Non fiction ebooks

The Great Salt Lake Trail

THE GREAT SALT LAKE TRAIL


By COLONEL HENRY INMAN

Late Assistant Quartermaster, United States Army
Author of _The Old Santa Fe Trail_, Etc.

And COLONEL WILLIAM F. CODY, "Buffalo Bill"

Late Chief of Scouts




PREFACE.



There are seven historic trails crossing the great plains of the
interior of the continent, all of which for a portion of their
distance traverse the geographical limits of what is now the
prosperous commonwealth of Kansas.

None of these primitive highways, however, with the exception of that
oldest of all to far-off Santa Fe, has a more stirring story than
that known as the Salt Lake Trail.

Over this historical highway the Mormons made their lonely Hegira to
the valley of that vast inland sea. On its shores they established
a city, marvellous in its conception, and a monument to the ability
of man to overcome almost insuperable obstacles--the product of a
faith equal to that which inspired the crusader to battle to the death
for the possession of the Holy Sepulchre.

Over this route, also, were made those world-renowned expeditions
by Fremont, Stansbury, Lander, and others of lesser fame, to the
heart of the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, to the blue shores of the
Pacific Ocean.

Over the same trackless waste the Pony Express executed those
marvellous feats in annihilating distance, and the once famous
Overland Stage lumbered along through the seemingly interminable
desert of sage-brush and alkali dust--avant-courieres of the telegraph
and the railroad.

One of the collaborators of this volume, Colonel W. F. Cody ("Buffalo
Bill"), began his remarkable career, as a boy, on the Salt Lake Trail,
and laid the foundations of a life which has made him a conspicuous
American figure at the close of this century.

It is not the intention of the authors of this work to deal in the
slightest manner with Mormonism as a religion. An immense mass of
literature on the subject is to be found in every public library, both
in its defence and in its condemnation. The latter preponderates, and
often seems to be inspired by an inexcusable ingenuity in exaggeration.

Of the trials of the Mormons during their toilsome march and their
difficulties with the government during the Civil War, this work will
treat in a limited way, but its scope is to present the story of the
Trail in the days long before the building of a railroad was believed
to be possible. It will deal with the era of the trapper, the scout,
the savage, and the passage of emigrants to the gold fields of
California--when the only route was by the overland trail--and with
the adventures which marked the long and weary march.




CONTENTS.



CHAPTER I. EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. Proposed Exploring Expedition
across the Northern Part of the Continent in 1774--Sir Alexander
Mackenzie's Expedition--The Expedition of Lewis and Clarke--Hunt's
Tour in 1810--March of Robert Stuart eastwardly.

CHAPTER II. THE OLD TRAPPERS. Captain Ezekiel Williams' Expedition
to the Platte Valley in 1807--Character of the Old Trapper--The Outfit
of his Men--Crosses the River--Immense Herds of Buffalo--Death of
their Favourite Hound--A Lost Trapper--A Prairie Burial--A Wolf-chase
after a Buffalo--An Indian Lochinvar--The Crow Indians--Their Country
--Rose, the Scapegoat Refugee--The Lost Trappers--A Battle with
the Savages.

CHAPTER III. JIM BECKWOURTH. General W. H. Ashley's Trapping
Expedition--Jim Beckwourth's Story--Two Axe--Kill Fourteen Hundred
Buffaloes--The Surround--Expedition is divided--Boats are built--
Green River Suck--Indians murder Le Brache--Beckwourth meets Castenga.

CHAPTER IV. CAPTAIN SUBLETTE'S EXPEDITION. Captain William
Sublette's Expedition in 1832--They meet Nathaniel J. Wyeth's Party--
Arrive at Green River Valley--Attacked by Indians--Antoine Godin
shoots a Blackfoot Chief--Fight between Whites, Flatheads, and
Blackfeet--An Indian Heroine--Major Stephen H. Long's Scientific
Expedition in 1820--Captain Bonneville's Expedition in 1832--
Lieutenant John C.

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The Great God Success – A Novel

The Great God Success

A NOVEL

By JOHN GRAHAM (DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS)



THE GREGG PRESS / RIDGEWOOD, N.J.


CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE

II. THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS

III. A PARK ROW CELEBRITY

IV. IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA

V. ALICE

VI. IN A BOHEMIAN QUICKSAND

VII. A LITTLE CANDLE GOES OUT

VIII. A STRUGGLE FOR SELF-CONTROL

IX. AMBITION AWAKENS

X. THE ETERNAL MASCULINE

XI. TRESPASSING

XII. MAKING THE MOST OF A MONTH

XIII. RECKONING WITH DANVERS

XIV. THE NEWS-RECORD GETS A NEW EDITOR

XV. YELLOW JOURNALISM

XVI. MR. STOKELY IS TACTLESS

XVII. A WOMAN AND A WARNING

XVIII. HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE

XIX. "I MUST BE RICH."

XX. ILLUSION

XXI. WAVERING

XXII. THE SHENSTONE EPISODE

XXIII. EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING

XXIV. "MR. VALIANT-FOR-TRUTH."

XXV. THE PROMISED LAND

XXVI. IN POSSESSION

XXVII. THE HARVEST

XXVIII. SUCCESS



THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS




I.

THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE.


"O your college paper, I suppose?"

"No, I never wrote even a letter to the editor."

"Took prizes for essays?"

"No, I never wrote if I could help it."

"But you like to write?"

"I'd like to learn to write."

"You say you are two months out of college--what college?"

"Yale."

"Hum--I thought Yale men went into something commercial; law or banking or
railroads. 'Leave hope of fortune behind, ye who enter here' is over the
door of this profession."

"I haven't the money-making instinct."

"We pay fifteen dollars a week at the start."

"Couldn't you make it twenty?"

The Managing Editor of the _News-Record_ turned slowly in his chair
until his broad chest was full-front toward the young candidate for the
staff. He lowered his florid face slowly until his double chin swelled out
over his low "stick-up" collar. Then he gradually raised his eyelids until
his amused blue eyes were looking over the tops of his glasses, straight
into Howard's eyes.

"Why?" he asked. "Why should we?"

Howard's grey eyes showed embarrassment and he flushed to the line of his
black hair which was so smoothly parted in the middle. "Well--you see--the
fact is--I need twenty a week. My expenses are arranged on that scale. I'm
not clever at money matters. I'm afraid I'd get in a mess with only
fifteen."

"My dear young man," said Mr. King, "I started here at fifteen dollars a
week. And I had a wife; and the first baby was coming."

"Yes, but your wife was an energetic woman. She stood right beside you and
worked too. Now I have only myself."

Mr. King raised his eyebrows and became a rosier red. He was evidently
preparing to rebuke this audacious intrusion into his private affairs by a
stranger whose card had been handed to him not ten minutes before. But
Howard's tone and manner were simple and sincere. And they happened to
bring into Mr. King's mind a rush of memories of his youth and his wife.
She had married him on faith. They had come to New York fifteen years
before, he to get a place as reporter on the _News-Record_, she to
start a boarding-house; he doubting and trembling, she with courage and
confidence for two. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and opened
the book of memory at the place where the leaves most easily fell apart:

He is coming home at one in the morning, worn out, sick at heart from the
day's buffetings. As he puts his key into the latch, the door opens. There
stands a handsome girl; her face is flushed; her eyes are bright; her lips
are held up for him to kiss; she shows no trace of a day that began hours
before his and has been a succession of exasperations and humiliations
against which her sensitive nature, trained in the home of her father, a
distinguished up-the-state Judge, gives her no protection, "Victory," she
whispers, her arms about his neck and her head upon his coat collar.
"Victory! We are seventy-two cents ahead on the week, and everything paid
up!"

Mr. King opened his eyes--they had been closed less than five seconds.

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Gallantry: Dizain des Fetes Galantes

CONTENTS


THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

THE PROLOGUE

I SIMON'S HOUR

II LOVE AT MARTINMAS

III THE CASUAL HONEYMOON

IV THE RHYME TO PORRINGER

V ACTORS ALL

VI APRIL'S MESSAGE

VII IN THE SECOND APRIL

VIII HEART OF GOLD

IX THE SCAPEGOATS

X THE DUCAL AUDIENCE

LOVE'S ALUMNI: THE AFTERPIECE

THE EPILOGUE




THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

_TO MRS. GRUNDY_


Madam,--It is surely fitting that a book which harks back to the manners
of the second George should have its dedication and its patron. And these
comedies claim naturally your protection, since it likewise appears
a custom of that era for the poet to dedicate his book to his most
influential acquaintance and the one least likely to value it.

Indeed, it is as proper that the plaudits of great persons be reserved for
great performances as it is undeniable these

tiny pictures of that tiny time
Aim little at the lofty and sublime.

