on a hill, the Indians who see it know that the party has killed five enemies.

But the Indians have also what are known as smoke signals. An Indian who wishes to send a message to a party of his friends a long way off, builds a fire. When it blazes, he throws an armful of green grass on it. This causes the fire to send up a stream of white smoke hundreds of feet high, which can be seen fifty miles away in clear weather. Among the Apaches, one column of smoke is to call attention; two columns say, "All is well, and we are going to remain in this camp;" three columns or more are a sign of danger, and ask for help.

Sometimes longer messages are sent. After building a fire and putting green grass upon it, the Indian spread his blanket over it. He holds down the edges, to shut the smoke in. After a few moments he takes his blanket off; and when he does this, a great puff of smoke, like a balloon, shoots up into the air. This the Indian does over and over. One puff of smoke chases another upward. By the number of these puffs, and the length of the spaces between them, he makes his meaning understood by his friends many miles away.

At night the Indians smear their arrows with something that will burn easily. One of them draws his bow. Just as he is about to let his arrow fly, another one touches it with fire. The arrow blazes as it shoots through the air, like a fiery dragon fly. One burning arrow follows another; and those who see them read these telegraph signals, and know what is meant.

TELEGRAPHS IN THE REVOLUTION.

Our forefathers sometimes used fire to telegraph with in the Revolution. Whenever the British troops started on a raid into New Jersey, the watchmen on the hilltops lighted great beacon fires. Those who saw the fires lighted other fires farther away. These fires let the people know that the enemy was coming, for light can travel much faster than men on horseback.

Have you heard the story of Paul Revere? When the British were about to send troops from Boston to Lexington, Revere and his friends had an understanding with the people in Charlestown. Revere was to let them know when the troops should march. They were to watch a certain church steeple. If one lantern were hung in the steeple, it would mean that the British were marching by land. If two lanterns were seen, the Charlestown people would know that the troops were leaving Boston by water. Revere was sent as a messenger to Lexington. He sent a friend of his to hang up the lanterns in the church steeple.

"Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the somber rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all."

Long before Paul Revere got across the water in his little boat, the people on the other side had seen the lanterns in the tower. They knew the British were coming, and were all astir when Paul Revere got over. Revere rode on to Lexington and beyond, to alarm the people.

The lines above are from a poem of Longfellow's about this ride. The poem is very interesting, but it does not tell the story quite correctly.

Paul Revere's lanterns were used at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. There is a story of a different sort of telegraph used when the war was near its end. It is told by a British officer who had not the best means of knowing whether it was true or not. But it shows what kind of telegraphs were used in that day. This is the story:--

A British army held New York. Another British army under Cornwallis was at Yorktown in Virginia. General Washington had marched to Yorktown. He was trying to capture the army of General Cornwallis. He was afraid that ships and soldiers would be sent from New York to help Cornwallis. But there were men in New York who were secretly on Washington's side. One of these was to let him know when ships should sail to help Cornwallis.

But Washington was six hundred miles away from New York. How could he get the news before the English ships should get there? There were no telegraphs. The fastest horses ridden one after another could hardly have carried news to him in less than two weeks. But Washington had a plan. One of the men who sent news to Washington was living in New York. When the ships set sail, he went up on the top of his house and hoisted a white flag, or something that looked like a white flag.

On the other side of the Hudson River in a little village a man was watching this very house. As soon as he saw the white flag flapping, he took up his gun and fired it. Farther off there was a man waiting to hear this gun. When he heard it, he fired another gun. Farther on there was the crack of another, and then another gun. By the firing of one gun after another the news went southward. Bang, bang! went gun after gun across the whole State of New Jersey. Then guns in Pennsylvania took it up and sent the news onward. Then on across the State of Maryland the news went from one gun to another, till it reached Virginia, where it passed on from gun to gun till it got to Yorktown. In less than two days Washington knew that ships were coming.

When Washington knew that British ships were coming, he pushed the fighting at Yorktown with all his might. When the English ships got to Chesapeake Bay at last, Cornwallis had already surrendered. The United States was free. The ships had come too late.

A BOY'S TELEGRAPH.

