THE CRUISE OF A SCHOONER
Chapter I—Getting Started
In planning an extended trip in this country, or Europe, the first thing one usually does is to consult, if convenient, friends who have been there before. After deciding when you will start, you look up time-tables or the departure of boats, reserve accommodations for your party, pack your grips or trunks, and you are ready to start. In driving overland it is different; you may find some one to consult with who has made the trip before you,--but the chances are that all those who have done so are dead. You will have no time-tables to consult and, if you go as we did, no reservations to make.
It all looked so easy, while I was only thinking about it, that it seemed simplicity itself. Just get a team of horses and a wagon, and start. Incidentally, I would have plenty of company,--so many folks had said they would like to go. We would have a tent, cots, cook, guide, and all the necessary outfit.
As a matter of fact, this is what really happened. When approached on the subject, my friends, who had talked about going with me, were one by one unexpectedly prevented from making the trip. They either had to go to Europe or had such pressing business duties that they could not possibly get away; every one of them, however, said something that sounded as if they were very sorry they could not go, but which really meant that they had drummed up this excuse on purpose.
As a result, I found I had only myself to consult, and so I set a date on which I was sure I could start. It was only after this date was set that I was sure I was going to get away. May 1, 1910, was the time decided upon, but, as the roads in and around Chicago are not very good at that season, I concluded that this would be the best time of the year to cross the desert. After some planning I decided to tackle the worst part of the trip first, while my enthusiasm lasted, and so, I concluded, I would go to California, get my outfit together, and start from there.
I had another reason besides the time of the year and the condition of the roads for starting from California, which was that I would get away where my friends could not talk me out of starting by telling me how hard the trip was, how foolish I was, how tired I would be of it all before I finished, and that I would sell the outfit and come back before I had been gone a month. In view of the above practical as well as precautionary reasons, I left Chicago for Los Angeles. All I took with me was a few old clothes and my Chesapeake dog Tuck, planning to outfit in full at Los Angeles, and start from there as soon as I could possibly get ready. At the last moment I received word from my old hunting partner, Dr. Lancaster, of Nevada, Missouri, that he and his brother Robert would make the trip with me and would meet me at Los Angeles on May the fifth. This was especially gratifying news, as I had been rather afraid I might have to make the trip all alone.
Arriving at Los Angeles, May fifth, I met the Doctor and Bob, who had come down from San Francisco, and we at once proceeded to get together a suitable outfit for the trip. It took us ten days to do this, as we had a wagon to buy and fit up with bows and overjets, together with a platform for the water barrels; besides horses and provisions, a wagon sheet, tarpaulin, stove, tent, and a lot of other things we thought we needed.
While assembling the outfit we spent considerable time looking over a line I had drawn on the map before leaving Chicago, and which we aimed to follow as closely as possible in going east to Chicago.
This line was drawn without regard to roads, mountains, or desert, and represented as short a line as I thought the lay of the land would permit. It was so straight and looked so easy on the map that we wondered why the Forty-niners went so far south, and the Mormons so far north. We planned how many miles we could make in a day, and made a
Although our maps showed towns here and there in the desert, we began to consider our undertaking quite seriously when the old-timers, who were familiar with the desert, began to ask concerning our route. On looking at the line on our map they began to make predictions, such as, “You will never get across the Mojave so late in the season without mules,” “No wagon can follow the route you have mapped out,” “If you get through to Las Vegas without leaving your outfit strung along the trail, you will be lucky.” Such remarks set us to thinking a little hard, but as the Doctor and I were not exactly “tenderfeet,” having camped and hunted together under all sorts of conditions and in nearly all parts of the United States, we resolved to stick to our plans and go over the route as laid out, even if no one else had ever gone that way. We would demonstrate that it could be done, but we would prepare for any emergency and go as light as possible.
First, we decided to do without a guide (a good resolution, seeing there was none to be had), and next, to do without a cook. This saved provisions and water, and made it possible to travel with less baggage. Having advised our families where we would be at various times, and having collected our outfit at the barns of the Southern California Edison Company, we were ready to start Saturday morning, May the fourteenth.
In order that the reader may have in his mind’s eye a picture of the outfit, including the members of the party, not omitting the dog, I will try to paint a word-picture of it.
