Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/150

134 instances. Their faces showed little concern over any danger they might be in; though in an adjoining tent some of our boys—not the bravest, I think—were expressing eagerness for the general's permission to "kill the —— Injuns." The latter departed early, and, I think, hungry, next morning; and so ended the first and only trouble we had with Indians till the scattered trains got among expert horse thieves and petty pilferers on the Umatilla and Columbia Rivers.

We followed the Nimahaw divide to near the southern head, where we came to the main Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri, on the drainage into the Blue Fork of the Kansas. Colonel Ford's company had just passed westward, and had driven across a small stream called the Black Vermillion.

The nearest I can now trace the route by names or position is by towns on or near the route. Leaving the agency of Sacs and Foxes, we passed via Hamlin, Fairview, Woodlawn, and Centralia, crossing Black Vermillion River near Bassett; thence to crossing of Big Blue, north of its junction with Little Blue; thence west and north to Hanover, and followed the line of the Saint Joseph and Grand Island Railroad into Nebraska, east of Fairburg, and thence up the north side of Little Blue, near the Union Pacific Railroad to Hastings, striking the main Platte River about six miles west of Prosser, then following its south bank to west of Big Spring, and crossing the South Platte, and striking the North Platte nearly opposite Oshkosh. Along the North Platte the trail was by the south bank via Chimney Rock, Scott's Bluff, and Horse Creek, into the present State of Wyoming; thence it continued on the same side to near the mouth of Camp Creek, and crossed, leaving North Platte near Altona, and making a very dry drive to Sweetwater, near Independence Rock, and thence up the Sweetwater, to its