The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-05-25
PART II.
The Country Of the Saints.
CHAPTER L
on TIE GREAT ALKAII PLAIN.


an arid and repulsive desert which for
many long year served as barrier
against the advance of civilization.
From the Sierra Nevada to Nebraska
and from the Yellowstone river in the
north to the Colorado upon the south
is region of desolation and silence.
Nor is nature always in one mood
throughout this grim district. 1t COM
prises snow-capped and lofty noun
tains and dark and gloomy valleys.
There are swift-howing rivers which
dash through jagged canyons, and
there are enormous plains which in
winter are white with snow and in
summer are gray with the saline alkali
dust. They all preserve. however. the
common characteristics of barrenness,
inhospitality and misery.
There are no inhabitants of this land
of despair. A band of Pawnees or of
Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it
in order to reach other hunting
grounds, but the hardest of the braves
are glad to lose sight of those awesome
plains. and to find themselves once
more upon sheir prairies. The coyote
skul1s among the scrub, the buzzard
flaps heavily through the air, and the
clumsy grizzly bear lumberS through
the dark ravines, and picks up such
sustenance as it can among the rocks
These are the sole jewellers in the will
derness.
In the whole world there can be no
more dreary view than that from the
northern slope of the Sierra Blanco.
AS far as the eye can reach stretches
the great fiat plainland, all busted over
with patches of alkali, and intersected
by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral
bushes. On the extreme verge of the
horizon lies long chain of mountain
peaks. with their rugged submits
fiecked with snow. In this great
stretch of country there is no sign of
life, nor of anything appertaining to
life. There is no bird in the steel-blue
heaven. no movement upon the dull,
gray earth--above all, there is abso-
lutte silence. Listen as one may. there
is no shadow of a sound in all that
mighty wilderness; nothing but silence
complete and heart-subduing silence.
1t has been said there is nothing APP
pertaining to life upon the broad
plain. That is hardly true. Looking
down from the Sierra Blanco. one sees
a pathway traced out across the desert,
which winds away and is lost in the
extreme distance. 1t is rutted with
wheels and trodden down by the feet
of many adventurers. Here and there
are scattered white objects which
glisten in the sun, and stand out
against the dull deposit of alkali. APP
proach and examine them! They are
bones; some large and coarse, others
smaller and more delicate. The for
mer have belonged to oxen, and the
latter to men. For fifteen hundred
miles one may trace this CHASTITY cara
van route by these scattered remains
of those who had fallen by the way
side.
Looking down on this very scene,
there stood upon the 4th of May, 1S47,
a solitary traveller. His appearance
was such that he might have been the
very genius or demon of the region.
An observer would have found it diff
cult to say whether he was nearer to
forty or to sixty. His face was lean
and haggard, and the brown, parch-
ment-like skin was drawn tightly over
the projecting bones; his long. brown
hair and beard were all flecked and
dashed with white; his eyes were
sunken in his head, and burned with
an unnatural luster, while the hand
which grasped his rifle was hardly
more fieshy than that of skeleton.
AS he stood, he leaned upon his weapon
for support, and yet his tall figure and
the massive framework of his bones
suggested why and vigorous consti-
tuition. His gaunt face. however, and
his clothes, which hung so baggily over
his shriveled limbs, proclaimed what
it was that gave him that senile and
decrepit appearance. The man was
dying-dying from hunger and from
thirst.
He had toiled painfully down the
ravine and on to this little elevation,
in the vain hope of seeing some signs
of water. Now the great salt plain
stretched before his eyes, and the dis
tant belt of savage mountains, without
a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which
might indicate the presence of moist
ure. In all that broad landscape
there was no CLEAN of hope. North
and east and west he looked with wild
questioning eyes, and then he realized
that his wanderings had come to an
end, and that there, on that barren
crag, he was about to die. why not
here. as well as in feather bed, twenty
wears hence he muttered. as he seated
himself in the shelter of a bowlder.
Before sitting down, he had de-
posted upon the ground his useless
rife, and also large bundle tied up
in a gray shawl, which he had carried
slung over his right shoulder. 1t ap-
peared to be somewhat too heavy for
his strength, for, in lowering it, 1t
came down on the ground with some
little violence. Instantly there broke
from the gray parcel a little moaning
cry, and from it there protruded
small, scared face. with very bright
brown eyes, and two little speckled
dimpled fists
You've hurt me-" said a childish
voice, reproachfully.
''Have 1 thought" the man answered,
penitently; Il didn't go for TO do it.
As he spoke he unwrapped the gray
shawl and extricated pretty little girl
of about five years of age, whose
dainty shoes and smart pink frock.
with its little linen apron, all bespoke
a mothers care. The child was pale
and wan, bit her healthy arms and