Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/336

 ground, and they looked so longingly at the bread and ham and coffee, that it almost took one's appetite away. We could only afford to give the squaws what was left. To fill up such a crowd would have soon ended our stock of supplies.

One of the things that made an Indian grunt, and even laugh, was to see our cook baking pancakes in a long-handled frying pan. To turn the cake over he tossed it in the air and caught it as it came down. A cook on the plains that could not do that was not up in his business.

Except upon the mountains and rocky canyons, the roads were as good as a turnpike; but some of the climbs and descents were fearful, while an occasional canyon, miles long, looked wholly impassable without breaking the legs of half the animals and smashing the wagons.

The old plainsmen had a way of setting tires upon a loose wheel that was novel. Our tires became very loose from the long dry reaches. We took off the tire, tacked a slip of fresh hide entirely around the rim, heated the tire, dropped it on the wheel and quickly chucked it into the water and had wheels as good as new.

Our company was three nights and two days and nearly a half in crossing the widest desert. It was a beautiful firm road until we struck deep 303 sand, which extended out for eleven miles from Carson River into the desert. Before starting