Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/402

364 cause the most devoted friends to desert, in case of attack, the fallen one. Many a stout and powerful man fought the last battle alone on the prairie. When the rough hand of the cholera was laid upon families they rarely had either the assistance or the sympathy of their neighbors or traveling companions.

There was one feature mixed with all this terror that afforded some degree of relief, and that was that there was no case of lingering suffering. When attacked, a single day ordinarily ended the strife in death or recovery. Avast amount of wagons, with beds and blankets, were left by the roadside, which no man, not even an Indian, would approach or touch through fear of the unknown, unseen destroyer.

While there were sad instances of comrades deserting comrades in this hour of extreme trial, I can not pass this point of my story without stating that there were many instances of heroic devotion to the sick, when such attention was regarded as almost equivalent to the offering up of the well and healthy for the mere hope of saving the sick and dying."

Not a few who had purposed to go to California that year turned off on the Oregon road to escape the contagion which the dense crowd seemed to afford this disease. Excepting in these cholera years and in 1847 there were only infrequent cases of mountain fever and forms of dysentery that were developed in the alkali regions of the mountains.

A train of pioneers with sensible outfit emerging into the valley of the Platte in a season free from the cholera affliction could almost make it for a time a grand pleasure excursion. The heat was not yet oppressive, the roads good, the air exhilarating, the boundless expanse of green undulating prairie under crystal skies filled them with a sense of freedom. The exciting buffalo hunt was soon