by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XXII.
ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND.
Leaving M'Connell and a few other Cambridge men to take charge of theGreat Telescope, Marston and Belfast in little more than an hour afterthe receipt of the exciting dispatch, were scudding down the slopes ofLong's Peak by the only possible route--the inclined railroad. Thismode of travelling, however, highly satisfactory as far as it went,ceased altogether at the mountain foot, at the point where the DaleRiver formed a junction with Cache la Poudre Creek. But Marston, havingalready mapped out the whole journey with some care and forethought, wasready for almost every emergency. Instinctively feeling that the firstact of the Baltimore Gun Club would be to send a Committee to SanFrancisco to investigate matters, he had determined to meet thisdeputation on the route, and his only trouble now was to determine atwhat point he would be most likely to catch them. His great start, heknew perfectly well, could not put him more than a day in advance ofthem: they having the advantage of a railroad nearly all the way, whilsthimself and Belfast could not help losing much time in strugglingthrough ravines, canyons, mountain precipices, and densely tangledforests, not to mention the possibility of a brush or two with prowlingIndians, before they could strike the line of the Pacific Railroad,along which he knew the Club men to be approaching. After a few hoursrest at La Porte, a little settlement lately started in the valley,early in the morning they took the stage that passed through from Denverto Cheyenne, a town at that time hardly a year old but alreadyflourishing, with a busy population of several thousand inhabitants.
Losing not a moment at Cheyenne, where they arrived much sooner thanthey had anticipated, they took places in Wells, Fargo and Co.'s_Overland Stage Mail_ bound east, and were soon flying towards Julesburgat the rate of twelve miles an hour. Here Marston was anxious to meetthe Club men, as at this point the Pacific Railroad divided into twobranches--one bearing north, the other south of the Great Salt Lake--and he feared they might take the wrong one.
But he arrived in Julesburg fully 10 hours before the Committee, so thathimself and Belfast had not only ample time to rest a little after theirrapid flight from Long's Peak, but also to make every possiblepreparation for the terrible journey of more than fifteen hundred milesthat still lay before them.
This journey, undertaken at a most unseasonable period of the year, andover one of the most terrible deserts in the world, would require avolume for itself. Constantly presenting the sharpest points of contrastbetween the most savage features of wild barbaric nature on the onehand, and the most touching traits of the sweetest humanity on theother, the story of our Club men's adventures, if only well told, couldhardly fail to be highly interesting. But instead of a volume, we cangive it only a chapter, and that a short one.
From Julesburg, the last station on the eastern end of the PacificRailroad, to Cisco, the last station on its western end, the distance isprobably about fifteen hundred miles, about as far as Constantinople isfrom London, or Moscow from Paris. This enormous stretch of country hadto be travelled all the way by, at the best, a six horse stage tearingalong night and day at a uniform rate, road or no road, of ten miles anhour. But this was the least of the trouble. Bands of hostile Indianswere a constant source of watchfulness and trouble, against which even amost liberal stock of rifles and revolvers were not always areassurance. Whirlwinds of dust often overwhelmed the travellers socompletely that they could hardly tell day from night, whilst blasts oficy chill, sweeping down from the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains,often made them imagine themselves in the midst of the horrors of anArctic winter.
The predominant scenery gave no pleasure to the eye or exhilaration tothe mind. It was of the dreariest description. Days and days passed withhardly a house to be seen, or a tree or a blade of grass. I might evenadd, or a mountain or a river, for the one was too often a heap ofagglomerated sand and clay cut into unsightly chasms by the rain, andthe other generally degenerated into a mere stagnant swamp, itsshallowness and dryness increasing regularly with its length. The onlyhouses were log ranches, called Relays, hardly visible in their sandysurroundings, and separate from each other by a mean distance of tenmiles. The only trees were either stunted cedars, so far apart, as to beoften denominated Lone Trees; and, besides wormwood, the only plant wasthe sage plant, about two feet high, gray, dry, crisp, and emitting asharp pungent odor by no means pleasant.
