The River and I

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Title: The River and I

Author: John G. Neihardt

Release Date: October 3, 2005 [EBook #16793]

Language: English

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THE RIVER AND I

Night in Camp.

THE

RIVER AND

I

BY

JOHN G. NEIHARDT

Illustrated

New Edition

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1927

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1910,

By JOHN G. NEIHARDT.

Set up and electrotyped.

Reissued in new format, October, 1927.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY THE CORNWALL PRESS

TO

MY MOTHER

NOTE

The following account of a youthful adventure was written during the winter of 1908, ran as a serial in Putnam's Magazine the following year, and appeared as a book in 1910, five years before The Song of Hugh Glass, the first piece of my Western Cycle. Many who have cared for my narrative poems, feeling the relation between those and this earlier avowal of an old love, have urged that The River and I be reprinted.

J.G.N.

St. Louis, 1927.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

    I. The River of an Unwritten Epic1

   II. Sixteen Miles of Awe22

  III. Half-Way to the Moon40

  IV. Making a Getaway65

   V. Through the Region of Weir84

  VI. Getting Down to Business113

 VII. On to the Yellowstone137

VIII. Down from the Yellowstone165

ILLUSTRATIONS

Night in Camp Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Off on the Perilous Floods 6

Barriers Formed before Him 7

The Boats Wrecked in an Ice Gorge 7

After the Spring Break-Up 18

Hole-in-the-Wall Rock on the Upper Missouri 19

Palisades of the Upper Missouri 19

Great Falls from Cliff Above 30

Great Falls from the Front 31

This was Benton 52

Ruins of Old Fort Benton 52

The House of the Bourgeois 53

A Round-Up Outfit on the March 62

Joe 62

Montana Sheep 63

A Montana Wool-Freighter 63

The Atom I under Construction 74

The Cable Ferry Towed Us Out 74

Laid Up with a Broken Rudder 75

Atom Sailing Up-Stream in a Head Wind 86

Typical Rapids on Upper Missouri 87

Wolf Point, the First Town in 500 Miles 98

Entrance to the Bad Lands 99

Fresh Meat! 110

Supper! 111

Walking Boats over Shallows 126

Typical Upper Missouri River Reach 126

The Mouth of the James 127

Reveille! 142

The Pen and Key Ranch 143

Assiniboine Indian Chief 154

Assiniboine Indian Camp 155

On the Hurricane Deck of the Expansion; Capt. Marsh Third from the Left 166

Fort Union in 1837 167

Site of Old Fort Union 167

Boats Laid Up for the Winter at Washburn, N.D. 178

Washburn, N.D. 178

The Landing at Bismarck, N.D. 179

The Yankton Landing in the Old Days 192

Atom II Landing at Sioux City 193

THE RIVER AND I

CHAPTER I

THE RIVER OF AN UNWRITTEN EPIC

IT was Carlyle—was it not?—who said that all great works produce an unpleasant impression on first acquaintance. It is so with the Missouri River. Carlyle was not, I think, speaking of rivers; but he was speaking of masterpieces—and so am I.

It makes little difference to me whether or not an epic goes at a hexameter gallop through the ages, or whether it chooses to be a flood of muddy water, ripping out a channel from the mountains to the sea. It is merely a matter of how the great dynamic force shall express itself.

I have seen trout streams that I thought were better lyrics than I or any of my fellows can ever hope to create. I have heard the moaning of rain winds among mountain pines that struck me as being equal, at least, to Adonais. I have seen the solemn rearing of a mountain peak into the pale dawn that gave me a deep religious appreciation of my significance in the Grand Scheme, as though I had heard and understood a parable from the holy lips of an Avatar. And the vast plains of my native country are as a mystic scroll unrolled, scrawled with a cabalistic writ of infinite things.

In the same sense, I have come to look upon the Missouri as something more than a stream of muddy water. It gave me my first big boy dreams. It was my ocean. I remember well the first time I looked upon my turbulent friend, who has since become as a brother to me. It was from a bluff at Kansas City. I know I must have been a very little boy, for the terror I felt made me reach up to the saving forefinger of my father, lest this insane devil-thing before me should suddenly develop an unreasoning hunger for little boys. My father seemed as tall as Alexander—and quite as courageous. He seemed to fear it almost not at all. And I should have felt little surprise had he taken me in his arms and stepped easily over that mile or so of liquid madness. He talked calmly about it—quite calmly. He explained at what angle one should hold one's body in the current, and how one should conduct one's legs and arms in the whirlpools, providing one should swim across.

Swim across! Why, it took a giant even to talk that way! For the summer had smitten the distant mountains, and the June floods ran. Far across the yellow swirl that spread out into the wooded bottom-lands, we watched the demolition of a little town. The siege had reached the proper stage for a sally, and the attacking forces were howling over the walls. The sacking was in progress. Shacks, stores, outhouses suddenly developed a frantic desire to go to St. Louis. It was a weird retreat in very bad order. A cottage with a garret window that glared like the eye of a Cyclops, trembled, rocked with the athletic lift of the flood, made a panicky plunge into a convenient tree; groaned, dodged, and took off through the brush like a scared cottontail. I felt a boy's pity and sympathy for those houses that got up and took to their legs across the yellow waste. It did not seem fair. I have since experienced the same feeling for a jack-rabbit with the hounds a-yelp at its heels.

