[R. L. Fulton. Camp Life on a Great Cattle Range in Northern Nevada, Sunset, July 1900]

 

CAMP LIFE ON A GREAT CATTLE RANGE IN NORTHERN NEVADA.

 

            YOUTH lives in the future, manhood in the present, old age in the past. The wise man lays up treasure all his life long, cherishing the memory of happy hours and banishing the disagreeable in anticipation of the time when action will be denied him, adding to his store whenever it can be done, filling the mind as if it were a gallery with fine pictures which can be brought out in clear and beautiful colors when nothing is left him except to sit idly by the ingle dreaming of past conquests.

            In this sense I was not only agreeably entertained but greatly enriched by my last summer's vacation. It has been the pleasant custom of Messrs. Sparks and Harrell, for a dozen years past, to gather a genial company about them, and taking a big grub wagon well-loaded, a cook and a caballaranjo (pronounced cavarango) pitch camp in the heart of their great cattle range in northeastern Nevada and Southern Idaho, to hunt the antelope and the deer. I had been denied this pleasure up to the summer of 1899, when I turned off from a Utah trip to join the expedition.

            A most interesting chapter might be devoted to a description of the country itself and to the business of cattle-raising by wholesale. As a sight-seeing trip alone it is worth all the time and trouble it takes, to say nothing of the royal sport afforded by the hills and streams, which are visited so seldom by the sportsman that really few parts of the West give such good returns.

            There is a great mass of well-watered and grass-covered mountains that form the triple divide between the headwaters of the Columbia, the Humboldt River and the Salt Lake Basin, which, owing to the distance from populous centers, remain almost uninhabited. It forms one of the few remaining great stock ranges of the West, such as covered the country forty years ago from the summit of the Black Hills to the Sierra Nevadas. They are fast disappearing before the advancing army of ambitious and adventurous settlers who seek to make a home by the side of every running spring and stream. Into this rich section Mr. E. J. Harrell of Visalia, about thirty years ago, drove bands of cattle, leaving them to their own devices and their growth soon made him one of the cattle kings of the country. The business grew so great that it was incorporated about twenty years ago, with John Sparks as president and to-day the Sparks-Harrell Company brand their calves over a territory larger than any one of half a dozen states of the Union, or about equal to the size of Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island, with half of New Jersey thrown in. From

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Signal Peak to Snake River, along the Utah- Nevada line is one hundred and fifty miles, with the Southern Pacific track twenty miles from the southern boundary, and this region is covered by the operations of this one firm, back for seventy miles to the west, where it rises to the summit of Salmon River Mountains. They brand from nine to twelve thousand calves a year, and the crop has gone as high as sixteen thousand, showing seventy-five or eighty thousand head of breeding cattle. The herds have been reduced to a minimum now and probably will not exceed forty or fifty thousand. No winter opens with less than fifteen thousand tons of hay in the stack, with large fields of well-cured grass still standing waiting for an emergency. The hay crop could be easily run up to a hundred thousand tons; but it is a peculiarity of the arid region that grass cures just as well on the stalk as it does when cut and piled up, so more and more of it is left standing in the fields where it is just as useful and much more convenient. The work requires about five hundred saddle horses and one hundred and fifty work horses which are caught from a wild band of about two thousand that run in the hills with no restraint except the brand on their sides.

            There are several rivers of respectable size that rise and flow for miles through the range, some that would compare more than favorably in size, swiftness and romantic beauty, with streams famed in song and story in other lands. The Salmon is a real river. It rises in Idaho, swings down into Nevada in a great bow—fifty miles long, then returns to its native state and drops into Snake River just where it tumbles twenty or thirty feet over Salmon Falls. The Shoshone comes down to meet it from the north and they join in a romantic place in Sparks' Meadow and from there the Salmon runs through a box canyon sixty miles long, with banks so steep that at only three places can stock get down to drink. There are bridges at Castle Ford and the Brown Place. The rest of the way the water can be seen rushing along deep down in its rocky casing, the whole set in a brown and dreary waste of sage brush. But Salmon is its name and it deserves it well. Every year it swarms with the speckled beauties that have wound their tortuous ways across the Columbia Bar away on the edge of the Pacific, up over the rapids, through the swift waters of the Snake to their spawning beds far up under the snows of the great divide in the heart of the continent.        

