“…We saw a great many Indians and passed a great many villages, some large ones. At first they were Sioux and then Cheyennes, the Arapaho Indians occupying the territory immediately east from the mountains. Of the three tribes, the Sioux were much the most numerous; but all three tribes had been friendly for generations and their language was very similar. The end of that week, Sunday 27th, found us camped on the south bank of the South Platte, a little east of Beaver Creek, and about five hundred miles from Nebraska city…. At this point we began to meet some returning pilgrims, with tales of disaster and impending attack from the Indians; the latter rumor did not disturb us because the presence in all the Indian villages of the usual number of squaws and papooses was a sign of no immediate trouble….
Tuesday night, the 29th, we camped on the bank of the Platte where the new trail called “The Cut Off” leaves the round-about river trail and strikes straight across to Denver. We understood that as our teams were in such good condition it was possible for us to go through in two good days travel. The only real trouble was said to be the very poor water and a great scarcity of it. But it was finally decided to take “The Cut Off” trail, although it was also said to be a very sandy heavy track. So Wednesday morning, May 30th, after having filled every keg, canteen, or other utensil in which a little of the Platte River water could be carried, we left the river behind us and hit the new trail for Denver. That night we camped near a stage station where we could get water for the teams. Thursday we traveled on through a region apparently made up of sand, cactus, and Prairie Dog towns, and at night camped on Kiowa Creek, a little very brackish water along in pools. Friday morning we drank the last of the Platte River water and hit the trail early, expecting to be in Denver before night. The next water was said to be a little shallow pond of surface water about half way between Kiowa Creek and Denver. It proved to be a very hot day and before noon we began to suffer for water. About noon we came to the place where the pond had been, but there was no water, just a small area of damp soft mud, all tracked up by the feet of men and of animals, wild and domestic. We tried digging for water but got none. Gave the teams some grain but they ate very little. We ate what we could of some cold corn bread and raw side meat, then started on. At sundown with Denver still at an unknown distance, we stopped to rest and feed the teams, but they would not eat; neither could we. Things began to look very serious much of the trail was very sandy, and the loads cut deep and dragged heavily. Fortunately the moon was at the full, sailing high in a cloudless sky, and as night came on the air got cooler. We started on again, hoping as we came to the top of each roll in the prairie, to see the lights of Denver below us. I shall never forget the hours that followed as we toiled on in the moonlight, with frequent stops to rest the exhausted teams, and then with whip and voice urging them to drag along the heavy loads. My thirst was also becoming unbearable – torturing. At last, somewhere near midnight as we came up on a little rise of ground and stopped for a moment, our mules cocked their ears forward and began to he-haw – he-haw most vigorously. I think that was one of the sweetest strains of music that I ever heard, for it told us that the mules smelt water ahead. We had no more trouble urging them forward. A mile or so farther and from a little rise in the prairie, we looked down on a host of twinkling lights that said Denver lay before us .”
Hedges made the mountains, but by September of 1860 he was ready to return to Iowa. He was busted.
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Photo source: Hoig, Stan & Frank W. Porter, The Cheyenne, (NY: Chelsea House, 1989), p. 57.
Source:
Hedges, William Hawkins, Pike's Peak ... or Busted!: Frontier Reminiscences (Evanston, IL: Branding Iron Press, 1954), pp. 19-21.
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