By E. V. Smalley

FURTHER WEST.

The old order of developing new regions in the West was reversed when the railroad era began. Formerly the country was settled first, and the towns grew up to supply the needs of the rural population. Afterwards the towns were created by speculators far in advance of the farming settlement; and by the conveniences they afforded for selling crops, and buying implements, lumber and household supplies, they attracted farmers to their vicinity. Each new frontier town is an advertisement of the surrounding country, upon the settlement of which it must depend for its existence. The towns-folk are untiring in their praises of the soil and climate, and if you believe them the next grade of human felicity to living in their raw little village is to live upon a farm in the neighborhood. Whatever happens in the way of disagreeable weather, they assure you it is good for the crops. If it snows in May or hails in June, they come up smiling, and remark blandly that it is just what the crops need. The creation of a new town on a line of railroad pushing its track out into the vacant, treeless spaces of the far West, is an interesting process to observe. A speculator, or a company of speculators, look over the ground carefully fifty or a hundred miles in advance of the temporary terminus of the railroad, and hit upon a site which they think has special advantages, and is far enough away from the last town. They make a treaty with the railroad company for a section of land, agreeing, perhaps, to share the prospective profits on the sale of lots. Then they "scrip" the adjoining sections of Government land, or take it up with desert land claims. A large amount of land scrip is afloat on the market issued in pursuance of Indian treaties, Agricultural College grants, old Military Bounty Land acts and other peculiar features of our complicated Public Land System. The speculator with his pocket stocked with scrip is able to pick out any choice sections not occupied by homestead or preËmption claimants. Having thus obtained a sufficient body of land to operate with, the founding of the new town is trumpeted in the newspapers, and in all the frontier region for hundreds of miles there is a stir of excitement about the coming city. Billings, on the Yellowstone, is a good example of a town made by this process. In the beginning it had no existence save in the brains of its inventors. The bare prairie was staked out in streets, avenues and parks, on a scale for a city of twenty thousand inhabitants. A map was engraved, and within a few weeks after the place got its name, the "Billings boom" began to be talked of as far east as St. Paul. Billings lots were advertised in every town from St. Paul to Miles City, and whole blocks were sold in Chicago and New York. The purchasers, as a rule, knew no more about the valley of the Yellowstone than about that of the Congo, and few of them could have put their finger on a spot upon a map within a hundred miles of Billings. They heard there was a boom, and were eager to take their chances for profit or loss. It was enough for them to hear the place spoken of as the future metropolis of the Yellowstone Valley. Within sixty days from the time when Billings got a local habitation and a name, lots to the value of $220,000 were sold within its limits, and before thirty days more had elapsed the purchasers had advanced the imaginary value of their holdings from one hundred to three hundred per cent.

Charles Dickens once said that the typical American would hesitate about entering heaven, unless assured that he could go further West. The men who lead the advance of the army of civilization on the frontier skirmish line do not come from the rear. They are always the scouts and pickets. The people of the six-weeks-old town do not come from the East. As a rule they are from the one-year-old and two-year-old towns a little further back. Most of the men I met in the Yellowstone country were from Eastern Dakota, or the Black Hills region, or from Western Minnesota. When asked why they left homes so recently made in a new country, their reply was invariably that they wanted to get further West.

BILLINGS AND COULSON.

We came upon Billings one sunny day in May [about 1882], dropped upon it, I might say; for after a ten miles' drive across a high and windy plateau, the immense dazzling range of the Big Snowy Mountains looming up in front, the ground fell away abruptly and the town lay at our feet in a broad, green valley. The yellow-pine houses, untouched by paint, glistened in the sunlight like gold. The valley, hemmed in by precipitous cliffs on the north, and by black, bare hills beyond the muddy river on the south, stretched away to the west to distant mountain slopes. Under the shadow of a huge sandstone butte lay the little hamlet of Coulson, now quite out of spirits because of the new town a mile further on. Old Coulson, it was called, though its age was only three years. It had made some money buying buffalo robes of the Crow Indians across the river, and selling shirting, groceries, and whisky to a few herdsmen whose cattle graze in the Musselshell Ranges. Now it must abandon its score of "shacks" and shanties or move them up to Billings. The new town, when I visited it, consisted of perhaps fifty cheap structures scattered over a square mile of bottom-land. Many people were living in little A tents or in their canvas-covered wagons, waiting for lumber to arrive with which to build houses. Sixty dollars a thousand was the price of a poor quality of green stuff brought from a mill twenty miles up the Yellowstone. All articles of food, except beef, were frightfully dear. Potatoes were eight cents a pound, flour six dollars a sack. I doubt if one in ten of the inhabitants could tell why he had come. The migrating impulse is the only way to account for the movement of merchants, mechanics, farmers, speculators, gamblers, liquor-sellers, preachers and doctors to a point nearly one hundred and fifty miles from anything that can be called a town—a point, too, in a region inhabited only by Crow Indians and a few scattered herdsmen. At the signal that a town was to be created, all these people, of diverse possessions and ambitions, moved forward and occupied the site as though they were soldiers marching at the word of command. What a wonderful self-organizing thing is society! How did the German baker from St. Paul, the milliner from Minneapolis, the Chinese laundryman from the Pacific slope, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the butcher, the beer-seller, the grocer and all the other constituent parts of a complete community happen to feel the desire, at the same time, to go with their trades and wares to a remote spot in an unknown land?

