class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 23]"/> column of sandstone something like forty feet high, with a rugged stone bluff rising abruptly near it. Its appearance, from our distant view, resembled a stone chimney from which the building had been burned away, as it stood, solitary on the flat earth at the south side of the Platte River, we traveling up the north shore. Such a time-chiseled monument was a novelty to us then. To the early emigrants it was the first notable landmark.

While some distance farther west, as we scaled the higher slopes, we could see to the southward the snow-capped peaks of that region which long afterward was taken from western Nebraska to become the Territory of Colorado, and later still, the State of that name. Looking over and past the locality where, more than a year thereafter, the town of Denver was laid out, we saw, during several weeks, the summit of Pike's Peak, hundreds of miles away.

One evening when we were going into camp we were overtaken by a man trundling a push-cart. This vehicle had between its wheels a box containing the man's supplies of food and camp articles, with the blankets, which were in a roll, placed on top; all strapped down under an oilcloth cover.

With this simple outfit, pushed in front of him, this man was making his way from one of the Eastern States to California, a distance of more than three thousand miles. He was of medium size, athletic appearance, with a cheerful face. He visited us overnight. The next morning he was invited to tie his cart behind one of our wagons and ride with us. He replied that he would be pleased to do so, but was anxious to make all possible speed, and felt that he could not wait on the progress of our train, which was somewhat slower than the pace he maintained. It was said that he was the first man who made the entire trip on foot and alone, from coast to coast, as we were afterwards informed he succeeded in doing.

From time to time the tedium was dispelled by varied incidents; many that were entertaining and instructive, some ludicrous, some pathetic, and others profoundly tragic. Agreeable happenings predominated largely during the early stages, and those involving difficulties and of grave import were mainly a part of our experiences toward the close of the long pilgrimage. Such an order of events might be presumed as a natural sequence, as the route led first over a territory not generally difficult to travel, but farther and farther from established civilization, into rougher lands, and toward those regions where outlawry, common to all pioneer conditions, was prevalent.

With our company were four or five boys and young men, eighteen to twenty-one years of age, also a kindly and unpretentious but droll young fellow, named John C. Aston, whose age was about twenty-five. This younger element was responsible for most of the occurrences of lighter vein, which became a feature of our daily progress.

Aston's intimate friends called him "Jack," and some of the more facetious ones shortened the cognomen "Jack Aston" by dropping the "ton," inconsiderately declaring that the briefer appellation fitted the man, even better than did his coat, which always was loose about the shoulders and too long in the sleeves. But all knew "Jack" to be an excellent fellow. His principal fault, if it could be so termed, was a superabundance of good-nature, a willingness at all times to joke and be joked. He had a fund of stories—in some of which he pictured himself the hero—with which he was wont to relieve the tedium of the evening hours. A violin was among his effects, which he played to accompany his singing of entertaining countryside songs. Most of these were melodious, and highly descriptive. "Jack" had much music in his soul, and sang with good effect.

"One melody that he sang from the heart"

There was one melody that he sang oftenest, and sang from the heart—one that was rendered nightly, regardless of any variation in the program; a composition that embraced seventeen verses, each followed by a soothing lullaby refrain; a song which, every time he sang it, carried "Jack" again to his old home in the Sunny South, and seemed to give him surcease from all the ills of life. Of that song a single verse is here reproduced, with deep regret that the other sixteen are lost, with all except a small fraction of the tune. Yet, cold, inanimate music notes on the paper would convey, to one who never heard him sing them, only the skeleton; the life, sympathy and soul of the song would be lacking. We needed no other soporific. Here it is:

It was "Jack's" habit to allow his head to hang to the left, due, presumably, to much practice in holding down the large end of his violin with his chin. He was prone to sleep a great deal, and even as he sat in the driver's seat of a "prairie-schoner," or astride a mule, the attitude described often resulted in his being accused of napping while on duty. The climatic conditions peculiar to the plains, and the slow, steady movement of the conveyances, were conducive to drowsiness, in consequence of which everybody was all the time sleepy. But "Jack" was born that way, and the very frequent evidences of it in his case led to a general understanding that, whenever he was not in sight, he was hidden away somewhere asleep.

"Jack's" amiability, too, was a permanent condition. Apparently no one could make him angry or resentful. For this reason, he was the target for many pranks perpetrated by the boys. Like this:

One evening "Jack" took his blanket and located for the night at a spot apart from the others of the company, under a convenient sage bush. The next morning he was overlooked until after breakfast. When the time came for hitching the teams, he was not at his post. A search finally revealed him, still rolled in his bedding, fast asleep. When several calls failed to arouse him, one of the boys tied an end of a rope around "Jack's" feet, hitched a pair of oxen to the other end, and hauled the delinquent out some distance on the sand. "Jack" sat up, unconcernedly rubbed his eyes, then began untying the rope that bound his feet, his only comment being—

"Hauled the delinquent out"

CHAPTER III.

LOST IN THE BLACK HILLS. DEVIL'S GATE. WHY A MOUNTAIN SHEEP
DID NOT WINK. GREEN RIVER FERRY.

At Fort Laramie we left the Platte River, and, bearing northwesterly, entered the Black Hills, a region of low, rolling uplands, sparsely grown with scrubby pine trees; the