The best telegraph known before the use of electricity, was invented by two schoolboys in France. They were brothers named Chappe (shap-pay). They were in different boarding schools some miles apart, and the rules of their schools did not allow them to write letters to each other. But the two schools were in sight of each other. The brothers invented a telegraph. They put up poles with bars of wood on them. These bars would turn on pegs or pins. The bars were turned up or down, or one up and another down, or two down and one up, and so on. Every movement of the bars meant a letter. In this way the two brothers talked to each other, though they were miles apart. When the boys became men, they sold their plan to the French Government. The money they got made their fortune.

About the time they were selling this plan to the French Government, a boy named Samuel Morse was born in this country. Fifty years later this Samuel Morse set up the first Morse electric telegraph, which is the one we now use.

In the old days before telegraph wires were strung all over the country, it took weeks to carry news to places far away. There were no railroads, and the mails had to travel slowly. A boy on a horse trotted along the road to carry the mail bags to country places. From one large city to another, the mails were carried by stagecoaches.

When the people had voted for President, it was weeks before the news of the election could be gathered in. Then it took other weeks to let the people in distant villages know the name of the new President. Nowadays a great event is known in almost every part of the country on the very day it happens.

A BOY'S FOOLISH ADVENTURE.

The Natural Bridge has long been thought one of the great curiosities of our country. It is in Virginia, and the county in which it is situated is called Rockbridge County.

The traveler is riding in a stage on a wild road in the mountains. The road grows narrow. Soon it is a mere lane, with high board fences and small trees on each side. But the traveler sees nothing to show him that he is on the wonderful Natural Bridge.

The bridge that he is driving over is about forty feet thick, and of solid rock. If he should go to the other side of the board fence, he could look down into a ravine more than two hundred feet deep.

When the traveler goes down into the ravine, he looks up at the beautiful curve of this great bridge of rock. The bridge is nearly one hundred and seventy-five feet above his head.

Many years ago, when the writer of this book was a boy, he stood in the dark chasm underneath this bridge and looked up at the great bridge of rock above. He took a stone, as all other visitors do, and tried to throw it so as to hit the arch of the bridge above. But the stone stopped before it got halfway up, and fell back, resounding on the rocks below. Then he was told the old story, that nobody had ever thrown to the arch except George Washington, who had thrown a silver dollar clear to the center of the bridge.

There were names scribbled all over the rocks. People are always trying to write their own names in such strange places as this. Above all the other names were two rows of mere scratches. If they had ever been names, they were too much dimmed to be read by a person standing on the rocks below. The lower of these two high names, the people said, was the name of Washington. It was said that when he was a young man, he climbed higher than any one else to scratch his name on the rock. And the name above his, they said, was the name of a young man who had had a strange adventure in trying to write his name above that of the father of his country.

The story of this young man's climbing up the rocks used to appear in the old schoolbooks. It was told with so many romantic additions, that it was hard to believe.

The writer afterwards learned that the main fact of the story was true, and, that the hero of the story was still living in Virginia.

This foolhardy boy, whose name was Pepper, climbed up the rock to write his name above the rest. Pepper climbed up by holding to little broken places in the rocks till he had got above the names of all the other climbers. He ventured to climb till he had passed the marks which people say are part of Washington's name. Here Pepper held fast with one hand, while he scratched his name in the rock.

His companions were far below him. He could not get down again. The rock face was too smooth. He could not stoop to put his hands down into the cracks where his feet were. If he had tried to, he would have lost his hold, and been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

There was nothing to do now but to climb out from under the bridge, and so up the face of the rock to the top of the gorge. He must do this or die.

Painfully clinging to the rock with his toes and his fingers, he worked his way up. Sometimes a crevice in the rock helped him. Sometimes he had to dig a place with his knife in order to get a hold. It seemed that each step would be his last.

The few people living in the neighborhood heard of his situation, and gathered below and above to look at him. They watched him with breathless anxiety. His friends expected to see him dashed to pieces at any moment.

As the time wore on, he worked his way up. He also got farther out from under the bridge. He held on like a cat. He hooked his fingers into every crack he could find. He dug holes with his dull knife. When he could find a little bush in the rocks, he thought himself lucky.

