Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/241

Rh family are with these first teams of 1844 to cross these mountains. The family conducted worship by singing and prayer in the evening and morning. The singing sounded very sweet in the valley, but it gave me a feeling akin to shame to note that a supposed wild man was the only one who formally recognized God in his daily life.

Sticcus, as the sedate old character is called by people generally, leads the way over the road that he guided those who led the trains of 1843, with such men as the Applegates, Waldos, and Nesmith, the last next to him with an axe to cut out obstructive growth an ox wagon could not pass. By taking Dr. Whitman's advice and guidance to Grand Ronde, and the guidance of Sticcus across the Blue Mountains, this way was indicated and traveled in 1843, and though rough, was much more easily traveled in 1844. All honor to Dr. Whitman and his friend and proselyte Sticcus. The service the former rendered by his advice and help to get the immigration of 1843 to Walla Walla, and the service his Indian friend aided him in, well entitle both to the remembrance of Oregonians.

October 10.—About 2 o'clock P. M. we emerged from the timber on the west slope of the Blue Mountains. I am this day twenty -two years of age. The sight from this mountain top is one to be remembered while life lasts. It affects me as did my first sight of the ocean, or again, my first sight of the seeming boundless treeless plains before we saw the Platte River. From this point north and south there are no bounds in sight. Looking across this grand valley westward the dark blue