Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/397

Rh grazing was much enhanced as the company increased in size. From this fact and the further fact that in case of a hitch or accident of any kind in a large company, many would be delayed who could be of no service in getting things fixed up for a fresh start, it resulted that twenty or thirty wagons were the maximum limit to the size of companies that did not chafe under their organization. In later years six or eight wagons were a normal number for a company. Even in the earlier migrations, when the Upper Sweetwater was reached and the danger from the Indians was measurably past, the large companies would divide up into sections. The earlier migrations, too, took precautions that no person attached himself to the train unless he was furnished with such resources as to rations and transportation that he would not likely become a common burden.

The records of the migrations give ample corroboration to the truth of the adage, "Uneasy lies the head, etc.," and yet these privately penned diaries disclose comparatively little bickering or unwholesome feeling, notwithstanding the severe strain human nature was under in the conditions of this four, five, and sometimes six months' passage. Whenever conditions developed making advisable a division of the body into two or more, the division was made, and all was smooth again. The documentary material printed in this number of the Quarterly throws light on this phase of their experience and depicts the unique proceedings of the pioneers of 1843 in effecting an organization.

The type of the transcontinental pioneer changed materially after the gold-seeker was in the majority. From 1849 on the diarist's account is not devoid of the tragical. "These plains try and tell all the dark spots in men," says Rev. Jesse Moreland in his journal of the trip from Tennessee to Oregon in 1852. He describes