Imagine that you see coming out of a side street into Peco Street, a team of medium-sized horses wearing a set of heavy tin-bespangled harness, attached to a regulation wide-tread ranch wagon with canvas top, with a water barrel on each side. A bale of alfalfa hay is seen on the carrier behind, and a lantern swings from one of the bows. Inside are two spring seats, the second being occupied by a large, brown, yellow-eyed dog, and the front seat by two very ordinary-looking individuals of uncertain age. Following the wagon is a tall slim man on a bay mare. There you have a mental picture of our outfit as seen by the inhabitants of Los Angeles that May morning as we started on our long journey.
The two men on the front seat were Robert Lancaster and the writer; the tall man on the bay mare was Doctor Lancaster. We had stored inside the wagon our provisions, bedding, tools, tent, cots, horse feed, etc. We also carried an extra single-tree and clevis, together with a single harness for use in case it should become necessary to use all three horses.
Our exit was anything but spectacular. We said good-bye to three or four friends, feeling ourselves somewhat conspicuous on account of our brand-new appearance, but were soon lost in the crowd of a large city, and forgot we were on anything but a morning’s drive in a rather slow coach through a busy town, until we found ourselves well out in the country, with an appetite for dinner.
We were taking what is called the “Lower Road,” from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, and had arrived at a grove of eucalyptus, affording shade and a place to tie and feed the horses, so we pulled out to the side of the road and made our first stop. Here we found a place to water the horses, and after eating a cold lunch and giving the horses plenty of time to eat, we interviewed our neighbors--a man and his wife and boy--camped near us, who had come from the north by wagon and were going down into Mexico. They had a team of horses and a saddle pony. They were just seeing the country, and had camped here near Los Angeles to rest up their stock and see the town. They seemed to have done nothing else all their lives but drive about, always looking for a good place to locate, but never finding one to their satisfaction; so they only stopped here and there to earn enough money to carry them to the next
Having satisfied our curiosity regarding our neighbors, and picked up a few bits of valuable advice about camping in the desert country, we started on, driving to within about nine miles of Pomona, where we camped alongside of the road--which was also by the side of the railroad track--having made about twenty-five miles the first day.
The Doctor and Bob had taken turns riding Dixie, and I had done the driving. This was to be our regular procedure. During this, our first day out, we had put into working operation our plans for the trip. Bob was to do the cooking and I was to do the driving and take care of the horses. We had also begun to get acquainted with the horses. It is a good deal of a lottery to pick, out of a strange bunch, suitable horses for such a trip, and as so much of the success of the journey depended upon our motive power, and so much of my reputation as a horseman on the horses themselves, I was especially interested in learning their weak points as early as possible. So far they had proved to be fearless, and as the night camp alongside of the railroad track with trains passing under their very noses, so to speak, had failed to arouse signs of nervousness in any of them, I began to feel that they could be depended upon not to stampede. Whether they could be relied upon in a pinch to pull us out of a bad place, and if they had good tempers or not, we had yet to learn.
At this camp we tried for the first time our coal oil stove, and pronounced it a decided success. Our bed was made upon the ground by putting down our tarpaulin beside the wagon. Upon it we rolled ourselves in our blankets, Tuck, the dog, sleeping at our feet and watching the camp and horses, giving us notice if anything went wrong.
Our bill of fare was to consist principally, when we could get them, of bacon and eggs, and bread and butter. Our staples were canned beans, prunes, apricots, oatmeal, rice, and crackers, in addition to which we carried, of course, salt, pepper, sugar, and condensed cream--and honey also, when we could get it. We did not take any coffee and confined ourselves to tea for a beverage, except when we made lemonade. This first camp was rather impromptu, so to speak, as we had not yet become accustomed to our outfit and had not arranged our belongings so as to get at things quickly, but before many days we had a place for everything and could find what we wanted in the dark.
Sunday morning, May fifteenth, our first morning in camp, was without any special interest. It seemed better to go on than to stay in such a bare spot beside the railroad track on the public highway, so we packed up and moved on, driving through Pomona and Ontario, then going north to what is called the “Upper Road,” through Highlands and Cuycamonga, and about 6 P. M. camped among some pepper trees, opposite a winery. The roads up to this point were good, but as we were going up grade all the time we did not drive very fast; in fact, with the load we had, the horses walked most of the time. We made about twenty-five miles this day. Our stop was again near a camp wagon, but this time we did not feel enough interest in our neighbors to visit them, and after an early supper and seeing that the horses were securely fastened for the night, we turned in, planning to get an early start in the morning.