Men let down ropes to him, but the ropes did not reach him. They tied one rope to another so as to reach farther down, but he was too far under the bridge. The people hardly dared to speak or to breathe.

At last he began to get out at the side of the bridge where he could be seen from above. His strength was almost gone. His knife was too much worn to be of any use. He could not cling to the rock much longer.

A rope with a noose in it was swung close to him. He let go his grip on the rock, and threw his arms and body into the noose. In a moment he swung clear of the rock, and dangled in the air. The rope drew tight about his body and held him. Young Pepper knew no more. He was drawn up over the rocks to the summit quite unconscious.

Years afterward he became a man of distinction in his State. But when any of his friends asked Colonel Pepper about his climbing out from under the Natural Bridge, he would say, "Yes; I did that when I was a foolish boy, but I don't like to think about it."

A FOOT RACE FOR LIFE.

In 1803 that part of our country which lies west of the Mississippi was almost unknown to the white men. In that year the President sent Captain Lewis and Captain Clark to see what the country was like. They went up the Missouri River and across the Rocky Mountains. Then they went down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. It took them more than two years to make the trip there and back.

Lewis and Clark had about forty-five men with them. One of these men was named Colter. In the very heart of the wild country he left the party, and set up as a trapper. A trapper is a man who catches animals in traps in order to get their skins to sell. The Blackfoot Indians made Colter a prisoner. Colter knew a little of their language. He heard them talking of how they should kill their prisoner. They thought it would be fun to set him up and shoot at him with their arrows until he was dead. At this time the Indians on the western plains had no guns. But the Indian chief thought he knew a better way. He laid hold of Colter's shoulder, and said,--

"Can you run fast?"

Colter could run very swiftly, but he pretended to the chief that he was a bad runner. So they took him out on the prairie about four hundred yards away from the Indians. There he was turned loose, and told to run.

The whole band of Indians ran after him, yelling like wild beasts. Colter did not look back. He had to run through thorns that hurt his bare feet. But he was running for his life. Six miles away there was a river. If he could get to that, he might escape.

He almost flew over the ground. At first he did not turn his head round. When he had run about three miles, he glanced back. Most of the Indians had lost ground. The best runners were ahead of the others. One Indian, swifter than all the rest, was only about a hundred yards behind him. This man had a spear in his hand to kill Colter as soon as he should be near enough.

Poor Colter now ran harder than ever to get away from this Indian. At last he was only about a mile from the river. He looked back, and saw the swift Indian only twenty yards away, with his spear ready to throw.

It was of no use for Colter to keep on running. He turned round and faced the swift runner, who was about to throw his spear. Colter spread his arms wide, and stood still.

The Indian was surprised at this. He tried to stop running, so as to kill the white man with his spear. But he had already run himself nearly to death, and, when he tried to stop quickly, he lost his balance, and fell forward to the ground. His lance stuck in the earth, and broke in two.

Colter quickly pulled the pointed end of the spear out of the ground and killed the fallen Indian. Then he turned and ran on toward the river.

The other Indians were coming swiftly behind; but, as they passed the place where the first one lay dead, each of them stopped a moment to howl over him, after their custom. This gave Colter a little more time. He reached a patch of woods near the river. He ran through this to the river, and jumped in He swam toward a little island.

Logs and brush had floated down the river, and lodged across the island. This driftwood had formed a great raft. Colter dived under this raft. He swam to a place where he could push his head up to get air, and still be hidden by the brush.

The Indians were already yelling on the bank of the river. A moment later they were swimming toward the island. When they reached the drift pile, they ran this way and that. They looked into all the cracks and tried to find the white man. They ran right over his hiding place. Colter thought they would surely find him.

But after a long time they went away. Colter thought they would set fire to the raft of driftwood, but they did not think of that. Perhaps they thought that Colter had been drowned.

He lay still under the raft till night came. Then he swam down the stream a long distance, left the stream, and went far out on the prairie. Here he felt himself safe from his enemies.

But he had no clothes and no food. He had no gun to shoot animals with. It was several days' journey to the nearest place where there were white men, at a trading house.

Colter had nothing to eat but roots. The sun burned his skin in the daytime. He shivered without a covering at night. The thorns hurt his feet when he walked, but he found his way to the trading house at last.