In fact, Barbican and his companions had seen nothing drearier orsavager in the dreariest and savagest of lunar landscapes than thescenes occasionally presented to Marston and his friends in theirheadlong journey on the track of the great Pacific Railroad. Here,bowlders, high, square, straight and plumb as an immense hotel, blockedup your way; there, lay an endless level, flat as the palm of your hand,over which your eye might roam in vain in search of something green likea meadow, yellow like a cornfield, or black like ploughed ground--a mereboundless waste of dirty white from the stunted wormwood, often renderedmisty with the clouds of smarting alkali dust.
Occasionally, however, this savage scenery decidedly changed itscharacter. Now, a lovely glen would smile before our travellers,traversed by tinkling streams, waving with sweet grasses, dotted withlittle groves, alive with hares, antelopes, and even elks, butapparently never yet trodden by the foot of man. Now, our Club men feltlike travelling on clouds, as they careered along the great plateauwest of the Black Hills, fully 8,000 feet above the level of the sea,though even there the grass was as green and fresh as if it grew in somesequestered valley of Pennsylvania. Again,
"In this untravelled world whose margin fades For ever and for ever as they moved,"
they would find themselves in an immense, tawny, treeless plain,outlined by mountains so distant as to resemble fantastic cloud piles.Here for days they would have to skirt the coasts of a Lake, vast,unruffled, unrippled, apparently of metallic consistency, from whosesapphire depths rose pyramidal islands to a height of fully threethousand feet above the surface.
In a few days all would change. No more sand wastes, salt water flats,or clouds of blinding alkali dust. The travellers' road, at the foot ofblack precipitous cliffs, would wind along the brink of a roaringtorrent, whose devious course would lead them into the heart of theSierras, where misty peaks solemnly sentinelled the nestling vales stillsmiling in genial summer verdure. Across these they were often whirledthrough immense forests of varied character, here dense enough toobscure the track, there swaying in the sweet sunlight and vocal withjoyous birds of bright and gorgeous plumage. Then tropical vegetationwould completely hide the trail, crystal lakes would obstruct it,cascades shooting down from perpendicular rocks would obliterate it,mountain passes barricaded by basaltic columns would render ituncertain, and on one occasion it was completely covered up by a fall ofsnow to a depth of more than twenty feet.
But nothing could oppose serious delay to our travellers. Their mottowas ever "onward!" and what they lost in one hour by some mishap theyendeavored to recover on the next by redoubled speed. They felt thatthey would be no friends of Barbican's if they were discouraged byimpossibilities. Besides, what would have been real impossibilities atanother time, several concurrent circumstances now renderedcomparatively easy.
The surveys, the gradings, the cuttings, and the other preliminarylabors in the great Pacific Railroad, gave them incalculable aid.Horses, help, carriages, provisions were always in abundance. Theirobject being well known, they had the best wishes of every hand on theroad. People remained up for them all hours of the night, no matter atwhat station they were expected. The warmest and most comfortable ofmeals were always ready for them, for which no charge would be taken onany account. In Utah, a deputation of Mormons galloped alongside themfor forty miles to help them over some points of the road that had beenoften found difficult. The season was the finest known for many years.In short, as an old Californian said as he saw them shooting over therickety bridge that crossed the Bear River at Corinne: "they hadeverything in their favor--_luck_ as well as _pluck_!"
The rate at which
they performed this terrible ride across theContinent and the progress they made each day, some readers may considerworthy of a few more items for the sake of future reference. Discardingthe ordinary overland mail stage as altogether too slow for theirpurpose, they hired at Julesburg a strong, well built carriage, largeenough to hold them all comfortably; but this they had to replace twicebefore they came to their journey's end. Their team always consisted ofthe best six horses that could be found, and their driver was the famousHank Monk of California, who, happening to be in Julesburg about thattime, volunteered to see them safely landed in Cisco on the summit ofthe Sierra Nevada. They were enabled to change horses as near aspossible every hour, by telegraphing ahead in the morning, during theday, and often far into the hours of night.
