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




Defending Ourselves

Dismounting, while the others wheeled about to join him again, he came toward me, his eyes roving from one member of our company to the other, as if to learn whether we had backbone enough to stand up for our rights.

He must have understood that we would put up with no foolishness, for straightway all his show of fierceness vanished. He told me that his party had been out hunting buffaloes, but failed to come across any, and then begged like a dog for us to give him food.

To have admitted such a crowd into our encampment would have been giving them a license to plunder, therefore I warned the fellow off. I insisted that they go back to their village, where, beyond doubt, they would find food if they were very hungry.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

John Mitchell would have argued with me because I was turning hungry people away; but I refused to listen to him, and put on such a bold front that without further parley the leader mounted his pony, and away they went over the ridge, much to my relief.

When we were making camp that night a party of emigrants, numbering no less than fifty, all bound for the Oregon country, came up with us.

Instead of halting as one might have supposed, for a quiet chat, they rode on as though fearing we might want to join them, and I said to myself that their guide must be one who, like myself, had already traversed the Oregon trail; yet I was pleased because of their desire to continue on alone.