Monday morning, the sixteenth, found us up early, as planned. We expected to drive to San Bernardino, which we figured was about twelve miles, and buy a few provisions and then start north for Cajon Pass, expecting to make our noon camp somewhere near the mountains. Usually we were able to make our camps about as planned, but this morning we were delayed.
Our start was made auspiciously, a beautiful morning with everybody, including the dog, in good spirits. Our first four miles were through vineyards just coming into full leaf, and we had been wondering how grapes could be raised in sand, and how few years it had been since this particular piece of ground was a veritable sandy desert, when a
Having spent some time in this vicinity a few years before, I knew there was no probability of the storm abating for hours, and that we would have to drive only about four miles to get out of its path, for it was coming out of the mouth of a canyon to the north of us. So we pushed on, blinded and choked with sand, forcing the horses to keep the road, and finally, after what seemed like hours, we drove up and out of the storm, and could catch our breath and look around.
Not having a mirror handy we could not tell how sandy we looked, but we knew how sandy we felt, and laughed at each other’s appearance until we cried the sand out of our eyes, and then decided to stop at the first convenient place and clean up before going into town. This cleaning-up process took so long that it was noontime before we reached San Bernardino, and we pitched camp that night about where we had expected to stop for lunch. “If we are to encounter a sand storm on the desert worse than this one,” we said, “we shall feel sorry for ourselves.”
The country we have come through thus far, from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, about sixty-two or sixty-three miles, is doubtless the most thickly settled valley of California, and probably has the most valuable improvements. Outside the towns and villages, the land is completely taken up by orange, lemon, and walnut groves, besides vineyards, interspersed with fields of alfalfa. Nearly every one has electric light and telephone, and ample transportation is furnished by three steam roads and many street railway and interurban lines.
From where we camped to-night we could look down over this valley, from which, as it grew dark, the lights came out like so many stars, and we realize that it will be many days before we will again be in sight of green fields and civilization, for to-morrow we are to leave all this behind and cross the San Bernardino range of mountains on our way to Daggett in the Mojave Desert.
Chapter II—We Get a Taste of the Desert
Tuesday, May seventeenth, our first morning in a real camp “away from anywhere,” as the Doctor said, was started in true camping style. We were up at four-thirty, each busy at his particular work, Bob getting breakfast, the Doctor packing the wagon, preparatory to starting, and greasing the axles (this was done regularly every other day), and I had the horses to look after. Then came breakfast, and after that, while the dishes were being washed and odds and ends put into the wagon, I harnessed the horses, hitched them to the wagon, put the lead harness on Dixie, and we were ready to start.
We had been traveling east, but here we were to turn north across the mountains, through Hesperia and Victor to Daggett. As yet we had not had the harness on Dixie, although we had been assured that she was broken to drive, but whether she would work in the lead and pull was a question which was soon to be answered. Climbing into my seat and picking up the lines, I let off a whoop and the brake at the same time, while the Doctor let fly a handful of pebbles, and we were off. We got into the road safely and by the time we had made a few miles up the mountain trail we concluded our lead horse would do.
The road followed a mountain stream, winding ever upward,
While smoking our pipes in the shade, an automobile went by, going up. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs at us and, as they disappeared around a bend in the road, some one remarked, “That looks easy; I guess the road ahead must be good.” We promptly forgot the incident until the Doctor said, “I can still hear that machine. I wonder why they are not farther away by this time.” After listening a few minutes we decided something was wrong with the machine, so we all went up the road and soon found the party in the sand, where the auto had stuck in crossing the stream, and they were unable to get it up the bank. As we came up we found all four of the ladies pushing and the man working with the engine, while a baby was peacefully asleep in the tonneau. We went promptly to the rescue and after a few minutes had them out on solid ground again. The man then asked us how much he owed us. The Doctor told him in his dry way, “About a thousand dollars, but if you do not happen to have anything as small as that about you, you can settle the next time you see us.” The expression on the young man’s face for a minute was quite laughable, but he seemed to sense the situation finally, for a smile broke over his face, and with many thanks and “Good luck!” from everybody they were off.
