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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 3, 1901)
Conservative * 9 mysterious Pawnee Republic in Nebras ka ; mysterious in that no man can tell why it was BO called. These well-fenced fields , these thrifty orchards and some times elaborate farm-buildings , give no hint of the previous occupation , ended BO short a time ago after so many ages of continuance ; but the trails of the buffalo are still plain , carved deep in the hill-sides , and as the dusk gathers in the east and the landscape becomes veiled one can imngine that he sees Indian encampments on open reaches of prairie , near the cottonwood fringed creeks ; the cluster of tepees , the herded ponies , the wood fires , the squaws put tering about the evening meal. Imliuna. It is dark , being December , when we reach Hntchinson , where we are fed and where the roaring of great steam- whistles proclaims a manufacturing town. Here , in fact , commercial use is made on a large scale of the salt waters which , being so widely scattered in this region , cut so large a figure in the ex perience of the first explorers. Some were glad to make their soup thereof , finding it , when done , already seasoned to their taste ; others , arriving choked with thirst at a long-pursued stream , would be struck with despair at finding it bitter salt. Here we cross the Arkansas , and the fancy is led away up its winding bed to the solemn mass of Pike's Peak , under whose mighty shadow its first sources trickle forth. Here the river swings away northward in the Great Bend , for the extremity of which the old trail has shaped its course since it left the Kan sas. The earlier line of the railroad follows around that big curve also , but trains do not now run so that one can see that region by daylight. It is a pity , for that is interesting country , in a ) reminiscent way. There the traveler found himself in the territory of the dreaded Pawnees ; at first a famous re sort for buffalo , later the most danger ous region along the line ; there is Pawnee Greek , where many a party has been ambushed , and Pawnee Bock , where more than one handful of Indian- fighters have deemed themselves lucky to be able to take refuge. The Night Run. All night we are toiling up the Arkan sas. We pass a number of places re nowned in frontier history. There is Ohouteau's Island , or The Caches where , 72 years ago , a party of adven turers , escaping from the Oomanches hid their goods in holes in the sand by night that they might fly the faster There is the station called Oimarrone the Lower Crossing of the freighting days , where the two routes to Santa Fe diverged ; one running across country from this point , much the shorter , bu lacking in wood , water and pasturage and therefore the scene sometimes o horrible sufferings. And there is Bent's Fort , near the location of that ancient rading-post , preserving the name of a once famous family whose story has not ) een written. There is material for a great book in the history of those four mothers and their half-breed progeny , 'rom ' Governor Charles Bent , murdered by the people of Taos in 1847 , to one- eyed George Bent , the outlaw , killed by ; he troops in the Indian outbreak of 1864 ; and material for many books in he careers of some of the frequenters of the old fort ; Jim Beokwourth , Kit Carson , Bad hand Fitzpatriok , Fremont , Parkman , General Kearney , Colonel Doniphan , these are a few of the names that mention of Bent's Fore brings to mind. Colorado. In the morning the prudent traveler whose quarters are on the right-hand side of the train has a fine string of snowy mountains in sight from the first breaking of day. This is the Oulebras Range , not lofty mountains as compared with parts of the system further north , but very good to look at. There is no monotony in a mountain chain , as there is in prairie country , though in the one case you have the same things before your eyes for hours at a time while in the other objects are continually changing. Here we have the Spanish Peaks presented to us for the greater part of the forenoon until in fact , we cross the Raton Range ; two beautifully shaped mountains , or sum mits to one mountain , of apparently identical size and outline , and now shining in noble white under the cloud less sky ; one's eyes follow them contin ually and seek them eagerly again when near hills hide them from view. Here is Trinidad , named by the pious Spaniards for the Holy Trinity ; here we see what great coal mines have grown out of the prospecting of those large ants , which the soldiers of Kear ney's army saw in 1846 , bringing parti cles of anthracite coal to the surface and making their ant-hills of them. And here we enter the region of adobe houses which prevail from this latitude south ward and which always make a first impression of being very miserable little mud-heaps. Here they are yellow further along they are bright brick-red partaking as a matter of course of the color of the soil. The eye is continually misled in the calculating of distances as it rests on the passing hillside at a fancied range of 100 yards , it is bewild ered at finding that objects are really a quarter of a mile away. A group of men swing into view , and are seen for a moment as toy figures ; a bunch o horses come in sight and appear to be the tiny animals out of a Noah's Ark. Antiquities. This is now the exact line of the old trail , and places of historical interes are pointed out , and with apparent accuracy , to such passengers as seem to have time for that kind of thing , by the official who escorts each caravan in turn over the line and looks after their comfort and welfare. Here is Simpson's Rest , where a stone obelisk is seen on a dizzy height , commemorative of an early settler with a taste for isolation ; here is Fisher's Peak , scene of an episode of the Mexican war , when an officer started to climb it before breakfast and returned to camp on the second evening ; thus first giving rise , perhaps , to the story now found attached to most mountain peak ) in the west. And here , most interesting and authentic of all , is old Uncle Dick Wooton's ranch and boll-house , built in his old age by one of the picturesque early band of trappers and Indian fighters , who occupied him self with improving the wagon road over this range. The place is plainly visible on the right , shortly before the summit is reached ; the old man died there only some five years ago , but it is already tumbling into decay. The Divide. The train labors up the mountain-side by a tortuous route , affording many fine views of distant snowy peaks superim posed upon the nearer mountains. The line between Colorado and the territory of New Mexico nearly the last of our once numerous sisterhood of territories is crossed at almost the same time as the divide of the Raton Range , the high est point on the A. T. & S. F. system , 7622 feet above sea level ; we drag through a weary tunnel , and emerge into foreign lands. A poster on the first section -house is headed "Aviso ; " these dark-faced laborers in the track gangs are Mexicans ; their mud villages and swarming brown babies belong to another civilization than that wo saw yesterday from these same windows. The harder the climb on the other side the more easily do we slip down on this. The train runs , as they say , like a scared wolf ; the children lean out at the windows to watch the two mighty engines scuttling ahead as they appear on one side or the other in rounding the sudden curves. And presently we find ourselves down on the plain at the town of Raton , which yon must pronounce Rattoon , and where , it is gratifying to observe , the drama of "Quo Vadis" is soon to be presented at the opera house. The Vegas. Thence we pass forth over the wide plains that are known by the Spanish name for "meadows. " They are very flat , very dry , very long. There are places provided for water to run off , set down on the map as affluents of the Canadian river , but there is no water to run ; at some time there must have been much water to dig those channels , which look as if they had been scooped out of the solid rook by an enormous
