Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/85

 often more than breast deep to the horses. Two men, on the best horses, rode fifty yards in advance of the wagons, zig-zagging up and down, while the head-driver kept an eye open for the shallowest 73 water and kept upon the bar. In doing this a train would sometimes have to travel nearly twice the distance of the width of the river to get across. The bed of the river is made of shifting sand, and a team is not allowed to stop for a moment, or it will steadily settle down and go out of sight.

DR. MARCUS WHITMAN. At the time of his marriage.

A balky team or a break in the harness requires prompt relief or all will be lost. But after all the Platte River is remembered by all old plainsmen with a blessing. For three hundred miles it administered to the comfort of the pioneers.

It is even doubtful whether they could have gone the journey had it not been for the Platte, as it rolls its sands down into the Missouri. The water is turbid with sand at all times, as the winds in their wide sweep across sandy plains perpetually add to its supply. But the water when dipped up over night and the sand allowed to settle, is clear and pure and refreshing.

The pioneers, however, took the Platte water as it ran, often remarking: "In this country a fellow needs sand and the Platte was built to furnish it." In June Mrs. Whitman writes: "We are now in the buffalo country and my husband