We went back to the wagon, and, the horses having had sufficient rest, started on with all three of them in harness, and reached the summit at 3:30 P. M. Here we had a magnificent view of the mountains, some of which were snow-capped, and after a few minutes we started on again, driving down to Hesperia, through a miniature forest composed of giant cacti and juniper. On the way down we saw several pair of valley quail, some doves, and a few rabbits, which was all the game we had seen.
At Hesperia, which is on the railroad, we filled our water barrels and camped alongside of the trail, about a mile from the station and eight miles from Victor. As near as we could figure we had driven twenty-five miles, which we considered a very good day’s work in view of the long climb we had made.
CACTI FOREST
The next morning we were up at four-thirty and off at six-forty-five, arriving at Victorville at eight-thirty. The first person I saw as we drove into the little railroad town was the young man who had driven the auto we had helped out of the sand the day before. He hailed us gayly and insisted on our climbing down and “going inside,” which we promptly did. Later we repaired to the general store, where we purchased a canteen, having accidentally run the wagon over ours the evening before, and also some baled hay and grain. Then we mailed our letters and half filled our water barrels before starting on to Daggett, forty miles away over the desert.
As we understood there was a good water hole and camp site about half way, we thought it unnecessary to take any more water. We reached the water without difficulty by 6 P. M., although we met no one on the trail and were in doubt once or twice as to which fork to take. We found it a good place to camp on account of the water, but that was all. There was just a small covered tank over a spring in a bare little desert valley, without even a tree or a bush in sight. It had one
The next morning we had a comparatively easy road down grade into Daggett, twenty-two miles, where we arrived at 11:30 A. M.
There was nothing especially interesting about these towns through which we had passed; Hesperia was merely a handful of people; Victorville had a few more and seemed quite prosperous. It is on the banks of the Mojave River, which at this point is fully a hundred yards wide, but shallow and muddy, with a considerable fringe of trees in places along the banks. At Daggett, however, the river had about disappeared, and a few miles farther east was entirely lost in the sand.
Here at Daggett we decided to rest our horses and take stock, so to speak. We found among our luggage a tent and two cots which we apparently would have no need of until we reached Grand Junction, Colorado, where we expected to have an addition of four to our party, so we decided to send them on to this point by freight and thus lighten our load by seventy-five pounds.
Having put our horses and wagon in a corral, we began to make inquiries regarding the road to Las Vegas, Nevada, but could get no definite information. We were told we could not cross the desert directly, but would have to go around the south end. This meant going in a circle and, as the line we had drawn on the map went straight, we declined to go around, and were conferring with some old prospectors on the feasibility of crossing the desert when we heard of a man who had just come in from Las Vegas. We did not bother to make any more inquiries then and decided to interview the man from Las Vegas the first thing in the morning. I slept in the wagon at night, but being in town the Doctor and Bob thought it would be a good idea to try beds, to see if they were softer than the sand, but the next morning they pronounced them not much of an improvement.
We found the man we were looking for shortly after breakfast at the corral, where we had left our horses. He told us his name was Knowles. He certainly looked as if he had been through something strenuous. His eyes were bloodshot and he was a nervous wreck. He said he had come from Las Vegas and had driven across en route to Los Angeles. He had a good team, a light farm wagon, but nothing in it save a water barrel, some bedding, and a dog. He seemed so mixed in his dates that it was hard to get any reliable information from him. He said it was just an accident he had got through. He had been lost and stuck in the sand and forced to abandon his load, when by good luck he came to the Salt Lake Railroad. Here the sand was so deep that his horses could not pull the empty wagon, so he drove up to the railroad track, and, as there were no trains running (the road having been washed out for eighty miles above Las Vegas early in the Spring), he drove on the track until he reached Daggett, a distance of about sixty miles. He did not dare to leave the railroad for fear that he would get lost, and he found water at the little deserted section houses he passed every twenty or thirty miles. He said that with a big wagon and load we could not get through, and advised us not to try.
We concluded that if he had got through alone we could go through, even with a heavier load, and in return for the questionable information he had given us we told him how to get to Los Angeles, and assured him that his troubles were over. He gave as much heed to our directions as we gave to his, as we afterwards found out, but we parted without disclosing our incredulity to each other.