But—to swim this thing! To fight this cruel, invulnerable, resistless giant that went roaring down the world with a huge uprooted oak tree in its mouth for a toothpick! This yellow, sinuous beast with hell-broth slavering from its jaws! This dare-devil boy-god that sauntered along with a town in its pocket, and a steepled church under its arm for a moment's toy! Swim this?

For days I marvelled

at the magnificence of being a fullgrown man, unafraid of big rivers.

But the first sight of the Missouri River was not enough for me. There was a dreadful fascination about it—the fascination of all huge and irresistible things. I had caught my first wee glimpse into the infinite; I was six years old.

Many a lazy Sunday stroll took us back to the river; and little by little the dread became less, and the wonder grew—and a little love crept in. In my boy heart I condoned its treachery and its giant sins. For, after all, it sinned through excess of strength, not through weakness. And that is the eternal way of virile things. We watched the steamboats loading for what seemed to me far distant ports. (How the world shrinks!) A double stream of roosters coming and going at a dog-trot rushed the freight aboard; and at the foot of the gang-plank the mate swore masterfully while the perspiration dripped from the point of his nose.

And then—the raucous whistles blew. They reminded me of the lions roaring at the circus. The gang-plank went up, the hawsers went in. The snub nose of the steamer swung out with a quiet majesty. Now she feels the urge of the flood, and yields herself to it, already dwindled to half her size. The pilot turns his wheel—he looks very big and quiet and masterful up there. The boat veers round; bells jangle. And now the engine wakens in earnest. She breathes with spurts of vapor!

Breathed? No, it was sighing; for about it all clung an inexplicable sadness for me—the sadness that clings about all strong and beautiful things that must leave their moorings and go very, very far away. (I have since heard it said that river boats are not beautiful!) My throat felt as though it had smoke in it. I felt that this queenly thing really wanted to stay; for far down the muddy swirl where she dwindled, dwindled, I heard her sobbing hoarsely.

Off on the perilous flood for faërie lands forlorn! It made the world seem almost empty and very lonesome.

And then the dog-days came, and I saw my river tawny, sinewy, gaunt—a half-starved lion. The long dry bars were like the protruding ribs of the beast when the prey is scarce, and the ropy main current was like the lean, terrible muscles of its back.

In the spring it had roared; now it only purred. But all the while I felt in it a dreadful economy of force, just as I have since felt it in the presence of a great lean jungle-cat at the zoo. Here was a thing that crouched and purred—a mewing but terrific thing. Give it an obstacle to overcome—fling it something to devour; and lo! the crushing impact of its leap!

And then again I saw it lying very quietly in the clutch of a bitter winter—an awful hush upon it, and the white cerement of the snow flung across its face. And yet, this did not seem like death; for still one felt in it the subtle influence of a tremendous personality. It slept, but sleeping it was still a giant. It seemed that at any moment the sleeper might turn over, toss the white cover aside and, yawning, saunter down the valley with its thunderous seven-league boots. And still, back and forth across this heavy sleeper went the pigmy wagons of the farmers taking corn to market!

Off on the Perilous Floods.

But one day in March the far-flung arrows of the geese went over. Honk! honk! A vague, prophetic sense crept into the world out of nowhere—part sound, part scent, and yet too vague for either. Sap seeped from the maples. Weird mist-things went moaning through the night. And then, for the first time, I saw my big brother win a fight!

For days, strange premonitory noises had run across the shivering surface of the ice. Through the foggy nights, a muffled intermittent booming went on under the wild scurrying stars. Now and then a staccato crackling ran up the icy reaches of the river, like the sequent bickering of Krags down a firing line. Long seams opened in the disturbed surface, and from them came a harsh sibilance as of a line of cavalry unsheathing sabres.

But all the while, no show of violence—only the awful quietness with deluge potential in it. The lion was crouching for the leap.

Then one day under the warm sun a booming as of distant big guns began. Faster and louder came the dull shaking thunders, and passed swiftly up and down, drawling into the distance. Fissures yawned, and the sound of the grumbling black water beneath came up. Here and there the surface lifted—bent—broke with shriekings, groanings, thunderings. And

then——

The giant turned over, yawned and got to his feet, flinging his arms about him! Barriers formed before him. Confidently he set his massive shoulders against them—smashed them into little blocks, and went on singing, shouting, toward the sea. It was a glorious victory. It made me very proud of my big brother. And yet all the while I dreaded him—just as I dread the caged tiger that I long to caress because he is so strong and so beautiful.

Since then I have changed somewhat, though I am hardly as tall, and certainly not so courageous as Alexander. But I have felt the sinews of the old yellow giant tighen

about my naked body. I have been bent upon his hip. I have presumed to throw against his Titan