Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/449

398 Among those who kept the lead was Thomas D. Kaiser, who was among the first to arrive at Green River, and the first also to leave it for Fort Hall. Another impatient to reach his destination was J. B. McClane.

A party was formed of these and others, with Dr Whitman, who had joined the emigration on the Platte River, also anxious to reach his home, and "to get news of his family and affairs at the fort, where he was likely to meet Cayuses and Nez Perces. At Green River they learned that the Jesuits, De Vos and Hoecken, had, by means of their Flathead pilot, discovered a pass through the mountains to Soda Springs, by way of Fort Bridger, on the Black branch of Green River, a cut-off which saved considerable distance, information of which Whitman communi- cated to the companies by a letter left at Green River. That the road in the rear was, for a natural one, ex- cellent, is evidenced by the fact that the ox-teams made an average of thirteen miles a day for the whole distance from the Sweetwater to Fort Hall, where the rear arrived the last of August, the advance hav- ing waited for them to come up. At this place died Daniel Richardson; and here also was found Lovejoy, who had come across from Bent Fort during the sum-