Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1876 — ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS. [ARTICLE]

ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.

A Crusoe of tlie Snowy Desert. Late in the autumn of the year 1851 Mr. Baldwin Mollhausen, a Prussian traveler, pursuing his investigations in Northern America, had occasion to make a return journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri. He started with one companion only, and with three horses and a mule, for riding and for carrying baggage. Scanty fodder, and Indian treachery, and the fearfid cold of those snowy regions produced the first disasters of the forlorn travelers by depriving them of the services of all four animals. Their last horse was killed by exposure to an icy gale, at a spot in the miserable wilderness known as Sandy Hill Creek. Here their last means of getting forward failed them and they were compelled to stop, at a period of the year when every succeeding day might be expected to increase the horrors of the cold and the chances of death by starvation in the prairii? wastes. They had with them a supply of bad buffalo meat, rice and Indian corn. On this they existed miserably for a few days, until the post from Fort Kearney to the Platt River happened to pass them. With all the will to rescue both the travelers the post did not possess the power. It was barely possible for the persons in charge of it —their own lives depending on their getting on rapidly, and husbanding their provisions—to make room for one’ man in their little vehicle drawn by six mules. The other man would have no help for it but to remain behind with the goods, alone in the wilderness, and keep himself alive, if possible, in that dreadful position until. the post could send horses back for him from the Catholic Mission, eighty or a hundred miles oft. In this emergency—an emergency of life or death, if there ever was one—the travelers agreed on drawing lots to decide which man was to be rescued and which man to remain. The lot to remain fell on Mr. Mollhausen. The post resumed its journey at once with the rescued traveler squeezed into the little carriage. Mr. Mollhausen watched the departure of the vehicle until it wgs out of sight, till he was left alone, the one living being in the white waste —the Crusoe of the Snowy Desert. -He had three chances, not of life but of death—death by cold; death by the murderous treachery of savages; death by the teeth of the wolves which prowled the wilderness by night. But he was a brave man and he faced his imminent perils and his awful loneliness with a stout heart. He was well supplied with arms and ammunition; and the first thing he did when the post left him was tb look to these. His next proceeding was to make use of the snow on the earth to keep out the snow from the heavens by raising a white wall firmly stamped around his little tent. He then dragged up a supply of wood from the river near at hand and piled it before his door. His fireplace w r as a hollow in the ground in front of his bed-of blanketsand buffalo-robes. The food he possessed to cook by it consisted of buffalo meat and rice. He had also some coffee. The provisions, on which his feeble chance of life depended, he divided into fourteen days’ rations, having first calculated that in fourteen days at the farthest lie might look for help from the Mission. The sum of his preparations was now complete. He fe<j_ his fire, set on his food to cook and crept into his blankets to wait for the coming of night —the first night alone in the desert. After a time the silence and the solitude weighed upon him so heavily that he sought some kind of comfort: but in that lone situation even the sound of his own voice made him shudder. Th.e sun sank to his setting behind snow-clouds; its last rays were trembling redly over the wilderness of white'ground when the howl of the wolves came down upon him on the icy wind. They were assembled in a ravine where the travelers’ last horse had fallen dead some days before. Nothing was left of the animal but his polished bones and the rings of his harness; and over these bare relics of their feast tne ravenous creatures wrangled and howled. The deserted man, listeningto them in his tent, tried to while away the unspeakable oppression of the dark hours by estimating their varying numbers from the greater or lesser volume of the howling sounds that reached' him. Exhaustion overpowered his faculties while he yet remained at his melanclwly work. He slept untiLhunger woke him the next day when'jthe sun was high again in tlie heavens. He cut a notch in the pole of his tent to mark that one day had passed. It was then the,loth or 18th of November; and by Christmas he vainly believed he would be safe at the Mission The second day was very weary, and his strength was failing him already. When he dragged up the wood and water to his tent his

feet were lame, and he staggered like a drunken man. Hopeless and hungry, be sat down on his bed, filled his pipe with willow leaves, the best substitute for tobacco that he possessed, and smoked in the warmth of the fire, with his eyes on the boiling kettle into which he had thrown some maize. He was yet thus occupied when the dreary view through the opening of his tent was suddenly changed by the appearance of human beings. Some horsemen were approaching him, driving laden horses before them. His weapons were at hand, and, with these ready, he awaited their advance. As they came nearer he sawthat they were Indians of a friendly tribe, returning from a beaver hunt. Within gun-shot they stopped, and one of them addressed him in English. They accepted his invitation to enter his tent; and, sitting by his side, they entreated him, long and earnestly, to abandon the goods, to give up the vain hope of help from the Mission, and to save his life by casting his lot with theirs. “ The wolves,” said the man who had first spoken in English—a Delaware Indian—" the wolves will give you no rest, day or night; and if the men of the Pawnee tribe find you out you will be robbed, murdered and scalped. You have no hope of rescue. Bad horses will not live to get to you, and the whites of the Mission will not risk good horses and their .own lives to save one man whom they will give up for lost. Come with us.”

