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Introduction
The present volume is a continuation of
"Adventures in Mexico," by Lieutenant Ruxton
which precedes it in this Library of Adventure.
Here we take up the story of our author's
journey northward from Chihuahua to the
Rocky Mountains. Passing through treeless
deserts, where he and his animals suffered much
from lack of water, he arrived at Valverde, and
there met the advanced post of the American
army, which had invaded Mexico after the
declaration of war in May of this year, 1846.
At this place Ruxton's servants left him, and
thenceforth he had to shift for himself.
In December he reached Santa Fe. Shortly
before New Year's day, after a hard journey,
in which he froze one of his feet, and was mistreated
by the New Mexicans, he crossed the
United States boundary line. Winter travel
in the mountains was extremely trying; but he
pushed on, and, at the Arkansas River, fell in
with typical "mountain men," as the hunters
and trappers of the Far West were called.
Taking a course up the Fontaine-qui-bouille, he
finally gained the famous hunting ground of the
Bayou Salado, now known as South Park
(Colorado). In this sportsman's paradise he
remained for the rest of the winter.
Early in May, 1847, he started, in company
of a wagon-train, for Missouri. From Chouteau's
Island to Coon Creek the caravan passed,
day by day, through countless herds of buffalo,
which covered the plains in such incredible
numbers that in one place, over a space thirty
miles long by sixteen wide, the spectators could
not see anywhere an unoccupied patch of grass
ten yards square.
At Fort Leavenworth the traveler at last
fell hi with civilized society, but was mistaken
for an Indian chief, owing to his bronzed visage
and barbaric dress of fringed buckskins. Here
he took passage on a steamboat down the
Missouri River to St. Louis. By boat and
stage-coach and rail he then proceeded, via
Chicago and Detroit, to New York, and then
set sail for England, where he arrived in August,
1847, after one of the most venturesome and
difficult tours that had been made within his
generation.
He tarried in England just long enough
to see his books through the press, and
then set forth once more for wildest America.
Alas! it was not granted that he should camp
again in his beloved Bayou Salado. At St.
Louis he was stricken with a mortal ailment.
He died in the old Planter's House, in September,
1848, at the age of twenty-eight, and
was buried near the Father of Waters.
A sketch of the author's life was published
in the first volume of this Library (his "In the
Old West").
Ruxton was one of those children of nature
of whom Parkman wrote:
" Thus to look back with a fond longing to inhospitable
deserts, where man, beasts, and
Nature herself, seem arrayed in arms, and where
ease, security, and all that civilization reckons
among the goods of life, are alike cut off, may
appear to argue some strange perversity or
moral malformation. Yet such has been the
experience of many a sound and healthful
mind.
"To him who has once tasted the reckless
independence, the haughty self-reliance, the
sense of irresponsible freedom; which the forest
life engenders, civilization thenceforth seems
flat and stale. Its pleasures are insipid, its
pursuits wearisome, its conventionalities, duties,
and mutual dependence alike tedious and disgusting.
The entrapped wanderer grows fierce
and restless, and pants for breathing-room.
His path, it is true, was choked with difficulties,
but his body and soul were hardened to meet
them; it was beset with dangers, but these were
the very spice of his life, gladdening his heart
with exulting self-confidence, and sending the
blood through his veins with a livelier current.
The wilderness, rough, harsh, and inexorable,
has charms more potent in their seductive
influence than all the lures of luxury and sloth;
and often he upon whom it has cast its magic
finds no heart to dissolve the spell, and remains
a wanderer and an Ishmaelite to the hour of his
death."
Ruxton's short life was so crowded with
activities in the field that he had little time for
composition or revision, and his writings have
needed careful editing. This has been given
to them in the Outing Adventure Library, but
it has been limited to translations, footnotes,
and corrections of errors.
HORACE KEPHART.
Table of Contents Chapter I OUT OF OLD MEXICO Chapter II THE JOURNEY OF THE DEAD Chapter III TRAVELLING WITH THE ENGINEERS Chapter IV LAND OF THE PUEBLOS Chapter V MEXICAN GRATITUDE Chapter VI INTO THE MOUNTAINS Chapter VII BLIZZARD IN SOUTH PARK Chapter VIII THE BEAVER AND His TRAPPER Chapter IX AMONG THE SPRINGS Chapter X PASSING OF THE BUFFALO Chapter XI BIG GAME OF THE MOUNTAINS Chapter XII BIRDS OF PASSAGE AT BENT'S FORT Chapter XIII HEADING FOR HOME Chapter XIV A BUFFALO LANDSCAPE Chapter XV AT THE END OF THE TRAIL Chapter XVI THE MEXICAN WAR Chapter XVII MEN AND MANNERS
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