Wagon Tracks to Somewhere

By P. Arden Corbin

Has anyone ever rode a horse sixteen hundred miles, following wagon tracks, made by covered wagons, about 1875, to find out where they went? That is what this book is all about. And the adventure it turned out to be, is something that only the person who did this, actually knew.

But because this person has a special ability, which is, to be able to talk to any creature on this Earth, and to do what this young man did, will capture your own imagination, of what you might be able to do, in case you were able to do the same thing.

Consider making friends with several wild horses, and even a bald eagle, who helped protect these two individuals as they traveled. That is why you must read this book, so you too can experience what Daniel Royal experienced. Because the way this writer explains most everything, will permit you to be one of the characters of this book also. Become a person who will want to write a review about what you will read in this adventure story.

Lockley Cottonwood
A lifelong friend of
P. Arden Corbin

• Language: English
• Publisher: P. Arden Corbin
• Release date: May 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301896653

P. Arden Corbin

All of my books can be read by any person, whether they are six or a hundred years of age and everyone in between. There are no foul-mouthed four letter words used in any of my books. There are no blood and guts kind of language in any of my books. I may allude to sex once in a while, but no details are ever mentioned. In my Novel "The Lake that wasn't there", 95 percent of the worlds problems that exist today, are all solved in this book.P. Arden Corbin

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I am Daniel royal, who is thirteen years old, and I have been planning to take a trip that will most likely take me to either the Oregon Coast or to the California Coast. I will be following some Wagon Tracks that run across my father’s farm, that were made some 75 years before, made by Pioneers who were traveling west to find better conditions than where they came from, and these Pioneers were traveling in Covered Wagons, most likely being pulled by either Oxen or four Horses.

I will be riding a Strawberry Roan Horse, named Kernel, who is also a Stud Horse. Meaning he can breed with a female horse, so she can get pregnant.

Kernel used to be in several Movies in California, because of his intelligence. But in one of those movies, he became injured so badly that they thought they might have to shoot him, but the owner said he will take him home, where he can heal slowly, and the actual owner of Kernel is a brother of my Father, and he decided he would bring this horse to my father’s farm in South Dakota, where he would be well taken care of.

The main character is going to follow wagon tracks that go across my Fathers farm, and finally see where they will end up going. How did Kernel get his name? When he was born, on his forehead there is a white area between his eyes that is shaped like a kernel of Corn, which is how he got his name.

I am big for my age, and I believe I can handle any kind of situation that I will encounter on this trip. I hope I do not have any problems with any of the persons that I do encounter. I am going to try to avoid most towns of any size, unless it is an emergency.

CHAPTER ONE

So on June 11th in 1947 I began my journey. When I come to any fences, I sometimes have to ride a quarter mile or more, where there is either a gate or a road, and then I go back and find those wagon tracks and continue on my journey. Or if the fence is not higher than five feet, Kernel can and will jump over it. If I come to a slough or lake, I will just ride around that body of water until I find those tracks once again. I know I will be riding on many different persons property, but I must discover where these wagon tracks end up going.

My intent is to try to make no less than twenty miles every day, and if possible try to travel thirty miles or even more in any one day. Terrain will determine that problem. And I have allowed myself 90 days to complete this journey. Meaning that when I get to where I am going, I will have a friend of the family come with a Horse Trailer, and pick me and my horse up, and he will transport us back to South Dakota. That ninety-day period of time will also include that return trip back to South Dakota.

I am using my Fathers old world war one McClellan Military Horse Saddle, which means that it does not have a Pommel on it, but it does have all kinds of rings on it where I can attach many different items, like water canteens, and bags of Pots and Pans and Ropes and a sack of Oats for Kernel and maybe a few Carrots too, and a gunny sack of Beef jerky for myself. My Bedroll will be tied behind this Saddle, including some changes of clothes and socks and under shorts. I will have many small lengths of small rope that I will use for many purposes. Since I will live off of the land through which I travel, I will only carry one box of common kitchen matches. Under this Saddle is a large thick saddle blanket, which will prevent any of what I carry additionally from injuring Kernel’s skin and hair.

As part of the Saddle, there is a Scabbard that houses a 22 repeater Long rifle and I will be wearing a gun belt that will have a 45 Caliber Peacemaker pistol in the holster. This belt is, because it is ten inches wider where my back is located, because riding a horse for all of these many miles, I will need some kind of extra support for my back.

My horse (Kernel) stands eighteen hands tall, meaning where his shoulders are located he is six feet tall, because a Hand is four inches. I too am six feet one inches tall, so I have lengthened the stirrups as far as they can be extended.

In case we run into some Ranchers who may want to get a Colt from Kernel, it may delay our journey for a day or two, but it will be worth it, because of what I will get in money for allowing Kernel to breed with a few female (Mare) horses. What I will charge I will tell you later if this happens.