            The Salmon is so rapid that its waters are easily turned out on the fertile bottoms and the company has ranches strung along on both its banks like emerald beads on a silver thread. One meadow extends from the "Bird's Nest" to the "Boar's Nest," an unbroken sweep of green

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for fourteen miles. The valley is from two to five miles wide and every foot can be irrigated. A snap from the camera shows the natural grass standing almost to the top of the carriage.

            The Shoshone itself is nearly fifty miles long and runs through a fine summer range. It is made use of to gather the cattle in the fall and has some large enclosures along its banks. The headwaters are covered with handsome groves of a species of pine that grows tall and slender, making beautiful building material. Teams come a hundred miles to get them for use on the ranches and they make picturesque buildings and fences. This and the Salmon are the only streams that reach the sea. All the others sink in the great basin or among the mountain valleys near where they take their rise.

            Thousand Springs Creek is forty-five miles long, rising and sinking entirely on the company's land. Some fine ranches are made fertile by its waters and the lower end spreads out over the Tecoma meadows, making about fifteen thousand acres of fine hay land.

            Goose Creek spreads out like a fan, watering in Nevada some of the finest lands in the state, then crossing the line and sinking in a valley in northwestern Utah. Its waters abound in fish, and broad flat benches between it and Shoshone Creek support some of the few remaining bands of antelope. Rancho Grando and other fertile spots are Mr. Sparks' pride. There is no better soil in any country.

            Scattered in different parts of the range are ranches devoted to making hay and  producing supplies, wherever water can be found to irrigate. The great stretches of open range between them are thus brought within easy reach and with a foreman and crew for each section, oversight can be kept and work carried on systematically. There are hundreds of miles of substantial wire fences ; ditches have been dug and all the conveniences set up for gathering and feeding cattle on a large scale. In some places the natural grass has been developed, in others alfalfa, blue grass or timothy have been sown and in all cases have done well. Some of the ranches are devoted to raising thoroughbred Durham or Herefords of the finest strains, which are turned loose on the range in order that the stock may not deteriorate. The Alamo herd of Herefords, owned by John Sparks, has probably no equal in America, perhaps not in the world, and the beauty of it is that the very finest animal in the lot is a two-year old, born and raised in Nevada from imported prize-winners on both sides. Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture in President McKinley's Cabinet, recently visited Mr. Sparks and he has said many times since that it was the finest herd of Herefords he ever saw together. Every ranch has milch cows sufficient to provide for the family of the foreman and the workmen. Chickens give a homelike air to the scene and flavor the table, and the supplies are the best in every way.

            Gollyer Mountain forms a striking landmark right in the center of the range and serves as a guide to the men for forty miles around. It does not look much different to a stranger from any one of a dozen mountains in sight, but they soon learn to recognize its great gray sides and strong features, carved in stone by the frosts and storms of ages.

            The old emigrant road running overland from Fort Laramie to Gravelly Ford crosses the range, going down Goose creek, Thousand Springs and Bishop creek to the Humboldt. It was a hot trail for years, the scene of many a tragedy. It is deserted now, but there are hundreds of graves along the line, some of them of noted Indian fighters, large parties who

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were massacred or whole families who had been murdered.

            Our party rendezvoused at Wells, a picturesque station at the foot of the Peoquop Mountains, six hundred miles east of San Francisco on the Southern Pacific. The deer law expires early in Nevada, so the date was set for the middle of August and every man, except the writer, was on the programme for venison. I did not even have a gun—though the Episcopal minister in Reno loaned me his fishing rod and showed me how to tie on a fly. The first day's ride took us twenty-six miles over the hill to the HD Rancho, a lovely spot on Thousand Springs Creek, where we spent the night. The springs are the feature of the place, bubbling out in clusters for miles, affording water of every degree of temperature. Mr. Sparks has fitted up a pond and covered it with a brush house, where the water from several springs, hot and cold, are mingled to make a perfect bath. He thinks he owes to the curative principle in its waters the life of his wife, who spent weeks at HD when her health was very much broken.

