The Overland Monthly/Volume 5/Rough Times in Idaho
Rough Times in Idaho.
LEWISTON, built of boards and canvas, looking sickly and discouraged, stood shivering in the wind of October, 1862, and wincing under volleys of pebbles that struck the sounding houses with such force you might have thought an unseen army was bombarding them. The town looked as if it had started down from the mines in the mountains above, ragged and discouraged, and, getting to where it then was, had sat down in the forks of the river to wait for the ferry. The town looked as if it ought to go on—as if it wanted to go on—as if it really would go on, if the wind kept blowing and the unseen army kept up the cannonade.
On your left, as you looked down the course of the Columbia, sixty miles away, the Snake River came tumbling down, as if glad to get away from the clouds of dust, sage-brush, and savages. On the other hand, the Clear Water came on peacefully from the woody region of Pen d'Oreille, and joined company for the Columbia. Up this stream a little way stood the old adode wintering quarters of Lewis and Clarke, exploring here under President Jefferson, in 1803; and a few rods beyond, the broad camp of the Nez Perces Indians flapped and fluttered in the wind—while the sombre lock of a Blackfoot warrior streamed from the war-chief's tent.
There is something insufferably mean in a windy day in the northern Territories. The whole country is a cloud of alkali dust—you are half-suffocated and wholly blinded—you shut your eyes and compress your lips—you hold your hat with both hands, lean resolutely against the wind, and bravely wait for it to go by. But it will not go by; it increases in fierceness; it fills your hair and your nostrils with dust; it discharges volleys of little pebbles, flints, and quartz into your face till it smarts and bleeds, and then, all suddenly, goes down with the setting sun.
The mines thus far found in the north had proved of but little account; and the miners were pouring back, as from a Waterloo. I had run a fierce opposition to Wells, Fargo & Co.; and as a result, sat alone in my office, trying to think, calmly as I could, how many of the best years of my life it would take to settle the costs, when the most ragged and wretched - looking individual I ever beheld, looking back stealthily over his shoulder, entered, and took a seat silently in the farther corner. He had around, heavy head, covered with a shaggy coat of half-gray hair, which an Indian the least expert could have lifted without the trouble of removing his patched apology for a hat. He had an enormous chin, that looked like a deformity. He seemed to sit behind it and look at me there, as you would sit behind a redoubt in a rifle-pit, watching an enemy. His right hand stuck stubbornly to his pocket, while his left clutched the bowl of his pipe, which he smoked furiously, driving the smoke fiercely through his nostrils like steam through twin-valves. I think his tattered duck-pants were stuck in the tops of his boots; but after the lapse of nearly eight years I do not remember distinctly. However, this is not so important. He looked up at me, pulled busily at his pipe, then dropped his head and deliberately fired a double-barreled volley of smoke at his toes, that looked up wistfully from the gable-ends of his boots. Then he arose, glanced at the door, and being sure that we were alone, shuffled up to the counter, and drew out a purse from his right pocket, half the length of my arm.
"Ned," he cried, in a harsh, cracked voice, "don't you know me? That's gold; and I know where there's bushels of it."
"What! Baboon?—beg pardon, Mr. Bablaine."
"No! Baboon. Old Baboon; that's my name. Old Baboon."
As this man was the real finder of that vast gold-field, including Salmon, Warren's, Boise, Owyhee, and Blackfoot, it is but right that the world should have a brief of his history, as well as his photograph.
Peter Bablaine, Esq., of Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, reached San Francisco in 1849, as refined and intelligent a gentleman as could be found. A few weeks of luckless ventures, however, left him unable to respond to his landlady's bill. She said, fiercely, "You are no gentleman." He answered, quietly, "Neither are you, Mrs. Flanagan;" and quietly left the house. He felt that he had lost or left something behind him. He had. The "Esq." had been knocked from his name as easily as you would wish to kick a hat from the pavement on the first day of April.