But Mr. Mollhausen, unfortunately for himself, nut faith in the Mission. He was, moreover, bravely and honorably anxious to preserve the goods, only the smaller share of which happened to be his own property. Firmly persuaded that his fellow white men would not desert him, and that they would bring him easier terms of traveling in his disabled condition than those which the Delawares could offer, he still held to his first resolution, and still said “ No.” The Indian rose to leave him. “ The word of a white,” said the savage, “ is more to you than the will and deed of a red-skin. You have had your choice; may you not deceive yourseli.” With these words he shook Mr. Mollhausen by the hand, and lie and his companions departed. They never once looked back at the traveler or his tent, but kept on their way rapidly toward the south, and left him a doomed man. 'For the next. eight days snow-storms raged incessantly, and threatened to bury him alive in his tent. Although he was, as yet, spared the pangs of hunger (the friendly Indians having increased his small stock of provisions by the leg of an antelope), his sufferings of other kinds were indescribable. He was so lame that he had to crawl on his hands and knees when he fetched his supply of water; his head swam, his memory failed him, and he dared not close his eyes at night for fear of wplves. Maddened by hunger, they came nearer and nearer to him. Howling and yelling, they circled round and round the tent, closer at the end of every day. One night he heard the snow outside cracking under their feet; thenext he saw the teeth of one of them appear through the leather side of his tent. He could only scare them away by firing at them in the darkness; but they returned to the attack in a fpw hours and they left him no chance to sleep till the broad daylight drove them back to their lairs. He was just strong enough on the ninth day to make the ninth notch in the pole of his tent. On the tenth day he was powerless. His courage gave way, and he despaired for the first time of his rescue. He had a medicine-chest with him, which he had already used, containing a small bottle of laudanum and a case of quinine. Without forming any distinct resolution, without well knowing what he did, he put the laudanum bottle to his lips and almost emptied it. A deep swoon followed tlie draught; he remembered taking it, and remembered nothing more. When he came to himself again it was pitch dark, and his tent poles were rocking in a gale of wind. Thirst and,4n a lesser degree, hunger were his awakening sensations. He satisfied the first with half-melted snow, and the second with raw buffalo meat. When his fire, which had dwindled to a few glimmering sparks, was relighted, he roasted the meat and recklessly devoured three days’ rations at a meal. By the morning he was so much better (partly through the rest which the laudanum had given to his mind, partly through the sustenance which the excess of food had afforded his body) that the preservationjffhia life became once more a matter of interest to him.' He tottered out, leaning on his rifle, to get a little exercise. In a few days he contrived to walk as far as the iop'of a low hill, from which he could look forth, all round, over the lonesome prospect. By this time his provisions were at an end, and the last faint hope of rescue from the Mission had died out of his mind. It was a question now whether the man should devour the wolves ot the wolves the man. The man had his rifle, his ammunition and his steady resolution to fight it out with solitude,Ucold, starvation and to the very last—and the wolves dropped under his bullets and fed him with their dry, sinewy flesh. He took the best of the meat only, and left the Test. Every* morning the carcass abandoned at night was missing. The wolves that were living devoured to the last morsel the wolves that were dead. He grew accustomed to his wretched and revolting food and to every other hardship of his forlorn situation, except the solitude of it. The unutterable oppression of his own loneliness hung upon his mind, a heavier and heavier weight with each succeeding day. A savage shy- 1 ness at the idea of meeting with «ny living human creature began to take possession of him. There were moments when he underwent the most fearful of all mortal trials—the conscious struggle to keep up the control of his own senses. At such times he sang and whistled, and extended his walk to the utmost limits that his strength would allow; and so, by main force, as it were, held his own tottering reason still in its place. Thus the woful time—the dreary, lonely, hopeless hours —wore on till he had cut his sixteenth notch in the tent pole. This was a memorable day in the history of the Crusoe of the snowy desert. He had walked out to the top of the lit-

tie hill to watch the sun’s way downward in the wintry western heaven, and he was wearily looking about him, as usual, when he saw two human figures, specks as yet in the distance, approaching from far north. The warning of the Delaware Indian came back to his-memory and reminded him that those two men were approaching from the district of the murderous Pawnees. • A moment’s consideration decided him to await the coming of the strangers in a plas| of ambush which commanded a view of his' tent. If they were Pawnees he kney that the time had come when he or they must die.

