Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/179

Rh member of the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

From July 8 to August 26, inclusive, we made a distance across one hundred and six townships west—six hundred and thirty-six miles, or probably fully seven hundred miles, including the meander of the Platte River water, in fifty days, counting stoppages also.

A single hunter, I. W. Alderman, from Ford's company, overtook and lunched with us. He talked hunting with Captain Morrison, and said he had laid out the night before and killed a buffalo cow for breakfast. There was something I distrusted in his looks, and he seemed to talk for effect.

At this camp I was again called upon for extra duty on account of the sick. About bedtime I was appealed to by Mrs. Shaw to sit up part of the night with Mr. Sager, who was very ill; and she said that Mrs. Sager was nearly down sick herself, but would see to giving her husband medicine, if I would watch in his tent and inform her at the time, to administer it. The sick man was either wholly or partly unconscious from high fever, and did not during the night ask for anything. On the two or three times I wakened her, his wife responded each time as though she was in fear that he was dead. She would call him byname and he would receive the medicine, yet seem hardly conscious. There was no one to relieve me, and I kept vigil all night, suffering from inability to help this life, which seemed to be burning away.

August 28 we made a short drive and crossed Green River. Mr. Sager died on the western bank, and we camped for the day and buried the body. The young man Smith, who had been with us but three days, left us here and went down the river to "Brown's Hole" with the party who had come from Saint Louis with William Sublette.