Another week of wandering about the town in dirty linen, and his acquaintances treated the tail-end of his Christian name as Alcibiades did the celebrated dog of Athens. He was now simply "Pete Bablaine," and thus set out for the mines. A few months of hard usage, and he found the whole front of his name ripped off and lost. "Bablaine" was all that was left.
Ten years now passed. Ten terrible years, in which this brave and resolute man had dared more than Cesar, had endured more than Ney; and he found that the entire end of his father's name had been, somewhere in the Sierras,
worn or torn away, and hid or covered up forever in the tailings. He was now nothing but "Bab." Here, while groundsluicing one night on Big Humbug, and possibly wondering what other deduction could be made and not leave him nameless, he was caught in a cave, sluiced out, and carried head-first through the flume. This last venture wore him down to about the condition of an old quartercoin, where neither date, name, nor nationality can be deciphered. His jaws were crushed, and limbs broken, till they lay in every direction, like the claws of a sea-crab. They took him to the County Hospital, and there they called him "Old Bab." It was a year before he got about; and then he came leaning on a staff, with a frightful face. He had lost all spirit. He sat moodily about the hospital, and sometimes said bitter things. One day he said of Grasshopper Jim, who was a great talker: "That man must necessarily lie. There is not truth enough in the United States to keep his tongue going forever as it does." One evening a young candidate told him he was going to make a speech, and very patronizingly asked him to come out and hear him. Old Bab looked straight at the wall, as if counting the stripes on the paper, then said, half to himself, "The fact of Balaam's ass making a speech has had a more demoralizing influence than any other event told in the Holy Bible; for ever since that time, every lineal descendant seems determined to follow his example." His face was never relieved by a smile, and his chin stuck out fearfully; so that one day, when Snapping Andy, who was licensed by the miners to be the champion growler of the camp, called him "Old Baboon," it was as complete as a baptismal, and he was known by no other name.
"The sorrowful know the sorrowful." I was then a helpless, sensitive, white-headed boy, and so found refuge and rein the irony of Old Baboon, and, like the Captain, "made a note of it."
Some women visited him one evening: fallen angels—women with the trail of the serpent all over them— women that at that day lived their fierce, swift lives through in a single lustrum, and at the same time did deeds of mercy that put their purer sisters to the blush. They gave him gifts and money, and, above all, words of encouragement and kindness. He received it all in silence; but I saw when they had gone that the coldness of his face had tempered down, like a wintry hill-side under a day of sun. He moodily filled the meerschaum they had brought him, and after driving a volume of smoke through his nose, looked quietly at me and said: "Society is wrong. These women are not bad women. For my part, I begin to find so much that is evil in that which the world calls good, and so much that is good in what the world calls evil, that I refuse to draw a distinction where God has not." Then he fired a double-barreled volley at society through his nose, and throwing out volume after volume of smoke as a sort of redoubt between himself and the world he hated, drifted silently into a tropical, golden land of dreams.
This was the man who now stood before me with gold enough to buy the town.
"There are nine of us," he went on, "all sworn not to tell. Of course, being sworn, they have all taken the first opportunity to tell their friends and send word to their relatives. Therefore, I will tell you."
This is briefly his account of the discovery. When it reached California that gold had been found in the great watershed of the Columbia River, the miners waited for none of the details as to the wealth of the mines, their extent, or the dangers and hardships to be endured. They poured over the northern mount ain-walls of Nevada-California, dreaming the dreams of '49. He fretted to go, and being able to travel, the fallen angels again fluttered around the friendless man, and his outfit was as complete as the camp could afford. Arrived north, the mines were found a failure, and a party of prospectors attempted to reach the Shoshone Falls through the densely timbered mountains from Elk City. He was of the number. They made but little headway; and the party of forty, in a few weeks, was reduced to nine. Then some became worn-out and discouraged, and being reduced to half-rations, attempted to return by what they thought a shorter route. After nine days' struggle through dense undergrowth and fallen timber, they came out on a little prairie. Here they found signs of game, and being entirely out of provisions, they determined to turn out their horses on the grass and replenish with their rifles. Baboon was left to keep camp. Their blankets were spread by a little spring stream that hugged a dénse growth of tamarack at the edge of the prairie. The prairie lay near the centre of an immense, snow-crested, horseshoe opening to the south, of about thirty miles in diameter. A farm on the Ohio could have produced as many "indications" to the California gold-hunter as the site of this camp; but as the day wore on and the hunters delayed return, Baboon, to kill time, took up a pan, stepped to where a fallen tamarack had thrown up the earth, filled it, and carelessly washed it out. Marshall, in the mill-race, could not have been more astonished. Half a handful of gold —rough, .rugged little specimens, about the size of wheatgrains, and of very poor quality, as it afterward proved, being worth but $11 an ounce—lay in the pan; and the great gold belt, which embraced Salmon, Warren's, Boise, Owyhee, and Blackfoot, was found!
