Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/613

562 is steep, and teams had to be doubled until eighteen or twenty yoke were put to a wagon to drag it up the sharp acclivity. But even this was better than having to carry the loads up steep hills while the oxen drew the empty wagons, as sometimes occurred on the north road.

Two months from the time the southern immigration left Thousand Springs, the last companies entered the Rogue River Valley, where according to Thornton they were met by Jones of the exploring party with some fat cattle for the relief of those whose provisions were consumed. Being extremely weary, and their teams wellnigh exhausted, the last of the families unfortunately lingered too long in this beautiful country, at a season of the year when one day of rain might be productive of disaster by raising the streams, and chilling fatally the thin blood of the worn-out oxen. And alas! they tarried in the valley until