Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/235

Rh On the morning of September 16 we three young men left our friends on the banks of the Portneuf. Our leaders sent no letters by us, but we had reason to believe that some of the families were already short of food. We started with fifteen pounds of buffalo pemmican, purchased from a Kanaka servant of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Hall. Mr. G. W. Bush, always watchful, followed us out from the wagon and said, "Boys, you are going through a hard country. You have guns and ammunition. Take my advice: anything you see as big as a blackbird, kill it and eat it." We got three out of a covey of sage grouse that day, and that was the last we saw of that kind of game.

Next morning, as we passed Colonel Ford's train, three young men came out and joined us. One of them was on foot, and they had no provisions. Our store was exhausted, when at the crossing of Goose Creek we met a guide of the Hudson's Bay Company and a lay brother of the Catholic Church, to guide the priest we had seen at Fort Hall to the Missoula country. We mentioned our condition as to food supply, and asked the chances to purchase of Indians ahead. The leader replied, "It is not good, gentlemen, this side of Salmon Falls. I have a dozen salmon skins, however; and as we will reach Fort Hall to-morrow night, we'll make six do us; I will give you half." He would not hear of pay. "No, gentlemen; good-bye, and better luck to you."

Before we got to Salmon Falls, however, we were hailed by a middle-aged Indian, who held up a large salmon to show his meaning. We purchased the fresh fish and a few dried skins, and some roe dried in the smoke of the camp fire. We found fishhooks good small change for the purchase of fish—much better than money would have been. West of the American Falls the river bed (Snake) falls rapidly below the plain on the south