I said, "Thank you, Mr. Bablaine."
He looked at me with blended pride and pain, and deliberately firing a doublebarreled volley of smoke at my breast, told me to make the best use of the discovery, gave me a written direction of the course and locality, and went out. In less than a week I was in the new mines with a cargo that sold for a dollar a pound before it was unpacked. This was I-da-hoe: the Indian name for this vast basin, or horseshoe, with its snowy crest, which interpreted, means "Gem of the Mountains."
Baboon Gulch—a little indention 'of not more than a hundred yards in length, dipping down the prairie to a larger gulch—was perhaps the richest spot of earth ever found. The gold lay beneath a thin turf, or peat, on a soft, granite bed-rock in a stratum of but one or two inches thick, and but a few inches wide. This stratum was often half gold. The oath of Baboon could be had. to-day, showing that the lightest day's yield was fourteen pounds of gold dust.
Having been the butt of the party, and having but little love or respect for his companions, when he left me at Lewiston he went into the streets, and, depending entirely on his interpretation of faces, made up a party of his own—all poor men—and before sunrise was on his return. I found, when I entered the camp, that he had one evening laid off a town and given it the name of the writer; but the next morning, those who had not procured lots, not feeling disposed to pay from $1,000 to $5,000 when there was so much vacant ground adjoining, went a few hundred yards farther on, and there, under the direction of Dr. Furber, formerly of Cincinnati, and author of "Twelve Months a Volunteer," laid off a town and named it Florence, after the Doctor's oldest daughter. The town laid out by my friend never received the distinction of a single building. However, with a singular tenacity, it retained its place in the maps
of Idaho, and there, at least, is as large and flourishing as its rival.
On the 3d day of December, in the fierce storm we read the prophecy of the fearful winter of 1862-3. Thousands of homeless and helpless men began to pour out over the horseshoe in the direction of Lewiston. Going into the camp late one night with the express, I met Baboon and his party quietly making their way over the mountain. Each man had a horse loaded with gold. Promising to return and overtake them, I rode on, and soon met a party headed by the notorious Dave English and Nelse Scott. They were all well-known robbers, and down on the books of the Expressmen as the worst of men;. but, as there was not a shadow of civil law, and Vigilantes had not yet asserted themselves, these men moved about as freely as the best incamp. Only a few days before had occurred an incident which gave rise to a new and still popular name for their Order. Scott and English had reached a station on the road with their horses badly jaded. They were unknown to the keeper of the station, who had the Express-horses in charge; and not wishing to do violence to get a change of horses, resorted to strategy. They talked loudly to each other concerning the merits of their stock, and quietly telling the keeper they were connected with the Express, and were stocking the road— acting as road agents—ordered him to saddle the two best horses at the station, and take the best possible care of theirs till their return. He did so, and when the Express arrived that night for its relays, the innocent keeper told the rider the "road agents" had taken them.
English was a thick-set, powerful man, with black beard and commanding manner. One of his gray eyes appeared to be askew, but, other than that, he was a fine-looking man. He was usually goodnatured; but when roused, was terrible.
Scott was tall, slim, brown-haired, and had a face fine and delicate as a woman's. Both men, as well as their four followers —one of whom was once well known to circus -goers of California as Billy Peoples— were young.
