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




My Work as Guide Ended

Here at the Dalles, as I have said, the journey was nearly ended, and here it is that I, Antoine, who now three times have crossed from the Missouri to the Columbia River, have come to an end of my story-telling.

In guiding John Mitchell's company over this long journey of more than two thousand miles, I did no more than show them what I knew of woodcraft, how to kill the buffalo, to stalk the antelope, to creep up on the elk, and, what in the Indian country is of the greatest importance, how to form camp so that they might be in least danger of a surprise.

My mother had come over this long stretch of country with fewer hardships than any other woman in the company. She had been, as you might say, familiar with travel in the wilderness, for twice had she been out with my father on his trading trips, and knew how to take advantage of this time of rest, or of that period of toil.