He went back to the tent, armed himself with as many weapons as he could carry, took the percussion caps off the rest and hid them under his bed. Then he put wood on the fire, so as to let the smoke rise freely through the opening at the top of the tent, and thereby strengthen any suspicion in the mind of strangers that a living man was inside it; and he next fastened the second opening, which served for a door, tying it on the inner side as if he had shut himself up for the night. This done, he withdrew to the frozen river of Sandy Hill Creek, about 150 paces off, walking backward so as to make his footmarks in the snow appear to be leading to the tent, instead ot away from it. Arriving on the ice, off which the high winds had drifted the snow up on the banks, he took off his shoes for fear the nails in them might betray him by scratches on the smoothly-frozen surface, and then followed the stream over the ice till he reached the winding which brought its course nearer to his tent. Here he climbed up the bank, between two snow-drifts, and hid himself among some withered bushes where the twigs and stalks gave him sight of the tent and just room enough beside for the use of several weapons.

In this situation he watched and listened. Although the frost was so intense that his breath froze on his beard and his left hand felt glued to the barrel of his leveled rifle, the fever of expectation in his mind prevented his feeling the cold. He watched for what seemed to be an interminable time; and at last the heads of the two men rose in sight over the brow of a neighboring hill. All doubts were ended now—the last day in this world had dawned for him or for them—the men were Pawnees. After holding counsel together on the hill the savages threw back their buffalo skins, drew their full quivers before them, and strung their bows. They then separated. One walked to the top of the hill from which the deserted traveler had first caught sight of them, to trace the direction of his footsteps; the other examined the track between the water and tent. Both seemed to be satisfied with their investigations ; both met again before the tent and communicated with one another by gestures, which expressed their conviction that the victim Was asleep by his fire inside. In another minute they drew their bow-strings, placing themselves so that their double fire of arrows should meef at right angles in the tent.

The man whose life they were seeking never felt life so dear to him as at the moment when he saw them shoot five arrows into the place where he slept. Still he watched and waited, for his existence now depended on his cunning and patience—on his not miscalculating, by an instant, the time to fire. He saw the savages pause and listen before they ventured into the tent. One of them dropped his bow, grasped his tomahawk and knelt to creep under the curtained opening, while the other stood over him with his arrow in the string, ready to shoot. In this position the skull of the kneeling Indian was brought within the white man’s line of sight, and he cocked his rifle. Faint as the click -was, he saw that it had caught their ears, for they both started and turned round. Observing that this movement made the kneeling man less likely to escape his eye in the tent, he shifted his aim and fired at the naked breast of the man r with the bow. The sharp eye of the savage discovered his hidden enemy at the same instant and he sprang aside. But it was too late; he was hit, and he.feltwdth a scream that went through every nerve of Mr. Mollhausen’s body. The other savage jumped to his feet, but the white man’s weapon was the quicker of the two, and a discharge of buckshot hit him full in the face and neck. He dropped dead on the spot, by the side of the other man. who was still groaning. Although he knew that he had justifiably shot, in self-defense, two savages whose murderous design on his own life had been before his eyes—although he was absolutely certain that if either one of the Pawnees had been permitted to escape the whole tribe wpuld have been at the tent by the next day —the brave traveler’s nerve deserted him when he saw his two enemies on the ground, and when be thought of tlie terrible after-necessity of hiding what he had done. With a feeling of unutterable despair he mechanically reloaded his rifle and approached the place. The groans of the Indian who had been shot in the breast moved his pity so strongly that they seemed to recall him to himself. First turiiing the dead Indian face downward to escape the horrifying sight of the mangled features, he approached his wounded enemy and made signs that he would forgive him, help him, cover him with buffalo skins, take him into the tent, and there do all that was in the power of man to gain his good will by preserving his life.

The savage lay writhing and bleeding, with his teeth clenched, and his eyes glaring in deadly hatred through the long, black hair that almost covered his face. But, after a while, the merciful white man saw that his gestures were understood. A sense of relief, even of joy. overflow-ed his heart at. the prospect of saving the Indian and securing a companion in his fearful - solitude. The wounded man signed to him to come nearer, and pointed with his left hand to his right hand and arm, which lay twisted under him. Without the slightest suspicion Mr. Mollhausen knelt over him to place his arm in an easier position. At the same moment the wretch’s right hand flashed out from beneath him, armed with a knife, and struck twice at the unprotected breast of the man who was Dying to save him. Mr. Mollhausen parried the blows with his right arm, drew his

