The fall of 1854 and the winter and spring of 1855 were not unlike our previous winters in California. There was but little to do except watch the cattle to keep them from straying. Hunting was about the only diversion and game was still plentiful. Grass was abundant all through the winter and the cattle fattened rapidly. During the spring and summer months we marketed all that were in proper condition, still receiving excellent prices. About the first of August brother Zack and I rigged up our pack mules and started back to meet James and Robert who had turned back the year before to gather up another herd and bring it across the plains during the summer. We passed over the mountains and reached the sixty-mile desert, which was about two hundred and fifty miles back on the plains from our ranch. In all the year we had heard nothing from home, and the only information we had that they were on the road was the promise they made us as they left our train the year before. We camped just at the western edge of the desert and during the night a train pulled in off the desert. We inquired of them next morning whether they had seen or heard of Gibson's train. They said they had passed it somewhere on Humboldt River, but could not give the exact location. They also told us the Indians had killed one of the Gibson boys. They did not know which one—had just heard of the circumstance as they passed. This sad news was a great blow to us. We broke camp hurriedly and started across the desert, weighed down by the sad reflection that we would He said one day while on their journey over the mountains between Fort Laramie and the higher waters of North Platte, and while the herd was moving forward in order, he rode ahead to locate a camping place for the night and left Robert in charge. He had been gone but a short time when six Indians came up to the train and in their way inquired for the captain. One of the men told them he was in the rear. They rode back and when they reached the men in the rear turned their ponies and rode along with the train some distance. Robert, who, though only seventeen, had made four trips across the plains and understood the Indians, told the boys to watch them as he thought they were up to mischief. He feared they intended to get between the wagons, which were traveling close up behind the cattle, and loose horses and When they returned to the train the boys had rounded up the cattle and were standing guard over them and the dead body. Nothing could be done but move on, but what was to be done with Robert's body? James said to attempt a burial where the wolves and coyotes would dig the body up was out of the question, and then he could not bear the idea of leaving him alone on those desolate mountains. So he put the body in one of the wagons and carried it forward two days journey, where they came to a trading post on the upper crossing of North Platte kept by an old Frenchman. There they procured a wagon box which they used for a coffin and buried him the best they could and protected the grave from wolves. James, learning that the Frenchman intended to go back to St. Joseph in about two months, employed him to take the body back with him and gave him an order for five hundred dollars in gold on Robert Donnell. I may as well relate here that the Frenchman kept his promise, brought the body back and got his money, and that Robert now lies buried in the old family cemetery in Tremont Township. I learned this on my return, and that mother identified the body by examining the toes, one of which Robert had lost in an accident when quite a little boy. Although the story was a sad one and our hearts were very heavy, still we could not tarry with our grief. The cattle must cross the desert and reach food and water beyond. James asked if we had had breakfast. I told him we had not—that we had traveled hard all night, but that we had a camp outfit and would prepare something after the cattle had started across the desert. When the train was under full way, we stirred the coals of their camp fire, threw on some greasewood brush and soon prepared bread and meat and coffee. The mules browsed on grease wood and we rested a couple of hours and then started after the train. All that day and all the next night—a steady drive, only now and then an hour's halt for food for ourselves and rest for the cattle. By eleven o'clock the following morning we were on Carson River, and glad we were, too. Zack and I had crossed over, taking twenty-four hours and back thirty hours—fifty-four hours without sleep or rest except two hours at the end of our first journey. In all my travels, and I look at it now after more than fifty years, with the experiences of the Civil War intervening, I have never seen a place so beautiful as Carson River and valley, not because it is more picturesque or naturally more enchanting than many places I have seen, but because it was so welcome with its cold mountain waters and fresh green vegetation after our weary journeys across the barren desert, and I never thought it more beautiful to behold than on this, my last visit. Men, cattle and horses all took a good long rest, but the train was up and many miles on the road before Zack and I awoke and followed. Two weeks more and the cattle were safe on the ranch and we were During the fall of 1855 and the spring of 1856 we marketed off the fat cattle. Sold Graham and Henry of Georgetown five hundred head to be delivered fifty head every two weeks. Georgetown was a mining camp one hundred miles northeast of our ranch. Our cattle were scattered over our own ranch and the ranches of Phillips, Wolfscale and Barker, and were well mixed with their wild cattle and horses. It rained almost constantly. The plains were boggy and the streams full of water. We had no time to lose and were in the saddle almost day and night, if not on the road to Georgetown, then rounding up and sorting out the cattle. We delivered the first fifty head on the fifteenth day of October and the last on the first of April, and were glad when our task was over. The summer following passed without event worthy of mention. In the fall we sold Graham & Henry three hundred more cattle to be delivered in the same manner as the first, and had much the same experience, except that our work did not last so long. In the fall of fifty-seven, we sold our fat cattle and dairy cows to Miller & Lux, wholesale dealers in cattle in San Francisco. Delivery there was not so difficult. Our ranch was but twenty miles from San Francisco Bay, and after a drive to the shore of the bay the cattle were shipped across to the city. In the spring of eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, Brother Isaac withdrew from the business and returned to Missouri. We gave him fourteen thousand dollars in gold and deeded him sixty acres of land in Tremont Township, Buchanan County, for his interest. We continued the business through the year 1859 as partners. Brother William Toward Christmas we heard that our mother had died. This left our old father alone on the farm with the negroes, and we decided to leave our cattle in the care of Jones, Glenn and Kessler and go back and visit him. It was too late in the season to attempt the plains. The hot, dry summer on the plains had parched and withered the scant vegetation that had grown in the spring and early summer, and the excessive cold and accumulations of snow in the higher altitudes, rendered a trip by land almost impossible in winter, so, much as we disliked the trip by water, we decided to make it. I will not attempt to relate the incidents of this trip, as they were unimportant. There was, besides, little to distinguish it from the first voyage over the same route, which I have already described. After reaching home we remained with our father until the first of May, when the start back overland must be made. It was decided that one of us must remain with father, and as Zack and I were in partnership and William was alone in his business, the choice of remaining at home lay between Zack and myself, as either of us could easily care for our cattle. I gave I took charge of the farm at home and with the help of the negroes, managed it through the season, and thus relieved father of all worry and responsibility. He had his horse and buggy and a black boy to care for it and drive him about the farm and over the neighborhood. Everything moved along in the usual way and I had a pleasant and restful summer—not so much restful from work, but restful compared with the excitement and over-exertion incident to a journey with cattle across the plains. I congratulated myself upon the choice Zack had made and was preparing for a year or two more of peace and quiet, but the death of my father the following fall left me alone with the farm and negroes. I remained with them throughout the winter, lonely and unpleasant as it was without my father, and planted and harvested most of the crop in sixty-one under many trying conditions. Stirring public events which began with the breaking out of the war interrupted my farming operations, and my part in them will furnish the material for several succeeding chapters. |