He used to tell of wonderful things that he saw while traveling to the trading house after he got away from the Indians. He saw springs that were boiling hot and steaming. He saw fountains that would sometimes spout hot water into the air for hundreds of feet.

These and many other wonderful things that he saw at this time he used to tell about. But nobody believed his stories. Nobody had ever seen anything of the kind in this country. When Colter would tell of these things, those who heard him thought that he was making up stories, or that he had been out of his head while traveling and had thought he saw such wonders.

But after many long years the wonderful place which we call Yellowstone Park was found, and in it were boiling and spouting springs. People knew then that Colter had been telling the truth, and that he had traveled through the Yellowstone country.

LORETTO AND HIS WIFE.

In old times white men had not made settlements in the country near the Rocky Mountains. Tribes of Indians fought one another over that whole region. A few bold white men, fond of wild life, lived there, in order to hunt and trap the animals that bear furs. But they themselves were always in danger of being hunted by the Indians.

The Indians called Blackfeet and those called Crows were at war; They stole each other's horses at every chance, and the Indians of each tribe were always seeking to kill those of the other.

In one of their attacks on the Blackfeet, the Crows carried off an Indian girl. One of the bold trappers of the Rocky Mountains was a Mexican. His name was Loretto. He visited a Crow village once, and saw this girl. He fell in love with the captive, and bought her from the Crows. Whether he paid for her in horses or in beaver skins, I do not know. But from a slave of the enemies of her tribe she was changed to the wife of a white man who loved her.

Loretto was hired to trap for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. This company bought furs from the Indians of the Far West. They sent large parties to the mountains every year with guns, knives, hatchets, blankets, and other things, which they traded to the Indians for skins.

Loretto was marching over the plains with a party of trappers belonging to this company. He had his young Blackfoot wife and his baby with him. The white men were much afraid of the Blackfoot Indians. The company that Loretto was with examined every ravine that they passed, for fear that the Indians would surprise them.

One day a band of the Blackfoot tribe appeared on the prairie, but they kept near some rocks to which they could easily retire. They made signs of friendship. The trappers also made friendly signs. Then the Blackfeet sent out a party with a pipe of peace. The white men sent out a party to meet them. They smoked the pipe in the open ground between the two companies. This is the Indian way of making peace.

Of course, Loretto's wife was much interested in the Blackfeet. They were her own people. It had been a long time since she had seen one of them. She looked closely at the company smoking together, and saw that one of them was her brother. She handed the child to Loretto. Then she rushed out to the place where the treaty was going on, and her brother threw his arms about her with the greatest affection.

But just at that moment, Bridger, the captain of the white men, rode out where the pipe was being smoked. He had his rifle across the pommel of his saddle. The chief of the Blackfeet came up to shake hands with him. Bridger was afraid the chief meant to hurt him, so he slyly cocked his rifle. The chief heard the click, and seized the gun. He bent it downwards, and the gun went off, shooting a bullet into the ground. The chief took the gun and knocked Bridger off his horse with it. Then he mounted Bridger's horse and galloped back to his Indians. Indians and white men now got behind the rocks and trees which were not far away, and began to shoot at each other.

Loretto's wife was carried away by her tribe. In vain she struggled to get free, and begged to be allowed to go back to her husband and child. The Indians would not let her go.

Loretto saw her struggles, and heard her cries. He took his child, and ran to the Indians with it. He handed the child to its mother. The Indian bullets and arrows were flying all about him.

The chief saw him carry the child across the open ground, and his heart was touched. It was a noble action.

He said to Loretto, "You are crazy to go into such danger, but go back in peace; you shall not be hurt."

Loretto begged to be allowed to take his wife with him, but her brother would not let her go, and the chief now began to look angry.

"The girl belongs to her tribe," he said. "She shall not go back."

Loretto wanted to stay with his wife, but she begged him to go back, lest he should be killed on the spot. At last he left her, and went back to the white men.

Night came on, and the Indians drew off. Not much harm had been done to anybody.

Loretto could not be happy without his wife. A few months later, he settled his accounts with the Fur Company and went away. He went boldly into one of the villages of the savage Blackfeet. Here he found his wife, and staid with her.

