Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/287

Rh "Well," he continued, "I have just heard news that is of utmost importance to you. The immigrants who come from the sunrise and will soon be here have been delayed; a man died; they buried him; he had the smallpox. I advise you, therefore, to leave this place as soon as possible, and to go to your northern border and not return for over a month."

No news could have been more alarming to the Indians, who understood only too well what the smallpox was; not many years before infected blankets having been distributed among them through the agency of white trappers whom they had been allowed to rob, as a sort of punishment for having robbed lone trappers heretofore; and by this the whole tribe had been decimated by the scourge, very many dying, and some even of those who recovered, but were badly marked, had killed themselves. They had been told by the trappers that the smallpox pits were the mark of the devil. "The devil will get you sure now" they told them. As soon as Bisnette told these Indians that there was smallpox in the train the chiefs slid out to their tents, and within fifteen minutes the whole army was on the move, going to the north, and not returning while the immigrants of that season were passing.

The other point was the cause of the breaking up of the organization. After passing the Sioux country, fear of the Indians wore off, and the necessity of rapid travel became more and more apparent, but among the one hundred and twenty men of the train as many at least as two to the wagon at least one hundred, says Mr. Case, were "worthless," or dangerously near that line. The daily labor of the march was devolved more and more upon the twenty men or so that felt the necessity of pushing on. The majority, however, often spent their evenings playing cards to a late hour, or dancing and fiddling with