Contents ▼▲
Front Matter The Fur Traders Why I Am Not a Fur Trader Plan For the Future An Inquisitive Stranger An Unexpected Proposition I Set Out as a Guide John Mitchell's Outfit Making the Bargain We Leave St. Louis Hardships Encountered The Camp at Independence A Frontier Town The Start from Independence Careless Travelers Overrun by Wild Horses Searching for Live Stock Abandoning Missing Animals Meeting with Other Emigrants A Tempest Facing the Indians Teaching the Pawnees The Pawnee Village A Bold Demand I Gain Credit as a Guide A Difficult Crossing Wash Day Indian Pictures A Plague of Wood Ticks Another Tempest Cattle Stampeded Again Difficult Traveling Colonel Kearny's Dragoons Disagreeable Visitors Driving Away the Indians Turkey Hunting Eager Hunters Antelope Country Shooting Antelopes A Pawnee Visitor The Pawnees Frighten Us Defending Ourselves Scarcity of Fuel Lame Oxen An Army of Emigrants The Buffalo Country Hunting Buffaloes My Mother's Advice Ash Hollow Post Office New Comrades Fort Laramie A Sioux Encampment Indians on the March The Fourth of July Multitudes of Buffaloes We Meet Colonel Kearny Across the Divide Fort Bridger Trading at Fort Hall Thievish Snakes The Hot Springs Falls of the Snake River Signs of the Indians Beset with Danger Hunger and Thirst Nearly Exhausted Arrival at Fort Boise On the Trail Once More Cayuse Indians The Columbla River An Indian Ferry The Dalles of the Columbia Our Live Stock My Work as Guide Ended I Become a Farmer

Antoine of Oregon - James Otis




Difficult Traveling

The trail was heavy. The rain had so softened the ground that the wagon wheels sank several inches into it, and many times before nightfall we were forced to hew trees and cut large quantities of brush, in order to fill up the depressions in the way where the water stood deep and the bottom was much like a bog.

Again and again we found it necessary to double up the teams in order to haul the heavy wagons over the spongy soil, and after we had traveled eight miles with more labor than on the previous day we had expended in going twice that distance, we decided to encamp.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

We were on reasonably high ground, or, in other words, we were not in a quagmire, and after camp had been made I counted that we would spend the following day in getting as much hickory and oak timber as we might need when we came to the mountain ranges, where axletrees, wagon tops, and even the wheels themselves, were likely to be splintered because of the roughness of the way.

Next morning while the men were hewing trees and shaping them roughly into such forms as might come convenient, the women took advantage of the opportunity to churn, and at noon we had fresh butter on our bread, which was indeed a luxury.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

We were yet eating slowly in order the better to enjoy the butter, when we saw in the distance, coming toward us, what appeared to be a large body of soldiers and emigrants.