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




Our Live Stock

I cannot take to myself very much credit because of having led John Mitchell's company without serious mishap, even though I have twice before traversed the trail from the Missouri River. Yet we had no trouble which could not be overcome by hard labor, and every member of the company arrived at the journey's end in good health, which is more than can be said of other emigrants.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

When we arrived at the Dalles of the Columbia, we found there emigrants who had lost more than half of all their live stock during the long journey, and again my heart was overflowing with thankfulness, because we had suffered no great loss.

On leaving Independence there were in John Mitchell's train, as I have already set down, thirty cows, forty oxen, twenty horses, and ten mules. We arrived at the Dalles with twenty-one cows, thirty-two oxen, seventeen horses, and six mules.