When the white men made peace with the Blackfeet, they set up a trading house among them. Loretto joined the traders. They were glad to have him, because he could speak the language of the tribe.

A BLACKFOOT STORY.

Here is a story the Indians tell. It is one of the tales with which they amuse themselves in long evenings. It may be true. At least, the Indians tell it for true.

An Indian chief of the tribe called Blackfoot, or Blackfeet, went over the Rocky Mountains with a war party. He killed some of the enemies of his tribe, and then started back. For fear their enemies would follow their tracks, the party did not take the usual path. They went up over the wildest part of the mountain. But when it came to going down on the other side, the Indians had a hard time.

They had to clamber over great rocks and down the sides of cliffs. Drifts of snow blocked their way in places. At last they had to stop. They stood on the edge of a cliff. Below this cliff was a ridge or shelf of rock. By tying themselves together, and so helping one another down, they got to this shelf. Below this they found still another cliff. It was harder to get down to this.

But when they had got down as far as this ledge, they were in a worse plight than ever. They stood on the brink of a great cliff. The rocks were too steep for them to get down. It was hundreds of feet to the bottom.

They tried to get back up the mountain, but that they could not do. Then they sat down and looked over the brink of the cliff. There was no chance for them to get down alive. They must stay there and starve.

The Indians filled their pipes with kinnikinnick, or willow bark, and smoked. Then they knocked the ashes out of their pipes, and lay down to sleep.

But the chief did not sleep. He could not think of any way of getting out of the trouble. When morning came, they all went and looked over the cliff once more. Then they smoked again. After sitting silent for some time, the chief laid down his pipe quietly, got to his feet, and went to painting his face as if he were getting ready for a feast. He arranged his dress with the greatest care. Then he made a little speech.

"It is of no use to stay here and die," he said. "The Great Spirit is not willing that we should get away. Let us die bravely."

He added other remarks of the same kind. Then he sang his death song. When this was finished, he gave a shout, and leaped over the cliff.

When the chief had gone, the others sat down and smoked again in silence. After a long time, a weather-beaten old Indian got up and walked to the edge of the cliff.

"See," he said, "there is the soul of our chief, waiting for us to go with him to the land of spirits."

The others looked over, and saw the form of a man far below, waving the bough of a tree.

The old warrior now threw off his blanket and sang his death song. Then he leaped off. The others again looked over, and this time they saw two forms beckoning to them from below.

One after another the Indians jumped, until there were left but two young men who were little more than boys. These two boys were nephews of the chief. They had never been in a war party.

The elder of the two showed his young brother the ghosts of the whole party standing below. He told his brother he must jump off, but the frightened boy begged to be allowed to stay and die on the bare rock.

The elder seized him, and, after a struggle, pushed him over. Then he quietly gathered up all the blankets and guns, and threw them off. He thought the souls of his friends would need these things in their journey to the land of spirits.

When this was done, the young man sang his own death song and jumped off. Falling swiftly as an arrow, feet downward, he struck a great snow drift at the bottom. It received him like an immense feather bed. He sank in so far that he had hard work to get out. When he had succeeded, he found all of his party, not spirits, as he had expected, but living men, safe and sound. The snow had saved them from injury.

HOW FREMONT CROSSED THE MOUNTAINS.

It is many years now since Captain Fremont made his great journey over plains and mountains to California. At that time California belonged to Mexico. The wild country east of it belonged to the United States. There were hardly any roads and no railroads in the country west of the Missouri River. Fremont was sent out to explore that country; that is, he was sent to find out what kind of a country it was. The white people knew very little about it.

Fremont had a large party of men with many horses. After months of travel he found himself near the great Californian mountains. These mountains are called the Sierra Nevada, or "Snowy Range."

Here some Indians came to see him. He had a talk with them by signs, for he could not speak their language. They told him he could cross the mountains in summer. They said it was "six sleeps" to the place where the white men lived over the mountains. They meant that a man would have to pass six nights on the road in going there. But it was now winter, and they told him that no man could cross in the winter. They held their hands above their heads to show him that the snow was deeper than a man is tall.

