Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/206



The emigration of 1845; horrors of Meek's "cut-off." h\ the year 1845 Oregon received the largest of the early emigrations, a body of nearly three thousand people. They started, not in a single caravan like the earlier parties, but in companies of fifty, seventy-five, a hundred, or two hundred wagons. All went well till after they passed Fort Boise, where the emigrants encountered Stephen H. L. Meek, who offered to guide them over a trail by way of the Malheur River, said to be much shorter than that commonly used.^ Unfortunately, about one hundred and fifty wagons followed him into the most barren and desolate country that eastern Oregon contains, and where as it proved there was no road except an old pack trail. Stock perished, food gave out, the emigrants became desperate in their anxiety to find water. When they reached a little oasis in the desert, they formed a camp, while mounted men to the number of one hundred scoured the country in every direction for water, only to return at nightfall without finding it. This was continued for several days in succession. Meantime the children and the weaker adults were falling sick, and many of them were dying. In the midst of this despair a galloping horseman brought the glad news of the discovery of water. The hated guide had found it. Grief was now turned to joy; loud shouts

which contains a larg:e amount of valuable matter on early conditions, the emigration of 1843, etc., has been reprinted in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. V.

^ Sixty wagons had turned off at Fort Hall to go to California.