Knowing their object, I asked them if Old Baboon had left camp.
They answered, "Yes, they thought he had." They then halted, and I rode by uninterruptedly. I reached camp, got a fresh horse, returned, and before dawn overtook Baboon and party. Six days, or rather nights, of travel, and we reached Lewiston, now a sea of canvas. The next day English and party also entered. The river was full of ice, and the steamers tied up for the winter. Even the ferry was impassable for thirteen days. It was a little over one hundred miles to Walla Walla, anc the snow deep and still falling. We had hardly got over the ferry, when English and party followed. But as we had been joined by three resolute men, and were now nine, while they were but six, we kept on. We knew their business, and when they passed us soon, chatting gayly, they must have felt, from our compact manner of travel and silence, that they were understood. I observed that they were splendidly mounted and armed.
It was twenty-four miles to Petalia —-the nearest station. The days were short, and the snow deep. With the best of fortune, we did not expect to make it till night. At noon we left the Alpowa, and rode to a vast plateau without stone, stake, or sign to point the way to Petalia, twelve miles distant. Here the snow was deeper, more difficult; besides, a furious wind had set in, which blinded and discouraged our horses. It was intensely cold. We had not been an hour on this high plain before each man's face was a mass of ice, and our horses white with frost. The sun, which all day had been but dim, now faded in the storm like a star of morning drowned
in a flood of dawn, and I began to experience grave fears. Still English and party kept on—not so cheerful, not so fast as before, it is true—but still kept on as if they felt secure. Once I saw them stop, consult, look back, and then in a little while silently move on. I managed to turn my head a moment in the terrible storm, and saw that our trail was obliterated the moment we passed. Return was impossible—even had it been possible to recross the river, if we had reached it. Again they halted, huddled together, looked back, then slowly struggled on again: sometimes Scott, sometimes English, and then Wabash or Peoples in the lead; but most of the time that iron-man English silently and stubbornly kept ahead. I did not speak to Baboon—it was almost impossible to be heard; besides, it was useless. I now knew we were in deadly peril —not from the robbers, but from the storm. Again they halted; again grouped together, gesticulating in the storm, shielding their faces against the sheets of ice. Our trail had closed like a grave behind us, and our horses were now floundering helplessly in the snow. Again English struggled on; but at three in the evening, standing up to the waist in the snow beside his prostrate horse, he shouted for us to approach. We did so, but could scarcely see each other's faces as we pushed against the storm. We held our heads bowed and necks bent, as you have seen cattle at such times in a barnyard.
"H——'s to pay, boys! I tell you, h——'s to pay; and if we don't keep our heads level, we'll go up the flume like a spring salmon. Which way do you think is the station?" said English.
Most of the party did not answer, but of those who did, scarcely two agreed. It was deplorable—pitiful. To add to our consternation, the three men who had joined us at Lewiston did not come up. We called, but no answer. We
never saw them again. In the spring following some Indians brought in a notebook, which is now in my possession, with this writing: "Lost in the snow, December 19th, 1862, James A. Keel, of Macoupin County, IIl.; Wesley Dean, of St. Louis; Ed. Parker, of Boston." They, at the same time, brought in a pair of boots containing bones of human feet. The citizens went out and found the remains of three men, and also a large sum of money.
English stopped, studied a moment, and then, as if resolving to take all into his own hands, said:
"We must stick together; stick together, and follow me. I will shoot the first man who don't obey, and send him to hell a-fluking."
Again he led on. We struggled after in silence —benumbed, spiritless, helpless, half-dead. Baboon was moody, as of old. Scott seemed like a child. It grew dark soon, the most fearful darkness I ever saw. I heard English call and curse like a madman. "There is but one chance," he said; "come up here with your horses, and cut off your saddles." He got the horses together as close as possible, and shot them down —throwing away his pistols as he emptied them. Throwing the saddles on the heap, he had each man wrap his blankets around him, and all huddle together on the mass.