But Fremont told the Indians that the horses of the white men were strong, and that he would go over the mountains. He showed them some bright-colored cloths, which he said he would give to any Indian who would go along as a guide. The Indians called in a young man who said he had been over the mountains and had seen the white people on the other side. He agreed to go with Fremont. Fremont now talked to his men, and told them there was a beautiful valley on the other side of the mountains,--the valley of the Sacramento. He told them that Captain Sutter had moved to this valley from Missouri, and had become a rich man. It was but seventy miles to Sutter's Fort. The men agreed to try to cross the mountains.

They had but little left to eat. They killed a dog and ate it that very evening. They would not have much chance to get food in crossing the mountains, but they started in bravely the next morning. They did not talk much. They knew that it was very dangerous to cross the mountains in February.

For days and days they fought their way through the snow, which got deeper and deeper as they went higher up into the mountains. Traveling grew harder and harder. The horses had nothing to eat but what could be found in little patches of grass where the wind had blown the snow off the ground. Whenever a horse or mule grew too weak to travel, the men killed it and ate it.

One day an old Indian came to see them. He told them they must not go on. He said, "Rock upon rock, rock upon rock, snow upon snow, snow upon snow, and even if you get over the snow, you will not be able to get down the mountain on the other side."

He made signs to show them that the walls of rock were straight up and down, and that the horses would slip oft. This frightened the Indians in Fremont's company, and one Indian covered up his head and moaned while the old man was talking.

The young Indian guide was afraid to go on. He ran away the next day, taking all the pretty things that Fremont had given him, and a blanket that Fremont had lent him to keep warm.

The men now made snowshoes, so that they could walk over the snow without sinking in. Sleds were made to draw the baggage on, for the horses were getting too weak to carry anything. They found the snow twenty feet deep in some places. The men had to make great mauls or pounders to beat down the snow, to make a hard road on which the animals could travel. Fremont's men now grew very hungry, for they had little to eat except when they killed a starving mule or a dog.

At last the whole party reached the top of the mountains at a place where they were nine thousand feet high. They had been three weeks in getting to the top. They had yet the hard task of getting down on the other side. But they could see the beautiful country of California below them. They began to work their way down over the snow and rocks.

After some days Fremont took a party of eight men, and went on to get provisions for the rest. But for a long distance he found no grass, and his animals began to give out. One of his men grew so hungry and tired that he became insane for a while. Another got lost from the party, and found them only after several days. He told the rest that he had suffered so much from hunger that he ate small toads, and even let the large ants creep upon his hands so that he could eat them.

One day Fremont saw some Indian huts. The Indians ran away when they saw the white men coming. Fremont found near these huts some great baskets as big as hogsheads filled with acorns. Inside the huts he found smaller baskets with roasted acorns in them. The men took about half a bushel of these roasted acorns, and left a shirt, some handkerchiefs, and some trinkets, to pay for them.

At last they came to a place where there were paths, and tracks of cattle. The horses, having found grass to eat, grew strong enough for the men to ride them. One day Fremont found some Indians, one of whom could speak Spanish.

The Indian said, "I am a herdsman, and work for Captain Sutter."

"Where does he live?"

"Just over the hill. I will show you."

In a short time Fremont and his white men were at the house of Sutter. But Captain Fremont rested only one night. The next morning he started back with food for his starving men, who were coming on behind. The second day after he left Sutter's he met his men.

They were a sad sight. They were all on foot. Each man was leading a horse as weak and lean as he was himself. Many of the horses had fallen off the rocks, and had been killed. Only half of the mules and horses that had started over the mountains had lived to get across. As soon as Fremont met his men, he told them to camp. He fed the poor starving fellows beef and bread and fresh salmon. The next day they all reached the beautiful Sacramento River, where the city of Sacramento now stands.

FINDING GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.

California once belonged to Mexico. Then there was a war between this country and Mexico. This is what we call the Mexican War. During that war the United States took California away from Mexico. It is now one of the richest and most beautiful States in the Union. In the old days, when California belonged to Mexico, it was a quiet country. Nearly all the white people spoke Spanish, which is the language of Mexico. They lived mostly by raising cattle. In those days people did not know that there was gold in California. A little gold had been found in the southern part of the State, but nobody expected to find valuable gold mines. A few people from the United States had settled in the country. They also raised cattle.

