Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/565

514 A hurried consultation took place, and by the advice of Samuel Hancock, Meek, who was supposed to have fled, was to secrete himself, while some of his friends would prepare to start with him the following morning for the Dalles. This plan was carried out, and on the afternoon of the second day they reached a tributary of Des Chutes River; the joy of the suffering men, women, and children, expressing itself in silent tears or loud cries, according to age and temperament.

Continuing down the stream and coming to the main river, they found it to flow through a deep canon with walls so precipitous that the only way in which water could be procured was by lowering a vessel at the end of two hundred feet of rope in the hands of a man, himself held by a strong rope in the grasp of his fellows. Following the river, they came at last to a place where the cattle could be driven down and crossed by swimming; but which was not considered a safe fording-place for the wagons. To overcome this difficulty, a wagon-bed suspended from a cable stretched between the banks was drawn back and forth by means of rollers and ropes; and in this vehicle families and goods were transported to the other side.

While this aerial ferry was in process of construction the main body began to overtake them, and Meek was informed that the father of two young men who had died that day, in consequence, as he believed, of the hardships of this route, had sworn to take Meek's life before the sun should set. Not doubting that the vow would be kept, if the incensed father met him while his wrath was hot, the unfortunate guide fled with his wife to the camp of some