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




A Plague of Wood Ticks

Every member of the party was not only willing, but eager, to set out after our long halt, for we had a most disagreeable experience with wood ticks, little insects much like those that worry sheep. They covered every bush as with a veil and lay like a carpet over the ground as far as one could see.

I have never come upon them in such numbers, and before we lay down to rest I wished a dozen times that I had delayed the halt another day.

These ticks fasten themselves to a person's skin so tightly that, in picking them off, the heads are often left embedded in the flesh, and unless carefully removed, cause most painful sores. It was like one of the Plagues of Egypt such as I have heard my mother read about, and so much did our people suffer that John Mitchell came to me in the middle of the night, urging that we break camp at once rather than remain there to be tortured.

I soon convinced him that we could not hope to drive the cattle in the darkness, without danger of losing one or more, therefore he ceased to urge; but before the sun had risen, all our company were astir making preparations for the day's journey.

Early though it was when we set off, only fourteen miles were traveled, owing to the difficulty in crossing the Big Vermilion River.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

The banks of the stream were steep and the channel muddy, affording such difficult footing for the animals that we were forced to hew down many small trees and lop off large quantities of branches to fill up the bed of the river before the wagons could be hauled across. All this occupied so much time that after arriving at the opposite bank we traveled only one mile before it was necessary to make camp.

On this night we were not troubled by wood ticks, yet I had the camp astir early next morning, knowing that before nightfall we must cross the Bee and the Big Blue Creeks, therefore much time would be spent in making the passages.

The difficulties which I had anticipated in crossing the creeks were not realized. We got over in fairly good shape, being forced on Bee Creek to double up the teams in order to pull the wagons across, and when night came we were two and a half miles west of Big Blue.

There I believed we should make a long halt, for the country was covered with oak, walnut, and hickory trees, and, if I remembered rightly, this would be the last time we could procure timber for wagon tongues, axletrees, and such other things as might be needed in case of accidents.