Some time after the United States had taken California, peace was made with Mexico. California then became a part of our country. About the time that this peace was made, something happened which made a great excitement all over the country. It changed the history of our country, and changed the business of the whole world. Here is the story of it:--

A man named Sutter had moved from Missouri to California. He built a house which was called Sutter's Fort. It was where the city of Sacramento now stands. Sutter had many horses and oxen, and he owned thousands of acres of land. He traded with the Indians, and carried on other kinds of business.

But everything was done in the slow Mexican way. When he wanted boards, he sent men to saw them out by hand. It took two men a whole day to saw up a log so as to make a dozen boards. There was no sawmill in all California.

When Sutter wanted to grind flour or meal, this also was done in the Mexican way. A large stone roller was run over a flat stone. But at last Sutter thought he would have a grinding mill of the American sort. To build this, he needed boards. He thought he would first build a sawmill. Then he could get boards quickly for his grinding mill, and have lumber to use for other things.

Sutter sent a man named Marshall to build his sawmill. It was to be built forty miles away from Sutter's Fort. The mill had to be where there were trees to saw.

Marshall was a very good carpenter, who could build almost anything. He had some men working with him. After some months they got the mill done. This mill was built to run by water.

But when he started it, the mill did not run well. Marshall saw that he must dig a ditch below the great water wheel, to carry off the water. He hired wild Indians to dig the ditch.

When the Indians had partly dug this ditch, Marshall went out one January morning to look at it. The clear water was running through the ditch. It had washed away the sand, leaving the pebbles bare. At the bottom of the water Marshall saw something yellow. It looked like brass. He put his hand down into the water and took up this bright, yellow thing. It was about the size and shape of a small pea. Then he looked, and found another pretty little yellow bead at the bottom of the ditch.

Marshall trembled all over. It might be gold. But he remembered that there is another yellow substance that looks like gold. It is called "fool's gold." He was afraid he had only found fool's gold.

Marshall knew that if it was gold it would not break easily. He laid one of the pieces on a stone; then he took another stone and hammered it. It was soft, and did not break. If it had broken to pieces, Marshall would have known that it was not gold.

In a few days the men had dug up about three ounces of the yellow stuff. They had no means of making sure it was gold.

Then Marshall got on a horse and set out for Sutter's Fort, carrying the yellow metal with him. He traveled as fast as the rough road would let him. He rode up to Sutler's in the evening, all spattered with mud.

He told Captain Sutter that he wished to see him alone. Marshall's eyes looked wild, and Sutter was afraid that he was crazy. But he went to a room with him. Then Marshall wanted the door locked. Sutter could not think what was the matter with the man.

When he was sure that nobody else would come in, Marshall poured out in a heap on the table the little yellow beads that he had brought.

Sutter thought it was gold, but the men did not know how to tell whether it was pure or not. At last they hunted up a book that told how heavy gold is. Then they got a pair of scales and weighed the gold, putting silver dollars in the other end of the scales for weights. Then they held one end of the scales under water and weighed the gold. By finding how much lighter it was in the water than out of the water, they found that it was pure gold.

All the men at the mill promised to keep the secret. They were all digging up gold when not working in the mill. As soon as the mill should be done, they were going to wash gold.

But the secret could not be kept. A teamster who came to the mill was told about it. He got a few grains of the precious gold.

When the teamster got back to Sutter's Fort, he went to a store to buy a bottle of whisky, but he had no money. The storekeeper would not sell to him without money. The teamster then took out some grains of gold. The storekeeper was surprised. He let the man have what he wanted. The teamster would not tell where he got the gold. But after he had taken two or three drinks of the whisky, he was not able to keep his secret. He soon told all he knew about the finding of gold at Sutter's Mill.

The news spread like fire in dry grass. Men rushed to the mill in the mountains to find gold. Gold was also found at other places. Merchants in the towns of California left their stores. Mechanics laid down their tools, and farmers left their fields, to dig gold. Some got rich in a few weeks. Others were not so lucky.