            Next morning, after a fine breakfast, the beds were piled high on the wagon and "Jeff " put the lash to his team of four, made a short turn and upset the whole load into the creek; but even the prospect of wet beds could not offset the bright sunshine and the pure mountain air. Everyone good-naturedly set to work to reload and a drive of forty-four miles past the Hubbard Rancho and the Vineyard brought San Jacinto in sight. This place is the home of C. H. Hewitt, the superintendent of the company, and it is quite an important town for its size. A handsome store, built of stone, stands opposite a substantial dwelling-house and adjoins a row of buildings consisting of store-house. bunk-house, shops, etc. The company has a mail contract and runs a stage to Wells, taking in the mines at Contact on the way. The Salmon River

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Mines lie near the latter place high on the side of a fine copper-stained mountain, and a smelter has been built near the river. San Jacinto lies in a magnificent field, miles and miles in extent and the whole town and all the business are owned by the Sparks-Harrell Company.

            Here the camping trip really began, as there were too many comforts at the HD to be counted as romantic. A band of forty loose saddle-horses with Chester Dwight, as caballaranjo, was sent ahead while the saddles, guns, ammunition, etc., were to follow in the big wagon. Five turnouts carried the party, and when the line was strung out on the trail, it made a display worthy of the days of '49.

            An uneventful ride of twenty miles brought the party to camp, on Lost Creek, in time to spread the wet blankets out in the sun to dry. Mr. Harrell and Phil Gordon went across the hills on horseback in the hope of seeing game. About two o'clock they came down, each with a deer. Mr. Sparks and Judge Sanderson took a turn to the east and fell in with a band of a dozen antelope. They fogged them as long as they were in sight, the Judge on the ground with Sparks dividing his time between the gun and the plunging horses. No casualties. Later, Ed Kiel struck for the hills in one direction, Sparks and Mr. Hughes in another, while Hewett and Mr. Weed started for Point of Mountain Ranch, twelve miles away, to get some matches. Sparks created a sensation by shooting a deer at six hundred yards on the cliff above him. Kiel walked in leaving his horse, saddled and bridled with the reins over the horn, to wander in the hills. He got away while Ed was sighting a deer and had not been heard from when we left for home.

            When evening came we gathered around the fire to get better acquainted and the stories and jokes began to flow. The cool air and quiet comfort of such a spot can never be forgotten. They heal the wounds and cure the aches of scores of busy weeks in the battling life of the city. When night settled down every one was ready for a good, sound sleep, and the morning seemed to come in a few minutes. An early hunt was planned, some went to the hills for deer, others scattered a little lead through the sage-brush wherever a chicken showed its head. Mr. Sessions is a shot, but this time he had a surprise. He saw a head looking at him over the top of a brown to and taking a fair aim he pulled the trigger. When he looked up there was the head and he tried it again; still the mild eye of the grouse bade defiance to him and his gun. Another shot was fired, still the head showed up. He fired once more and there was no more head. He went to find his bird and picked up four fat grouse. As fast as he shot one head off another bird stepped up and looked over to see what the row was.

            After another fine night's sleep the wagons were loaded up and the party moved northeast about twenty miles to Camp Gordon, over a fine mountain range, where big, fat cattle were grouped in bands of fifty and sixty. At Camp Gordon a longer stop was to be made—and it certainly is an ideal place. A spring of cold water at the edge of the meadow with a grove of clean, tall cottonwoods to sleep in and a steep ridge rising to the east are shown in the pictures ; but the wonderful touch of wildness in the scenery, the bracing mountain air, the freedom from care, the ever-active appetite, can only be felt, not printed.

