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




Scarcity of Fuel, and Discomfort

We made only twelve miles on this day, and then camped on the open prairie where we were sadly in need of fuel, being obliged to scrape up dried grass and gather even the tiniest twigs. The scarcity of fuel was no more than might have been expected, for now we were coming to that part of the country where wood was a rarity.

Next day the wind blew strong and cold from the northwest, and the cattle hurried onward in order, as it seemed, to keep up a circulation of the blood, therefore before we encamped, our party had advanced twenty miles nearer our destination; but all the men and boys were decidedly uncomfortable in body.

We had crossed five or six creeks which were no more than half their usual height; but the beds of the streams were so soft that we were forced again and again to wade in that we might lay our shoulders to the wheels when the wagons were stuck fast in the mire.

To work in water nearly above your waist for half an hour or more until having become thoroughly heated and then come out into that chilling wind, was indeed a hardship.

During the next day, which was the 7th of June, we saw the first signs of buffaloes, and then indeed our hunters were wild to go out and kill some of the huge animals, insisting that I lead the party.

Through these bottom lands, which were from two to four miles wide, there ran in every direction buffalo paths, which had been traversed so often by the animals that they were no less than fifteen inches wide and four inches deep in the solid earth, and as smooth as if cut out with a spade.

Although we knew that buffaloes ranged in this region, it would indeed have been folly to set off, especially at nightfall, with the idea that we might find a herd, and so I told the eager ones, who grumbled not a little, believing I refused to lead them in the chase because of my own indolence.