Soon the news went across the continent. It traveled also to other countries. More than one hundred thousand men went to California the first year after gold was found, and still more poured in the next year. Thousands of men went through the Indian country with wagons. Of course, there were no railroads to the west in that day.

Millions and millions of dollars' worth of gold was dug. In a short time California became a rich State. Railroads were built across the country. Ships sailed on the Pacific Ocean to carry on the trade of this great State. Every nation of the earth had gold from California.

And it all started from one little, round, yellow bead of gold, that happened to lie shining at the bottom of a ditch, on a cold morning not so very long ago.

DESCENDING THE GRAND CANYON.

The Colorado River is the strangest river in the United States. For hundreds of miles it runs through channels in solid rocks. These channels are often thousands of feet deep. In some places the rocks rise straight up like walls. These walls are quite bare. There are no trees and no grass on them. There is not even any moss to be seen. The bare rocks are of many colors. When the sunlight strikes upon them, they are as beautiful as flowers and as gorgeous as the clouds, we are told.

These deep cuts, through which the river runs, are called canyons. The longest of them is called the Grand Canyon (see frontispiece). It is about two hundred miles long. In some places it is more than a mile and a quarter deep. The river runs at the bottom of this deep ravine. It rushes over rapids, and plunges over falls. Sometimes there is a little strip of rock like a shelf at the edge of the river. In many places the walls of rock rise straight from the water, and there is no place where a man can put his feet.

Major Powell resolved to go through this canyon in boats. No boat had ever gone down this deep, dark channel. Two men, running away from Indians, had once gone into it on a raft. The raft was dashed over rapids and waterfalls. The provisions of the men were washed overboard. One of the men was drowned, and the other at last floated out at the lower end of the canyon more dead than alive.

Being a man of science, Major Powell wanted to find out about the Grand Canyon. He knew that it would be a fearful journey. He and his men might all be lost, but they made up their minds to try to go through.

They did not know how long the canyon was. They had already passed through the other canyons above, and had suffered many hardships. They knew how wild and dangerous such places are, but whether they could ever get through this great and awful gorge they did not know. But they got into their boats, and started down the long passage. The sun shines down into this narrow gorge only for a short time each day. Most of the way the walls are too steep to climb.

The boats shot swiftly down the river. Sometimes they ran over wild rapids. The men had many narrow escapes. The boats bumped against the rocks, and some of the oars were broken. New oars had to be made, and, to do this, the men had to find logs that had drifted down the river. Sometimes Major Powell and his men had to have pitch to stop the leaks in their boats. To get this, they had to climb up thousands of feet of rock to where some little pine trees grew.

They could not see far ahead, because the river was not straight, and the side walls of the narrow gorge shut out the view. Sometimes they would hear a loud roaring of water ahead. Then they knew they were coming to a waterfall. If there was any room to walk, they would carry and drag their boat round the falls. If there was no shelf or shore on which to carry the boats, they had to let them float down over the falls, the men on the rocks above holding ropes tied to the boats. Sometimes they could not even do this. Then they had to get into the boats and plunge over the falls among the rocks. They had hard work to keep off the rocks.

More than once a boat got full of water. The men had to let the boat run till they got to a wider place, where they could get the water out.

Their flour was spoiled by getting wet. Their bacon became bad. Much of their food was lost overboard. They usually slept out on the rocks by the side of the river. Sometimes they slept in caves. Once they sat up all night on a shelf of rock in a pouring rain.

All day they had to work, to save their lives. At night they had to sleep on cold rocks without blankets enough to keep them warm. The great rock walls on either side of them made an awful prison. They could not tell how far they had gone, nor did they know just how far they had to go.

At last the food ran short. The men were tired of musty flour. They had lost their baking powder, and they had to make heavy bread. They thought that even this bad food would give out before they could reach the end of the canyon.

But one day they came to a little patch of earth by the side of the river. On this some corn was growing. The Indians living on the bare rocks above had come down by some steep path to plant this little cornfield. The corn was not yet large enough to eat. But among the corn grew some green squashes.

Major Powell's men were too near starving not to take anything they could find to eat. They took some of the green squashes and put them into their boats. Then they ran on down the canyon, out of the reach of any Indians. Here they stewed some of the squashes, and ate them.