I also will be carrying a map, that is in reality a Road Map that is normally used when persons travel by automobile anywhere, but I figured it would come in real handy as we travel.

By the end of my first day, we are four miles south of Conde, South Dakota. I have determined that we will never ride after it gets dark, unless it is some kind of emergency. Or when it might be raining, I might stop until the rains become lighter. I do have a small tent that is wrapped up in my bedroll just in case it does rain real hard.

Kernel does not need any kind of covering, because he actually likes rain. And because of my ability to communicate with Kernel, we have long conversations sometimes about the terrain we are traveling through.

Horses have abilities to smell water from great distances or can tell as much as twelve hours in advance of when it may rain or snow. So knowing this is real handy, because we would then be able to stop and make a camp.

CHAPTER TWO

I never restrict Kernel from walking any distance from me, because he says he will never run away from me, no matter what the danger may be. In fact if some other creature attacks us, he will remain with me and fight it if necessary.

Most of the territory we will be riding through for the first 200 miles, will most likely be farming country. Which means we will have a lot of fences to get around or over. The further west we get, the fewer fences we will encounter. Kernel has been trained to jump most objects, including any kind of fence that is not more than five feet high, no matter what it is made from.

When he became injured in his last Movie, he was jumping a barbed wire fence that he thought was too high for him to jump over, but he was encouraged to try to jump over it anyway, and in doing so, his hind legs were both injured very badly, where it was thought he might bleed to death. But instead a Veterinarian that was just passing by, had stopped to watch this movie being made, came to where Kernel was laying on the ground, and he told the Movie Director that he could save Kernels life, if he was allowed to place pressure bandages on Kernels legs until the bleeding stopped.

That if Kernel was taken to his Veterinary Hospital, where he will take care of him until he is healed completely. So that is what was done, and the rest is history.

By the end of the second day, we are camped near Chelsea, South Dakota, which means we traveled about 35 miles today. Kernel says he is real tired this evening, and will probably lie down to sleep.

Kernel is not afraid of fire like most horses are, but he still keeps about ten feet away from my campfire. While we are traveling, I came across some rabbits and I shot two of them with my 22-rifle weapon. Two hours later we stopped for the night. Where we stopped there is great grass and Kernel ate for an hour before he came near where I was camped and he did lie down to sleep for this night.

I roasted the rabbits while Kernel was grazing. I figured I would pack the other one in a Special bag I always carried, which is made out of canvas.

This Canvas bag has another similar and a little smaller bag inside of the outer bag. I fill the outer bag with very cold water that I secured from a Stream that is near our camp. The inner bag is sealed so tightly that no water can get into it from the outer bag.

Canvas bags that has very cold water inside of it, will Sweat, thereby keeping what is inside of this Canvas bag very cold, because of the minute amounts of water that sweats from inside of that outer canvas bag. It is an ingenious idea and a good way to keep other foods from spoiling as time goes by. Some meat will remain eatable for up to three days, just as long as you eat this meat cold after it is cooked.

I made this bag myself. It has a special Latch that will not leak food back into the water, nor water into the food bag. There are many streams in this part of South Dakota, because they most likely originate from some River further north of our location.

CHAPTER THREE

The next morning I eat a little more of the Rabbit meat that I cooked the night before, while Kernel is grazing on more grass. He says he had a great nights sleep and feels like he could travel another thirty miles today. I say today we will travel about twenty-five miles.

By the end of this third day, we traveled about what I figured we would travel. We stopped a farmer who is working in one of his fields and I asked him how far is Chelsea and he says 29 miles. He asked me where I was headed and I told him we are following these wagon tracks that go across your field, and he says they will most probably go to either California or Oregon. I told him that we are going to find out. He wishes me good traveling and good luck. We thank him and we then go another half mile because we did not want to make camp in the middle of that plowed field. It would have been great, fire wise, but there is no grass near where that farmer is, because Kernel needs to eat some more grass for at least an hour when we camp for the night.

After I was settled and I was smoking my pipe after supper, this same farmer came to where we were camped and gave us a complete sack of Oats, which he says is two bushels. Kernel was so happy that he reared up on his hind legs to show his appreciation.

This farmer also brought some sugar cane pieces, which I stashed in one of the few canvas bags I always carry, which was to keep them from getting dried out. This farmer also brought about a half bushel of fresh pulled Carrots, which I also placed in that same canvas bag, to keep them from getting dry. I gave Kernel two carrots to eat after I cut them into several pieces, which make them easier for him to eat.

This farmer remained with us until about 10:00 PM, when I told him that I have to get some sleep because we will be on the trail by 6:00 AM tomorrow morning. I offered to pay for what he brought to us, but he declined my offer. He says that he wished he could go with us, but he is now too old. Of course we never saw him again.