Large herds of cattle graze in the valleys of the Yellowstone and its tributaries, and in the hill country as far north as the Upper Missouri, wherever there are small streams or water holes. Now that the buffalo is fast disappearing, the region would afford pasturage to at least ten times as many cattle as it supports at present. The stockmen who occupy it are generally careful, however, not to let this fact be known, as they naturally would like to keep the whole section for the future increase of their own herds. Cattle-raising in Montana is an exceedingly profitable business. One hears a great deal said in the Territory of the wealth of the "cattle-kings," and how they began their careers a few years ago with only a few hundred dollars. The local estimate of the annual return from money invested in a herd of cattle is from thirty to fifty per cent. The life of a stockman is not, however, an idle and comfortable one, as often pictured in the newspaper accounts of the business. Unless he is rich enough to hire herdsmen he must look after his herd constantly. He lives, as a rule, in a wretched dirt-roof "shack," and passes most of the time in the saddle, seeing that his animals do not stray too far off the range. In the fierce winter storms he must be out driving the herd into ravines and deep valleys, where they will be protected from the wind. No shelter is built for stock in Montana. The dried bunch-grass furnishes abundant winter grazing, and the animals get through the severe weather with a loss rarely exceeding four per cent. In the spring each owner "rounds up" his herd, and brands the calves. Every ranchman has his own brand, which he registers in the office of the county clerk, and advertises in the nearest local paper, printed, it may be, one or two hundred miles from his range. The annual drive of bullocks across the plains southward to the Union Pacific Railroad, or eastward to the temporary terminus of the Northern Pacific, takes place in the summer months.

BITTER ROOT VALLEY.

South of Missoula within rifle-shot, is the entrance to the great Hell Gate CaÑon; westward across the angle formed by the two rivers rises the huge, dark wall of the Bitter Root Mountains, higher here, and more picturesque, than the main range of the Rockies, which are half concealed by the grassy swells of the foot-hills on the east. Lo-Lo Peak, the loftiest and most individual mountain of the Bitter Root chain, is covered with snow all summer; its altitude must be about ten thousand feet. Northwest of the town the valley is broad enough for cultivation for a distance of twenty miles, when it closes in at the caÑon of the Missoula River. A range for which there is not even a local name rims the valley on the north. One summit, called Skotah Peak, is a perfect pyramid in form. This cloud-compassed landmark we shall not lose sight of in three days' travel.

Up the Bitter Root Valley there are farms scattered for sixty miles. The valley is warmer than any other in Western Montana, and the small fruits and some hardy varieties of apples are grown. Herds of horses and cattle feed on the slopes of the mountains. Grain and potatoes are grown by irrigation, and the valley is a source of food-supply for military posts and mining-camps. Hogs are fattened upon peas and wheat, and the flavor of a Bitter Root ham is something altogether unique and appetizing. In June the bitter-root plant, from which the valley gets its name, covers all the uncultivated ground with its delicate rose-colored stars. The blossom, about as large as a wild rose, lies close upon the earth. The long, pipestem-like root is greatly relished by the Indians for food. When dried it looks like macaroni, and it is by no means unpalatable when cooked with a little salt or butter, or eaten raw. The squaws dig it with long sticks, and dry it for winter food. Another root, also a staple in the aboriginal larder, is the camas, which loves moist prairies, where it flaunts its blue flowers in the early summer. In June, when the camas is ready to gather, even the most civilized Indian on the Flathead reservation feels the nomadic impulse too strong to resist. He packs his lodge upon ponies, and starts with his family for some camas prairie, where he is sure to meet a numerous company bent on having a good time.

A MONTANA TOWN.

