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Authors: Richard S. Wheeler
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suggestion was all it took to remedy or achieve anything he wished. I didnât know, and probably will never know, what the manâs hold was on others.
The Delawares left us the next morning. They had agreed to accompany us a way but didnât want to tangle with some of the tribes we were facing ahead. The colonel continued up the Smoky Hill fork for the next days. These were exposed stretches, with a howling wind that burrowed into a manâs clothing and chilled him fast. The temperatures were mostly in the twenties and thirties, but it felt worse. There wasnât a tree in sight most of the time, nothing to break the gale that whipped through our straggling party.Despite good cured shortgrass, some of the mules were weakening, and I wondered whether the colonel was aware of it. He wasnât stopping to let them recruit. Sometimes one day on good grass is all they need. But the colonel plunged on, through increasingly barren country, in weather that did nothing to lift the mood of the company. If the greenhorns needed hardening, they were getting it sooner than expected.
At least there were buffalo. For some reason, our hunters continued to drop bulls instead of good cows, but we made do with tongues and boiled bull stew, at least when we could find enough deadwood to build fires. There were places where the plains stretched to infinity and not one tree was visible. The messes were fed with some antelope and even some coon meat the hunters felled here and there, but the staple was bull meat, boiled until it surrendered.
Then one day Frémont turned us south, and we headed over a tableland that divided the drainages of the Missouri and Arkansas and plunged into a lonely sea of shortgrass that probably would take us to the Arkansas some hard distance away. But the winds never quit, and now they brought bursts of pellet snow, which settled whitely on the ground and on the packs, shoulders, and caps of our men. It was early and wouldnât last, but it was snow and it brought on chill winds that never quit and drove me half-mad. I just wanted to find a hollow somewhere, an overhang, a cozy place where that fingering wind didnât probe and poke and madden me. For the first time, I began to wonder about this trip. It made no sense at all to travel this time of year.
The colonel didnât seem to notice the cold or the wind. He rode without gloves and didnât hunch down in his saddle the way most of the men were hunched, trying to rebuff the cruel wind. I wondered what sort of god-man Frémont was, riding like that, as if he was unaware of the suffering around him, unaware that others were numb and miserable.But he didnât choose to see what I was seeing. He had no eyes for the hunched-up mules that stopped eating and put their butts to the wind and hung their heads low. We sheltered where we could, sometimes under a cutbank, other times in a gulch, but it didnât help much. The wind always found us. The wind found everyone except Colonel Frémont. I swear, the wind quit dead when it came to him; I swear he rode in an envelope of calm warm air, never knowing what other men, mules, and horses were going through.
CHAPTER SEVEN
John Charles Frémont
We reached the valley of the Arkansas River in perfect ease, and I was satisfied that the exploration would proceed without difficulty. My outfitting had never been better despite limited funds, and we were proof against the worst that nature could throw at us. We entered the wide sagebrush-covered valley and found it largely denuded of trees on its north bank, so we crossed at a good gravel ford and then the travel was more comfortable and there were ample willow and hackberry and cottonwood to feed our fires and build our shelters. The road was excellent, not so churned up as it is on the north bank, where the Santa Fe trade had wrought quagmires.
I was satisfied that we had located a good rail route across the prairies, and Charles
The Delawares left us the next morning. They had agreed to accompany us a way but didnât want to tangle with some of the tribes we were facing ahead. The colonel continued up the Smoky Hill fork for the next days. These were exposed stretches, with a howling wind that burrowed into a manâs clothing and chilled him fast. The temperatures were mostly in the twenties and thirties, but it felt worse. There wasnât a tree in sight most of the time, nothing to break the gale that whipped through our straggling party.Despite good cured shortgrass, some of the mules were weakening, and I wondered whether the colonel was aware of it. He wasnât stopping to let them recruit. Sometimes one day on good grass is all they need. But the colonel plunged on, through increasingly barren country, in weather that did nothing to lift the mood of the company. If the greenhorns needed hardening, they were getting it sooner than expected.
At least there were buffalo. For some reason, our hunters continued to drop bulls instead of good cows, but we made do with tongues and boiled bull stew, at least when we could find enough deadwood to build fires. There were places where the plains stretched to infinity and not one tree was visible. The messes were fed with some antelope and even some coon meat the hunters felled here and there, but the staple was bull meat, boiled until it surrendered.
Then one day Frémont turned us south, and we headed over a tableland that divided the drainages of the Missouri and Arkansas and plunged into a lonely sea of shortgrass that probably would take us to the Arkansas some hard distance away. But the winds never quit, and now they brought bursts of pellet snow, which settled whitely on the ground and on the packs, shoulders, and caps of our men. It was early and wouldnât last, but it was snow and it brought on chill winds that never quit and drove me half-mad. I just wanted to find a hollow somewhere, an overhang, a cozy place where that fingering wind didnât probe and poke and madden me. For the first time, I began to wonder about this trip. It made no sense at all to travel this time of year.
The colonel didnât seem to notice the cold or the wind. He rode without gloves and didnât hunch down in his saddle the way most of the men were hunched, trying to rebuff the cruel wind. I wondered what sort of god-man Frémont was, riding like that, as if he was unaware of the suffering around him, unaware that others were numb and miserable.But he didnât choose to see what I was seeing. He had no eyes for the hunched-up mules that stopped eating and put their butts to the wind and hung their heads low. We sheltered where we could, sometimes under a cutbank, other times in a gulch, but it didnât help much. The wind always found us. The wind found everyone except Colonel Frémont. I swear, the wind quit dead when it came to him; I swear he rode in an envelope of calm warm air, never knowing what other men, mules, and horses were going through.
CHAPTER SEVEN
John Charles Frémont
We reached the valley of the Arkansas River in perfect ease, and I was satisfied that the exploration would proceed without difficulty. My outfitting had never been better despite limited funds, and we were proof against the worst that nature could throw at us. We entered the wide sagebrush-covered valley and found it largely denuded of trees on its north bank, so we crossed at a good gravel ford and then the travel was more comfortable and there were ample willow and hackberry and cottonwood to feed our fires and build our shelters. The road was excellent, not so churned up as it is on the north bank, where the Santa Fe trade had wrought quagmires.
I was satisfied that we had located a good rail route across the prairies, and Charles
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