Yet cognoscenti still esteem it an error in the accomplished Shakespeare
that he introduced a game of billiards into his portrayal of Queen
Cleopatra's court; and the impropriety had been equal had I linked the
extreme of any passion with an age and circle wherein abandonment to
the emotions was adjudged bucolic, nay, Madam, the Eumenides were very
terrifying at Delphi, no doubt, but deck them with paint, patch, and
panniers, send them howling among the _beau monde_ on the Pantiles, and
they are only figures of fun; nor may, in reason, the high woes of a second
Lear, or of a new Prometheus, be adequately lighted by the flambeaux of
Louis Quinze.

Conceive, then, the overture begun, and fear not, if the action of the play
demand a lion, but that he shall be a beast of Peter Quince's picking. The
ladies shall not be frighted, for our chief comedians will enact modish
people of a time when gallantry prevailed.

Now the essence of gallantry, I take it, was to accept the pleasures of
life leisurely and its inconveniences with a shrug. As requisites, a
gallant person will, of course, be "amorous, but not too constant, have
a pleasant voice, and possess a talent for love-letters." He will always
bear in mind that in love-affairs success is less the Ultima Thule of
desire than its _coup de grace_, and he will be careful never to admit the
fact, especially to himself. He will value ceremony, but rather for its
comeliness than for its utility, as one esteeming the lily, say, to be a
more applaudable bulb than the onion. He will prink; and he will be at his
best after sunset. He will dare to acknowledge the shapeliness of a thief's
leg, to contend that the commission of murder does not necessarily impair
the agreeableness of the assassin's conversation; and to insist that at
bottom God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational. He will,
in fine, sin on sufficient provocation, and repent within the moment,
quite sincerely, and be not unconscionably surprised when he repeats the
progression: and he will consider the world with a smile of toleration, and
his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile
that is not distrustful.

This particular attitude toward life may have its merits, but it is not
conducive to meticulous morality; therefore, in advance, I warn you that my
_Dramatis Personae_ will in their display of the cardinal virtues evince a
certain parsimony. Theirs were, in effect, not virtuous days. And the great
man who knew these times _au fond_, and loved them, and wrote of them as no
other man may ever hope to do, has said of these same times, with perfect
truth:

"Fiddles sing all through them; wax-lights, fine dresses, fine jokes,
fine plate, fine equipages, glitter and sparkle: never was there such
a brilliant, jigging, smirking Vanity Fair. But wandering through that
city of the dead, that dreadfully selfish time, through those godless
intrigues and feasts, through those crowds, pushing, and eager, and
struggling,--rouged, and lying, and fawning,--I have wanted some one to be
friends with.

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Funny Epitaphs

This unique volume was published in 1902.

Book excerpts:

A Cornwall churchyard is enriched with the follow-
ing dainty verses :

Here lies entombed one Roger Morton,
Whose sudden death was early brought on ;
Trying one day his-corn to mow off,
The razor slipped and cut his toe off.

The toe, or rather what it grew to,
An inflammation quickly flew to ;
The parts they took to mortifying.
And poor dear Roger took to dying.
.................................................................................


In Thetford Churchyard, Norfolk :
My grandfather was buried here,
My cousin Jane and two uncles dear ;
My father perished with an inflammation in his thighs
And my sister dropped down dead in the Minories ;
But the reason why I'm here interr'd, according to my thinking,
Is owing to my good living and hard drinking.
If, therefore, good Christians, you wish to live long.
Don't drink too much wine, brandy, gin, or anything strong.
................................................................................

He's done a catching cod
And gone to meet his God.

*

He got a fish bone in his throat
And then he sang an angels note

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Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret – A Romance

DOCTOR GRIMSHAWE'S SECRET



CHAPTER I


A long time ago, [Endnote: 1] in a town with which I used to be
familiarly acquainted, there dwelt an elderly person of grim aspect,
known by the name and title of Doctor Grimshawe,[Endnote: 2] whose
household consisted of a remarkably pretty and vivacious boy, and a
perfect rosebud of a girl, two or three years younger than he, and an
old maid-of-all-work, of strangely mixed breed, crusty in temper and
wonderfully sluttish in attire. [Endnote: 3] It might be partly owing to
this handmaiden's characteristic lack of neatness (though primarily, no
doubt, to the grim Doctor's antipathy to broom, brush, and dusting-
cloths) that the house--at least in such portions of it as any casual
visitor caught a glimpse of--was so overlaid with dust, that, in lack
of a visiting card, you might write your name with your forefinger upon
the tables; and so hung with cobwebs that they assumed the appearance
of dusky upholstery.