The picturesque features of life in a Western Montana town like Missoula are best seen as evening approaches. Crowds of roughly clad men gather around the doors of the drinking-saloons. A group of Indians, who have been squatting on the sidewalk for two hours playing some mysterious game of cards of their own invention, breaks up. One of the squaws throws the cards into the street, which is already decorated from end to end with similar relics of other games. Another swings a baby upon her back, ties a shawl around it and herself, secures the child with a strap buckled across her chest, and strides off, her moccasined feet toeing inward in the traditional Indian fashion. She wears a gown made of a scarlet calico bed-quilt, with leggings of some blue stuff; but she has somehow managed to get a civilized dress for the child. They all go off to their camp on the hill near by. Some blue-coated soldiers from the neighboring military post, remembering the roll-call at sunset, swing themselves upon their horses and go galloping off, a little the worse for the bad whisky they have been drinking in the saloons. A miner in blue woolen shirt and brown canvas trousers, with a hat of astonishing dimensions and a beard of a year's growth, trots up the street on a mule, and, with droll oaths and shuffling talk, offers the animal for sale to the crowd of loungers on the hotel piazza. No one wants to buy, and, after provoking a deal of laughter, the miner gives his ultimatum: "I'll hitch the critter to one of them piazzer posts, and if he don't pull it down you may have him." This generous offer is declined by the landlord; and the miner rides off, declaring that he has not a solitary four-bit piece to pay for his supper, and is bound to sell the mule to somebody.

Toward nightfall the whole male population seems to be in the street, save the busy Chinamen in the laundries, who keep on sprinkling clothes by blowing water out of their mouths. Early or late, you will find these industrious little yellow men at work. One shuffles back and forth from the hydrant, carrying water for the morning wash in old coal-oil cans hung to a stick balanced across his shoulders. More Indians now—a "buck" and two squaws, leading ponies heavily laden with tent, clothes and buffalo robes. A rope tied around a pony's lower jaw is the ordinary halter and bridle of the Indians. These people want to buy some article at the saddler's shop. They do not go in, but stare through the windows for five minutes. The saddler, knowing the Indian way of dealing, pays no attention to them. After a while they all sit down on the ground in front of the shop. Perhaps a quarter of an hour passes before the saddler asks what they want. If he had noticed them at first, they would have gone away without buying.

THE STAGE-COACH.

Now the great event of the day is at hand. The cracking of a whip and a rattle of wheels are heard up the street: the stage is coming. Thirty-six hours ago it left the terminus of the railroad one hundred and fifty miles away. It is the connecting link between the little isolated mountain community and the outside world. No handsome Concord coach appears, but only a clumsy "jerky" covered with dust. The "jerky" is a sort of cross between a coach proper and a common wagon. As an instrument of torture this hideous vehicle has no equal in modern times. The passengers emerge from its cavernous interior looking more dead than alive. A hundred able-bodied men, not one of them with a respectable coat or a tolerable hat, save two flashy gamblers, look on at the unloading of the luggage. The stage goes off to a stable, and the crowd disperses, to rally again, largely reinforced, at the word that there is to be a horse-race.

Now the drinking saloons—each one of which runs a faro bank and a table for "stud poker"—are lighted up, and the gaming and guzzling begin. Every third building on the principal business street is a saloon. The gambling goes on until daylight without any effort at concealment. In all the Montana towns keeping gaming-tables is treated as a perfectly legitimate business. Indeed, it is licensed by the Territorial laws. Some of the saloons have music, but this is a rather superfluous attraction. In one a woman sings popular ballads in a cracked voice, to the accompaniment of a banjo. Women of a certain sort mingle with the men and try their luck at the tables. Good order usually prevails, less probably from respect for law than from a prudent recognition of the fact that every man carries a pistol in his hip-pocket, and a quarrel means shooting. The games played are faro and "stud poker," the latter being the favorite. It is a game in which "bluff" goes farther than luck or skill. Few whisky saloons in Montana are without a rude pine table covered with an old blanket, which, with a pack of cards, is all the outfit required for this diversion.

The main street of the frontier town, given up at night to drinking and gambling, by no means typifies the whole life of the place. The current of business and society, on the surface of which surges a deal of mud and driftwood, is steady and decent. There are churches and schools and a wholesome family life.

A ROCKY MOUNTAIN VALLEY.