            After getting well settled Mr. Hewitt quietly asked me to take a ride over to the thoroughbred camp, about four miles away. We saddled up, Mr. Harrell loaned me his thirty-thirty Savage and we struck right up the mountain. As we rose a splendid picture spread out at our feet. Away to the west Meadow Lake lay bright green in a bed of vari-colored hills, with Lost Creek, San Jacinto and Salmon River Meadows in the middle ground backed by the snowy summits of the Salmon River Range. The Shoshone sent numerous forks into the hills north of us and great, flat tablelands lay between. The formation is most peculiar ; It looks as if there had once been an immense plain, level, smooth and high ; but through it torrents tore their way, making wide valleys, canyons in places and leaving cliffs and benches along the banks. Under the edge of these level benches the snow piles

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up in huge drifts and lies late in spring. Here stretch groves of trees and immense beds of brush and undergrowth. They extend for miles and miles, broken and disconnected, but never far apart. These spots are a favorite hunting-ground, and in times past deer have been so plentiful that the party had seventy-two head hung up at one time in camp. Not this year, but a few years ago. Jerked venison was staple in several San Francisco and Los Angeles dining-rooms for several weeks after. Some of the groves are the prettiest imaginable. Going over the hills we came to one that opened out in the center, and here a shady meadow seemed to be almost paradise itself for a deer. We saw numerous tracks and felt sure that by camping overnight we could have had a shot. 

            On our way to the thorough-bred camp Mr. Hewitt and I descended a steep slope, beautifully groved with tall cottonwoods, when about half way down I saw a deer off to my left, his big ears standing at an angle, his bright eyes full of curiosity; I dropped off of the horse, tore the gun from the scabbard and took aim at his heart. I am a mild and amiable man ; but, at that moment, there was murder in my heart; I wanted that deer. I had shot antelope in Wyoming and had been with parties that killed bear and mountain lion ; but I had never chanced to get a deer. 1 struck him a little high and he fell flat, with an opening across the back that extended nearly down through the spine. You could lay your wrist in it easily, though made by a bullet less than a third of an inch in diameter.

            He was soon behind my saddle and we made a hurried ride to the end of our trip, then took another road for camp. We saw three more deer, one a magnificent buck with horns like those of an elk, but his appearance and disappearance were too sudden for us to even fire a gun at him.

            Our arrival in camp was the signal for a loud and enthusiastic demonstration. I was congratulated generously by all, but I fancied that there was a feeling that all were sure of game, for they thought that if I could get a deer anybody else could get two. But at the end of our trip it was found that only nine deer were shot by the twenty men comprising our party. The lucky ones were Phil Gordon who got two, and John Sparks, A. J. Harrell, Sidney Smith, J. W. Dorsey, J. E. Bowers, G. H. Brown and the writer, who had one each to their credit.

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            For many years one of my hoped-for trips has been to Shoshone Falls on Snake River, Idaho, and when Mr. Hewitt announced that business would call him there, C. E. Tucker and I offered to accompany him on his lonely ride of forty-five miles. We left camp with a stout team and a light wagon, for the road is rough and lies over the high divide separating the Shoshone and the Snake, and, by the way, they both mean the same— "Shoshone " is Indian for " snake." It was half a day's work to get to the summit and there spread out before us lay the vast, brown valley, not a green thing in sight, a level stretch of sage-covered plain for sixty miles to the foot of Wood River Mountains away in Idaho, with one black thread extending from east to west through the middle of the desert. This Mr. Hewitt told us was the channel of the Snake River, cut down in the solid lava from one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet. We descended the mountain by a steep and crooked road and found some fine farms hidden among the hills and at the mouth of Rock Creek. The road is as straight as a line for fifteen miles, across the flat to the edge of the cliffs that form the canyon walls, where we got our first glimpse of the Falls. From there we looked down upon a stretch of green, smooth water far below us and to the left. It was where the river spreads out below the fall, which soon showed up at a turn in the road, sending up a roar that seemed to shake the whole country. It seems strange that such a scene should be so neglected. There is only one house and an antiquated ferry, just above the Falls, connects the two sides of the river. A piece of bold engineering has built a road up the steep cliffs on the other side and out on the level benches that stretch to the north.