own knife with his left, hand, and inflicted on the vindictive savage the death he had twice deserved. The rattle sounded m the throat and the muscles of the naked figure stretched themselves in the last convulsion. The lost traveler was alone in the frozen wilderness with the bodies of the dead men. The night was at hand—the night came —a night never to be forgotten, never in any mortal language to be described. Down with the gathering darkness came gathering wolves; and round the two corpses in front of the tent they circled and howled. All through that awful night the lost man lay listening to them in the pitch darkness—now cooling his wounded arm with snow, now firing his pistol to scare the wolves from their human prey. With the first gleam of daylight he rose to rid himself of the horrible companionship of the bodies and of all that betrayed their fate before the next wandering Indians came near the spot, and before the wolves gathered with the darkness. Hunger drove him to begin by taking their provisions, of dried buffalo meat, from under the dead men’s leathern girdles. He then rolled their remains with -whatever lay about them (one after the other) to the hole in the ice where he got his water, and pushed them through it, to be carried away by the current of the river. Even yet the number of his necessary precautions was not complete. He imfft a large fire to make next, on the spot where the two savages had dropped, with the double effect of effacing all traces of their fall and destroying the faintest scent of blood before the wolves collected again. When the fire had dwindled to a heap of ashes a new snow-storm smoothed out all marks of it. By the next morning not a sign was left to betray the death of the Indians; the smooth ground was as empty and as white as ever, and of all that had happened on that memorable sixteenth day of the traveler’s sojourn in the wilderness nothing now remained but the terrible recollection of it.

The time wore on from that date without an event to break thew’oful monotony of it until Christmas came. He was still alive in his solitude on Christmas Day. A stolid apathy toward the future had begun to get possession of him; his sense of the horror of his situation grew numbed and dull; the long solitude and the ceaseless cold seemed to be freezing his mind and making a new wilderness there, dreary and waste as the wastes that encompassed him. His thoughts wandered with a certain sadness to the Christmas trees and the children’s festivals at that blessed season, in his native Germany—but he was too far gone for any deep grief or for any bitter pangs of despair. He kept Christmas Day with the only indulgence he could afford himself—a pipe full of the dry willow leaves, and as night fell he lay on his back looking up through the hole in his tent at the frosty heavens, and fancying dimly that the kind stars looked down on him as they had often looked in bygone days at home.

The old year ended and the new year came. His hold of life was slackening, and the end was not far off. It was daylight, early in the month of January. He was resting under his blankets —not asleep, and not awake. Suddenly the sound of approaching footsteps reached him on the still air. It was no dream —a salutation in the Indian language sounded in his ears a moment afterward. He aroused himself and caught up his rifle. More words were spoken before he could get out of the tent. It was the. English language this time. “You are badly oft here, friend,” said a cheerful voice. Had the white men at the post and the Mission remembered him at last? No. When the tent covering was raised, an Indian entered and pushed a five-foot rifle before him. A savage-looking man, with five savage companions. The lost traveler advanced to meet them with his rifle ready. Happily he was wrong this time. These savage wanderers of the prairie—these charitable heathens—had come to do the work which his white brethren had, to their eternal disgrace, neglected; they had come to save him.

Thft ißan who had spoken in English was a half-breed—a voluntary renegade from, civilization. His companions belonged, like himself, to the friendly tribe of Ottoe Indians. They had gone out with their squaws on a hunting expedition, and had seen the smoke of the lost traveler’s fire two miles off. “You are hungry,” said they to him, producing their own food—“ eat. You are ready to perish—come with us. You are sick — we will take care of you and clothe you.” These were the words of the red-skins; and the friendly promises they implied were performed to the letter. On the next day every member of the hunting party, including the women and boys, assembled at the tent to remove the desolate and forsaken white man and all that belonged to him to their own camp. The goods, for the preservation of which he had risked his life, were packed up; the wagon, abandoned by his fellow-trav-eler and himself at the beginning of their disasters, when their last horse died, was cleared of snow and made nt for use again ; and even the tent, was not left behind. It was too firmly frozen to the ground to be pulled up, so it was cut off just above tlie snow, and was thrown over the rest of the baggage. When the Indians had packed the wagon their wives and their boys harnessed themselves to it, and dragged it away cheerfully to the camp. Mr. Moll-

hausen and the elder warrior followed. The Prussian traveler stopped, before he left the place forever, to take a last look at the lonely scene of all his sufferings and all his perils. The spot where his tent had stood was still marked in the snow waste by the ashes of his expiring fire. His eyes rested long on that last felt, touching trace of himself and his hardships—then wandered away to the little hill from which he nsed to look out on his solitude —to the bank of. the river where he had lain in ambush for the Pawnees—to the hole in the ice through which he had thrust their bodies. He shuddered, as well he might, at the dreadful memories which the familiar objects around him called up. A moment more and he was descending the hill, from the summit of which he had looked back, to follow the trail of his Indian friends —a moment more, and he left his home in the desert forever. t

In less than five weeks from that time he and his wagon-load of goods were safe, thanks to the Ottoe Indians, at a fur-trad-ing station on the Missouri River; and he was eating good bread again in the society of white men.— San Francisco Golden Era.