Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/181

Rh "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the trains keep marching

Westward, still westward, day by day;

Standing guard the livelong night, ever ready for the fight,

Here to plant the flag, three thousand miles away."

August 30 we lay over for the day at Fort Bridger, and I became somewhat unsettled. My clothing was now beginning to show worse for the wear, and I mentioned this to Mrs. Morrison, who is gathering up articles to wash. She says, "Yes, John; and if you can trade anything at the fort here, and get some deerskins, I'll fix your pants for you.' Seeing me look a little bewildered, she went on, "That means sewing buckskin over a pair of old pants before and behind. One big skin will be enough, and it will be almost as good as a new pair. But if you can get three skins I'll make you a new pair, of skins only, besides."

The best of my now worn clothing was the only suit I had ever bought for myself. Miners' wives and mothers about Newcastle-on-Tyne did all that kind of business for their families. I had thus to learn to think for myself a little. Looking over the things I might have to trade, I concluded to try if I could get a few dressed deerskins for my little double-barreled gun; though the piece was now somewhat impaired, the hammer having been lost off of the right cock. I went to the wagon where my trunk was to get it, and found Captain Morrison getting his plow irons out. He had traded one of the cows and the plow irons for flour brought here from Taos. The man he was dealing with was very different from those here apparently on show. He was receiving the different parts of the plow from Morrison and talking to him about its now being late in the season for us to get to Oregon, and said he had been in the country about Salt Lake the preceding fall (1843), and thought it would be a good country to settle in. While he was