CHAPTER FOUR

The next morning we were on the trail by 6:00 AM and by days end we stopped about three miles southwest of Hoven, South Dakota. From here on the distance will probably get a bit less, because we are now getting into more hilly terrain. We did encounter some very tall grass, but I cautioned Kernel to not eat it because it had sharp edges on the blades of grass. Kernel tried just a little bit but he says it tastes bad, so he did not go eat any of it.

CHAPTER FIVE

This is our fifth day on this trail. On this morning, when the Sun came over the horizon in the east, when I look west, all we could see was this very tall grass. So today was going to be kind of slow in the beginning. I don’t know what this grass is called, but it makes traveling through it very difficult.

I suggested to Kernel that I think I should wrap some Canvas around all of your legs, because I am afraid that this grass will do a bit of damage to them if I leave them unwrapped. While he was eating a gallon of Oats, he thought about what I had said. And he decided that I was probably right in my thinking, so while he was munching on two carrots I wrapped some strips of Canvas around all of his legs and tied it there using some waxed string that I always have carried with me whenever I would go anywhere on Kernel. It is in a ball that is about five inches in diameter, and I always carry it in a special canvas bag.

Anyway we had to travel about a 1-½ miles through this very high cutting grass. Then we stopped because we came to a stream that looked kind of deep, but it was not very wide. Kernel says he can jump across it. I removed all of the canvas wrappings after I put on some gloves, because these wrappings were covered with all kinds of other things like small bugs and pieces of hair. Not necessarily Kernel’s hair but most probably other animal’s hair.

We decided to get across this stream, which was acting like a small River. But Kernel checked the banks of this stream and says we will just walk across it, because the banks are kind of soft, and he is afraid he would not have good footing so as to be able to jump across it.

While Kernel was eating some more Oats, I walked for a quarter mile in each direction along this stream and on my checking along side of this stream, I found a hard spot south of where we had stopped. When I returned back to where Kernel is located, I told him that most of the area north of us is littered with spots of quick sand close to the waters edge. So we will go south for about a quarter mile and cross this stream there. It is a little wider there so the stream is not flowing as fast there either. I checked the streambed and it too is solid in that area.

How all of those wagons got across this stream where those wagon tracks went, is a mystery to me. Maybe back in that day these spots of quick sand were not close to the surface like they now are.

Kernel says he has encountered quick sand before in various places in California and Utah and Montana and Wyoming. He says he did not recognize these areas of being quick sand. I say there are all kinds of quick sand that one only learns about by testing that area with a long stick, of which I found north of here and right in front of us.

But south of here where we will cross, the stream banks are solid just like the streambed itself. This stream is not as Deep South of here either, because I never even got my feet wet. In fact you can see that the streambed is mostly rocks.

So I decided that I would leave these canvas wrappings where we were, because when I tried to remove all of those things from it, it was like these things were glued to it. I did not want to lose so much of this wrapping but I also did not want to transport it any further on Kernel. I actually hung it in a nearby tree.

It may cause anyone that was going east to think twice before trying to cross that area of very tall knife like grass. This grass was so tall that it was at least a foot taller than Kernel’s head. I hope we never encounter any more of this stuff. It was very difficult even seeing the wagon tracks while we traveled through it. Kernel says he has never seen any grass like it in all of his travels, before he knew me.

After we got across that stream, we traveled for another three hours and then we saw the Missouri River off in the distance, which was probably about a quarter mile wide.

The wagon tracks turned off in a southwesterly direction and then in a more south to southwest direction. The terrain got flatter as we got closer to the River. I suggested to Kernel that we would most probably end up near Pierre, South Dakota in a few days. On this day we traveled about 20 miles, give or take a few miles. This is the end of day five on this trail. We camped west – northwest of Gettysburg, South Dakota. At this point we are about the center of South Dakota, so we are making good distances every day.

CHAPTER SIX

I think I must tell the reader that we have not encountered any fences since after the third day of this journey. The ones we came near on our fourth day, just totally disappeared into nothingness.

It’s as if the farmers and ranchers came to some kind of agreement and totally got rid of any fences. We did see some cattle and some had one Brand on them and some other cattle had other brands on them. Apparently this is all Government land, which means no fences can be put on these lands. Aside from the very tall knife grass, most of this land is fairly good grazing pastureland.

When we stopped for this night, Kernel says he needs to eat some more grass, and because I had eaten all of the Rabbit meat, I was back to eating Jerky that I had brought with me. I actually brought a full gunny sack of it.

This evening when I made a small fire, I surrounded it with small rocks that I found where we camped. I kept the fire quite small and banked it with dirt and small rocks, because all of the area around us was grass. The kind of grass you find on most