Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/389

Rh ; through South Pass; across to the Valley of the Snake, the tributary of the Columbia; following down the course of the Snake to its great bend to the north; across to the Columbia; down the Columbia to their destination.

Those sections of the trail which constitute connecting links, as it were, to the grander portions, can be accounted for almost as clearly as the main sections can. Forage and water must be regularly available to those traveling with horses, mules or oxen. These must be found in great abundance by those who are driving considerable droves over long stretches of arid wastes. In summer months, on the unsettled parched plains, these resources were insured only along river or creek bottoms. So in striking out from Independence or Saint Joseph for the Valley of the Platte to the north, to economize in the distance traveled to the Oregon goal, and insure supplies of the prime requisites—good water and grass—their course would be such as to bring them to nightly camps on the banks of one of the numerous streams flowing into the Kansas. Passing one they would make for a higher point on the next to the west so as to keep in a more direct line for Oregon. Fuel, so necessary for preparing their meals, was in that region found only on the banks of these streams. Along the Platte, the North Fork, and the Sweet water "buffalo chips" sufficed fairly well the need of fuel, except the night was wet. In moving from the South Pass to the basin of the Columbia, mountainous country made a direct route impracticable. In the detour to the southwest the valleys of the tributaries of the Upper Green were utilized, and particularly the most convenient northwest course of the Bear River. The details of the course in this detour were determined by the stepping stones, as it were, of water, grass and wood. These were found in that desert