The Jocko Valley is one of the prettiest of the minor valleys of the Rocky Mountain system. It was all a green, flowery meadow when I traversed it in the month of June. Its width is about ten miles and its length perhaps thirty. Low, wooded mountain ranges surround it. That on the east is broken by the main branch of the stream, and through the rift can be seen the main chain of the Rockies—a mighty mass of crags and cliffs and snow-fields thrust up among the clouds. For thirty miles after the Jocko joins the Clark's Fork of the Columbia, called by most people in this region the Pend d'Oreille River, the main river is bordered by narrow green bottoms and broad stretches of grassy uplands rising to the steeper inclines of fir-clad mountains. Herds of horses are occasionally seen, and now and then the log hut of some thrifty Indian or half-breed, or the canvas lodge of a family that prefers the discomforts and freedom of savage life to the comforts and restraints of a local habitation. The first night out from the agency was spent at the hut of one of the queer characters that hang about Indian reservations,—a shiftless white man, who pays for the privilege of ferrying travelers across the river by taking the Indians over free. He lives in a dirty one-room hut. In response to a suggestion about supper, he declared that he would not cook for the Apostle Paul himself, but added that we were welcome to use his stove, and could take anything eatable to be found on the premises. His bill next morning was seven dollars—one dollar, he explained, for victuals for the party, and six for ferriage. A wagon-box offered a more inviting place for a bed that night than the floor of the ferryman's cabin.

A day's travel brought us out of the Flathead Reservation, and at the same time to the end of the wagon road and of the open country. The road did not, like one of those western highways described by Longfellow, end in a squirrel track and run up a tree, but it stopped short at a saw-mill on the river's edge, where a hundred men were at work cutting logs and sawing bridge timber for the railroad advancing up the gorge eighty miles below.

There are many camas prairies, big and little, in Montana and Idaho, and they all resemble each other in being fertile green basins among the mountains, in whose moist soil the camas plant flourishes. This was, perhaps, fifteen miles broad by twenty-five long—all magnificent grazing land. We passed an Indian village of a dozen lodges, the doors of the tents shaded by arbors of green boughs, under which sat the squaws in their red, green and white blankets. On the plain fed herds of horses, and among them Indian riders galloped about seeking the animals they wanted to lariat for the next day's hunting expedition.

FOREST TRACKS.

Nor is the forest altogether lonely. Occasionally a pack-train is met, or a party of pedestrians, tramping with blankets, provisions and frying-pans from the settlements or railroad camps west of the mountains to those in the mountain valleys, and sleeping al fresco wherever night overtakes them. Rough fellows these, but good-humored, and in no way dangerous. Indeed, there is no danger in any of the country I traversed on my northwestern pilgrimage, to a traveler who minds his own business and keeps out of drinking dens. Almost everybody I met had a big pistol strapped to him; but I carried no weapon of any kind, and never once felt the need of one.

In Montana every traveler carries his bed, whether he depends upon hoofs or wheels for locomotion, or on his own legs. Even the tramp who foots it over the prairies and through the mountains, pretending to look for work, but really on a summer pleasure tour, subsisting upon the country, has a pair of dirty blankets or an old quilt slung by a rope across his shoulders. The sleeping equipment of a traveler who can afford to pay some attention to comfort, consists of a buffalo robe and two pairs of blankets. With these, and perhaps a rubber poncho, he is prepared to stop wherever night overtakes him, fortunate if he has a roof over his head, and a pine floor to spread his buffalo upon, but ready to camp out under the stars. Along the stage roads one is rarely more than twenty miles from a house of some kind, but no one expects beds. The ranchman does not ask his guests if they would like to go to bed; he says: "Well, gents, are you ready to spread your blankets?"

A FAR WESTERN TOWN.

My journey next took me to Walla-Walla, largest and handsomest of all the East Washington towns. Doubtless the name of Walla-Walla brings no suggestion to the minds of most readers in the far-away East, save of a rude frontier settlement. Yet the place luxuriates in verdure and bloom, and many of its shady streets, bordered by pretty houses, with their lawns, orchards and gardens, would be admired in a New England village, while the business streets would do no discredit to an Ohio town of half a century's growth. In the homes of well-to-do citizens one finds the magazines and new books and newspapers from New York, Boston and Philadelphia, and discovers that they manage to keep abreast of the ideas of the time quite as well as intelligent people on the Atlantic slope. The town has five thousand inhabitants, but in its importance as a center of trade and social influences it represents an Eastern town of many times its size. There is barely a trace of the frontier in the manners of the people, and none at all in their comfortable way of living; yet they are thousands of miles from New York by the only route of steam travel. A fairer or more fertile country than that which stretches south and east of Walla-Walla to the base of the Blue Mountains one might travel more than five thousand miles to find. In June it is all one immense rolling field of wheat and barley dotted at long intervals—for the farms are large—with neat houses, each in its orchard of apple and peach trees. The mountains rise in gentle slopes to snow-flecked summits. Over the wide plain move tall, tawny cloud-like columns of dust, in size and shape like water-spouts at sea. From the foot-hills scores of these singular formations may be seen on any warm day, though the air seems still.