Starting from Julesburg early in the morning of the 17th, their firstresting place for a few hours at night was Granite Canyon, twenty mileswest of Cheyenne, and just at the foot of the pass over the Black Hills.On the 18th, night-fall found them entering St. Mary's, at the furtherend of the pass between Rattle Snake Hills and Elk Mountain. It wasafter 5 o'clock and already dark on the 19th, when the travellers,hurrying with all speed through the gloomy gorge of slate formationleading to the banks of the Green River, found the ford too deep to beventured before morning. The 20th was a clear cold day very favorablefor brisk locomotion, and the bright sun had not quite disappearedbehind the Wahsatch Mountains when the Club men, having crossed theBear River, began to leave the lofty plateau of the Rocky Mountains bythe great inclined plane marked by the lines of the Echo and the WeberRivers on their way to the valley of the Great American Desert.
Quitting Castle Rock early on the morning of the 21st, they soon came insight of the Great Salt Lake, along the northern shores of which theysped all day, taking shelter after night-fall at Terrace, in a miserablelog cabin surrounded by piles of drifting sand. The 22d was a terribleday. The sand was blinding, the alkali dust choking, the ride for fiveor six hours was up considerable grade; still they had accomplishedtheir 150 miles before resting for the night at Elko, even at thisperiod a flourishing little village on the banks of the Humboldt. Afteranother smothering ride on the 23d, they rested, at Winnemucca, anotherflourishing village, situated at the precise point in the desert wherethe Little Humboldt joins Humboldt River, without, however, making thechannel fuller or wider. The 24th was decidedly the hardest day, theircourse lying through the worst part of the terrible Nevada desert. But aglimpse of the Sierras looming in the western horizon gave them courageand strength enough to reach Wadsworth, at their foot, a little beforemidnight. Our travellers had now but one day's journey more to makebefore reaching the railroad at Cisco, but, this being a very steepascent nearly all the way up, each mile cost almost twice as much timeand exertion.
At last, late in the evening of Christmas Day, amidst the mostenthusiastic cheers of all the inhabitants of Cisco, who welcomed themwith a splendid pine brand procession, Marston and his friends,thoroughly used up, feet swelled, limbs bruised, bones aching, stomachsseasick, eyes bleared, ears ringing, and brains on fire for want ofrest, took their places in the State Car waiting for them, and startedwithout a moment's delay for Sacramento, about a hundred miles distant.How delicious was the change to our poor travellers! Washed, refreshed,and lying at full length on luxurious sofas, their sensations, as thelocomotive spun them down the ringing grooves of the steep Sierras, canbe more easily imagined than described. They were all fast asleep whenthe train entered Sacramento, but the Mayor and the other cityauthorities who had waited up to receive them, had them carriedcarefully, so as not to disturb their slumbers, on board the _YoSemite_, a fine steamer belonging to the California Navigation Company,which landed them safely at San Francisco about noon on the 26th, afteraccomplishing the extraordinary winter journey of 1500 miles over landin little more than nine days, only about 200 miles being done by steam.
Half-past two P.M. found our travellers bathed, dressed, shaved, dined,and ready to receive company in the grand parlor of the _OccidentalHotel_. Captain Bloomsbury was the first to call.
Marston hobbled eagerly towards him and asked:
"What have you done towards fishing them up, Captain?"
"A good deal, Mr. Marston; indeed almost everything is ready."
"Is that really the case, Captain?" asked all, very agreeably surprised.
"Yes, gentlemen, I am most happy to state that I am quite in earnest."
"Can we start to-morrow?" asked General Morgan. "We have not a moment tospare, you know."
"We can start at noon to-morrow at latest," replied the Captain, "if thefoundry men do a little extra work to-night."
"We must start this very day, Captain Bloomsbury," cried Marstonresolutely; "Barbican has been lying two weeks and thirteen hours in thedepths of the Pacific! If he is still alive, no thanks to Marston! Hemust by this time have given me up! The grappling irons must be got onboard at once, Captain, and let us start this evening!"
At half-past four that very evening, a shot from the Fort and a loweringof the Stars and Stripes from its flagstaff saluted the _Susquehanna_,as she steamed proudly out of the Golden Gate at the lively rate offifteen knots an hour.