            No man can describe the Falls. They carry a flood gathered from thousands of miles of mountain territory, reaching to the summits of the Rockies— heading near Yellowstone Lake, with immense tributaries pouring into it and bounding over the cliff two hundred and eighteen feet high in a single leap. There is a cataract forty feet high above the great plunge, and there the stream is divided into nine channels, making a picture of surpassing beauty. At Niagara the American Fall is one hundred and sixty-four feet high, while the Horse-Shoe is one hundred and fifty-eight feet, but the volume of water is probably greater. While it is green and clear that of the Snake is of a yellowish cast until it drops over the brink when it turns to foam and fills the air with spray. The Shoshone Falls have a curve of a thousand feet, although it is only seven hundred feet across in a straight line. The whole river is a great natural curiosity. For nearly a hundred miles it runs through the sage-covered desert in a stone box, open at the top, with sides almost perpendicular and hundreds of feet high. Several cataracts are found that would be popular watering-places anywhere among the settled portions of the world. Here they roar their monstrous notes, age after age, in a solitude as profound as when time began. They are almost as neglected now as they were when the Pyramids were being built or Babylon was in its prime. While man was struggling up through the ages of stone, bronze, iron and paper, up to the period of politics, they have changed but a trifle and will probably change less in the thousand years to come.

            After having gone wherever it is possible for anyone to go, climbed out on trembling ledges, slid down clay trails, crawled up and down wet ladders to the very edge of the rapids and visited the cleft in the rocks called Locomotive Cave, where the echo makes a noise exactly like a freight-engine on a big hill, we started back for camp. The second day we reached there, just in time to assist Mr. Sparks in the impressive ceremonies of the bullshead breakfast. I found that the head of my buck had been added to the bull's head and both were done to a turn. Upon opening the pit, which had been covered ten hours, a savory perfume ascended and lifting the appetizing load by the wires that had been skillfully placed around it, two men carried it to a table and our host proceeded to do the honors. A skillful sweep of the knife laid bare the fat jowl and taking a purchase on a lower front tooth a deft turn of the hand took the jawbone out as clean and smooth as a polished plate. The carving then consisted simply in loading up the tin plates that were held out time and again for a fresh supply. Occasionally a careful division was made in order to give each one a taste of some particularly sweet morsel. The tongue seemed to strike Dorsey rather favorably, while Sessions smacked his lips over a fragment of fat and lean from the side of the cheekbone. Judge Sanderson praised the delicate flavor of the roast brain. Mr. McInnis had no choice, while Smith took a little of the dark meat. It was no

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novelty to Harrell. He knew just where the best bits lay and helped himself when nobody was looking. Mr. Umbsen forgot rents and real estate and washed his down with a little claret, while Ed Kiel and Mr. Brown testified their appreciation more loudly by deeds than words. Jeff Grey and Skinner inclined to my deer head while everyone pronounced it the feast of a year.

            Soon, however, the long summer days touched September, and the party was forced to separate. Mr. Sparks and Gordon started first, coming to the Wells. Mr. Hewitt and I took a team for Tecoma, and met with several coyotes and one fine antelope in our two days' ride. He was generous and wanted me to crown my glory with another pair of horns ; but from an ignorance of his gun, as trained position in the buggy or over-caution I shot a bit high and missed the chance of gaining immortal fame, at least with that company. And how long those memories will live in each man's mind. How altogether good the pure fresh air; how dreamless and rest-laden the nights; how free and generous the spirit of the  camp ; how our big-hearted host, Mr. Sparks, a splendid specimen of Southern manhood, a giant six feet two, and straight as a lion, brave and gentle as he is big, made everyone comfortable, adding to the happiness of each in a dozen ways, often unnoticed. Mr. Harrell, a combination impossible anywhere except in Western America, a man of great business affairs, a fond man in his own home, a club man in the city, a hunter and cowboy on the range, who knows every stream and hill for a hundred miles in these big mountains; Dorsey, the life of every party and the wittiest and most popular lawyer in the town. "The Judge full of wise saws and modern instances"; Sessions the scholar and diplomat ; Smith full of classic, Irish humor ; Gordon singing in the twilight, the youthful Weed devoted to Tucker as a fag to his senior at Eton ; Brown, Bowers, McInnis and the cook all on a level temporarily and each doing everything he could for all the rest. It was an ideal outing with perfect weather and rare enjoyment. It was enough to pay for fifty weeks of hard work to get two like that.                                                                                  R. L. Fulton.

            Reno, Nev.