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




Driving away the Indians

How long those representatives of the Kansas tribe would have remained with us awaiting an opportunity to steal whatever they might, I cannot say; but at about eight o'clock John Mitchell urged that I drive them away, if indeed I dared. This last suggestion caused me to smile, for what fellow would not dare anything among the Kansas Indians, who know no more of courage than they do of cleanliness?

I speedily sent them out of the camp, and when, next morning, the whole tribe returned begging this or that, I threatened punishment to any who should dare linger around.

Again we had an opportunity to join forces with another company, for those emigrants whom we met at Little Sandy River were eager to journey with us, but intended to remain one full day on the bank of the stream in order to rest their stock.

I urged that we push on, lest they should travel with us whether we wished or not, and so we set off at an early hour across the prairie, arriving next day at the Republican Fork of the Blue River.

It was on the last day of May that we came to where the trail turns abruptly from the stream, stretching out twenty-five miles or more to the Platte River.

Then we advanced in wild, fertile bottoms, where wild peas abounded, and we were among the last of the oak and hickory trees that we would see for many a long day.