The Doctor and I rode a freight train down to Barstow to get our mail and a few provisions that we could not get at Daggett, and while there who should we see driving up the main street but Knowles, our desert traveller! We hailed him and asked him why he had come to Barstow. He seemed quite ashamed at being discovered, but reluctantly admitted that he had intended heeding our
We got back to Daggett shortly after noon on a passenger train and hunted up the old prospectors again. They were the sort who had always been in the desert and knew all about it, to hear them tell it, but for the past twenty years had probably sat around the corner store and saloon and told stories to tenderfeet about its mysteries. When we told them of Knowles’ experience and asked their advice they looked very solemn, and each in turn took refuge behind the other by asking him which of the many routes we ought to take, until they had gone the rounds and got back to the first old party again, who in desperation referred us to some one else who wasn’t there.
This was so amusing that we forgot we were wasting time and went prospecting around town for the man who knew, and finally located him and told our story. He assured us Knowles had taken the wrong road; he should have stayed away from the railroad because it went through the worst sand and had no feed anywhere along the line. He then drew a diagram showing how we should go east through the Mojave Canyon, then northeast and skirt the foot of the Soda Mountains to a spring on Soda Lake, and then follow the old prospectors’ trail east to Good Springs, from where we could follow the railroad to Las Vegas, Nevada. He said we could not lose the trail and that it had several springs and water holes, so that we could get through safely. He wound up, however, by saying that he had not been over this trail for ten or fifteen years, but that it was a good trail the last time he went over it.
This information, while not especially reassuring, we thought sufficient to at least make a start, as we would no doubt find some one on the trail who could put us right if we went wrong, so at 3:30 P. M. we hitched up and started on a leg of our journey that came near being our Waterloo.
Chapter III—The Real Thing in Deserts
It is almost impossible to describe the country we found ourselves in as we started out from Daggett on the afternoon of May twentieth, because, to use a home-made expression, “it does not sound at all as it looks.” We are to follow the Mojave River Valley until we get through the Mojave Canyon, then go north around the base of the Soda Mountains, etc., as per directions. Now the above sounds easy. It makes one think of water running down hill, and with water the mountains should have trees among the rocks, as a canyon suggests a rocky country.
PROVISIONED FOR THE DESERT
The real picture, however, which presented itself to us that afternoon was a desolate, wind-swept country; the valley looked like a wide
Saturday morning, May twenty-first, we found we had lost our canteen. It was so cold and windy the afternoon before that we hadn’t needed the canteen and in taking the sheet off the wagon we must have pulled it off, but where and when we didn’t know. Having plenty of water to start with we concluded we could pick up another canteen or improvise one, so we did not go back far to look for it, but started out to get over as much ground as possible.
There was no air stirring; it warmed up early and later got hot. The sand made it hard pulling and finally, at 11 A. M., we reached another deserted section house. There was a well and bucket, and, while there was no shade and the heat was intense, we managed to keep fairly comfortable by lying under the wagon and recalling how cool it had been the day before. Our dog, Tuck, seemed to feel the heat more than we did, or the horses, but it was principally because we had hard work keeping him in the wagon. If he saw anything move, from a coyote to a lizard, he would jump out of the wagon and undertake to catch it. The lizards would disappear in the sand and the coyotes in the distance, and Tuck would be hot for an hour or two afterward.
About 2 P. M. we started on again, this time driving spike, as the sand was getting harder to pull through and it took all three horses to do it. By evening we had reached what is called the canyon of the Mojave River. Here we camped in the bed of the river, which at this place was a mere rivulet. The river bed, however, was about two hundred yards wide, full of gravel and stones, with occasionally a big boulder. Willows grew in patches on the banks, and here and there a cottonwood. On each side the bare mountains had edged up to the bank, and we had a shut-in feeling. The river, however, small as it was at this time, no doubt rushed through here at times, carrying a large volume of water out into the desert beyond.
Having picked out a place to camp, where there were no rocks, we proceeded to get supper, while Tuck raced up and down in what little water there was in the river and had a glorious time. We were tired with the heat and sand, and so were the horses, but after supper we decided to take a swim; at least that is what we said, but the reader can imagine we did not swim much in a stream four feet wide and three inches deep. It was quite a grotesque sight to see three men