"No nodding, now! I'll shoot the first man who don't answer when I call him."
I truly believe he would have done so. Every man seemed to have given up all hope, save this fierce man of iron. He moved as if in his element. He madea track in the snow around us, and kept constantly moving and shouting. In less than an hour we saw the good effects of his action: the animal heat from the horses warmed us as it rose.
Suddenly English ceased to shout, and uttered an oath of surprise. The storm had lifted like a curtain; and
away in the north, as it seemed to us, the full, stately moon moved on toward the east. That moon to us was as the sea to the Ten Thousand. We felt that we were saved. For asthe moon seemed going in the wrong direction for the station, we, of course, were in the right, and could not be far from help.
When the morning sun came out, our leader bade us up and follow. It was almost impossible to rise. Baboon fell, rose, fell, and finally stood on his feet. But one of his party —a small German, named Ross—could not be roused. English returned, cursed, kicked, and rolled him over the frozen horses, and into the snow, but it was useless. I think he was already dead; at least he had not moved from the position we left him in, when found by the returning party.
At eleven in the morning English, who still resolutely led the party, gave a shout of joy, as he stood on the edge of a basaltic cliff, and looked down on the parterre. A long, straight pillar of white smoke rose from the station, like a column of marble supporting the blue dome above.
The dead man and money were brought in, and in a few days the trail broken.
Baboon stood leaning on the neck of his horse, and firing double-barreled discharges of smoke across it, as over a barricade. Then he called Scott and English to him; told them he knew their calling; still he liked them; that he believed a brave robber better than many legal thieves who infested the land; and offered them, or any of their band, a fair start in life, to leave the mountains and go with him. Scott laughed gayly—it flattered his vanity; but English was for a moment very thoughtful. Then he threw it off, and spoke a moment to Wabash—a quiet, half-melancholy young man, born in the papaw woods of Indiana.
"Wabash has been wanting to quit and go home," said English to Baboon.
"Take him—he is braver than Lucifer —and not a hair of your head shall be hurt."
Wabash then solemnly shook hands with his old companions, and rode on. English and his remaining comrades returned to Lewiston.
We reached Walla Walla safely, and I never saw Wabash or Baboon again. But a letter lies before me as I write, postmarked Easton, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and signed "Old Baboon." This letter contains the following paragraph:
"The house stands in this wood of elms. We have two California grizzlies, and a pair of bull-dogs. Wabash keeps
the dogs chained, but I let the grizzlies go free. We are not troubled with visitors."
Scott, English, and Peoples were arrested, some months later, for highway robbery, and, heavily ironed, were placed
under guard, in a log-house, as a temporary jail. That night was born the first Vigilance Committee of the north. It consisted of but six men, mostly Expressmen. About midnight, under pretense of furnishing the guard with refreshments, they got hold of their arms, and told the prisoners they must die. Scott asked time to pray; English swore furiously, but Peoples was silent. Soon one of the Vigilantes approached Scott,
where he was kneeling, and was about to place a noose over his head.
"Hang me first," cried English, "and let him pray."
The wonderful courage of the man appealed strongly to the Vigilantes, but they had gone too far to falter now. They had but one rope, and proceeded to execute them, one ata time. When the rope was around the neck of English, he was respectfully asked by his executioners to invoke his God. He held down his head a moment, muttered something, then straightened himself up, and turning to Scott, said:
"Nelse, pray for me a little, can't you, while I hang? D—— if I can pray."
He looked over to where Peoples sat, still as a stone, and continued, "D—— if I can pray, Billy; can you?"
Peoples died without a word or struggle. When they came to Scott, and put the rope about his neck, he was still praying most devoutly. He offered, for his life, large sums of money, which he said he had buried; but they told him he must die. Finding there was no escape, he took off his watch and rings, kissed them tenderly, and handing them to one of the Vigilantes, said, "Send these to my poor Armina," and quietly submitted. At dawn the three men, eyes aglare, lay side by side, in their irons, on the floor, rigid in death.