It grieves me to add an additional touch or two to the reader's
disagreeable impression of Doctor Grimshawe's residence, by confessing
that it stood in a shabby by-street, and cornered on a graveyard, with
which the house communicated by a back door; so that with a hop, skip,
and jump from the threshold, across a flat tombstone, the two children
[Endnote: 4] were in the daily habit of using the dismal cemetery as
their playground. In their graver moods they spelled out the names and
learned by heart doleful verses on the headstones; and in their merrier
ones (which were much the more frequent) they chased butterflies and
gathered dandelions, played hide-and-seek among the slate and marble,
and tumbled laughing over the grassy mounds which were too eminent for
the short legs to bestride. On the whole, they were the better for the
graveyard, and its legitimate inmates slept none the worse for the two
children's gambols and shrill merriment overhead. Here were old brick
tombs with curious sculptures on them, and quaint gravestones, some of
which bore puffy little cherubs, and one or two others the effigies of
eminent Puritans, wrought out to a button, a fold of the ruff, and a
wrinkle of the skull-cap; and these frowned upon the two children as if
death had not made them a whit more genial than they were in life. But
the children were of a temper to be more encouraged by the good-natured
smiles of the puffy cherubs, than frightened or disturbed by the sour
Puritans.

This graveyard (about which we shall say not a word more than may
sooner or later be needful) was the most ancient in the town. The clay
of the original settlers had been incorporated with the soil; those
stalwart Englishmen of the Puritan epoch, whose immediate ancestors had
been planted forth with succulent grass and daisies for the sustenance
of the parson's cow, round the low-battlemented Norman church towers in
the villages of the fatherland, had here contributed their rich Saxon
mould to tame and Christianize the wild forest earth of the new world.
In this point of view--as holding the bones and dust of the primeval
ancestor--the cemetery was more English than anything else in the
neighborhood, and might probably have nourished English oaks and
English elms, and whatever else is of English growth, without that
tendency to spindle upwards and lose their sturdy breadth, which is
said to be the ordinary characteristic both of human and vegetable
productions when transplanted hither. Here, at all events, used to be
some specimens of common English garden flowers, which could not be
accounted for,--unless, perhaps, they had sprung from some English
maiden's heart, where the intense love of those homely things, and
regret of them in the foreign land, had conspired together to keep
their vivifying principle, and cause its growth after the poor girl was
buried. Be that as it might, in this grave had been hidden from sight
many a broad, bluff visage of husbandman,

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The Summer Holidays

"Mr. Harvey''s two sons, Thomas and John, were very anxious for their cousin, Samuel Reed, to spend the August holidays with them. His father said that he might; and when school was closed for the season, Samuel bade his father good bye, and was soon in the carriage, driving toward Uncle Harvey''s country seat. "

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The Story of the Munsters at Etreux, Festubert, Rue du Bois and Hulloch

This volume was published in 1918.

Reviewer: owilliamoneill - - November 26, 2009

A 4-STAR REVIEW:

Subject: 2nd Munster Fusiliers
The book chronicles the actions of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers in the early months of the World War. Mrs. Rickard dedicated the book to the dead of the 2nd Battalion. Mrs. Rickard wrote the history from the available official records and memoirs of the survivors of the battalion. It is a highly readable account of part of the "Old Contemptibles." The British Regular Army disappeared in the summer of 1914-Spring 1915.

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The Solitary Summer

"May 2nd.--Last night after dinner, when we were in the garden, I said, I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. "

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The Socialogy of a New York City Block

This volume was published in 1904.

Book Excerpt:

The primary aim of the present study is distinctly socio-
logical. Such a study in the present instance has value
apart from the concrete results obtained by the investigator.
It is an attempt to study a New York City street according
to a complete system of social principles. Even if the sys-
tem were proved to be arbitrary, the work would be more
valuable, the writer believes, than an unsystematic attempt,
however long continued, for the reason that the investigator
has a basis for search and an order for arranging in his
mind the innumerable impressions made by the unit con-
sidered. Without a system the study of a people is but a
wild-goose chase, and this, indeed, is the nature of too many
of the so-called sociological investigations now carried on.
Read the results of these investigations and you feel that
you have been through a mine more or less rich in infor-
mation. You are possibly stirred to pity or to blame by
the conditions described, and you may give your help ac-
cordingly; but when this task is accomplished the outcome
of the investigation is simply a conglomerate mass of facts,
practically useless for the future. According to the system
used in this dissertation we shall gather facts which may
be expected to substantiate or to overthrow certain theories
as to the manner in which well-known social forces work
themselves out. Thus we may hope for results of perma-
nent scientific value.

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