Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/290

280 and opened and shook out his blanket in proof of his innocence, and then hurried on. The owner, only half convinced, went to the place where the Indian stood, and found the hammer on the ground.

The following shows one of the practical difficulties of company travel, and an intelligent solution reached' by the emigrants. When Captain Magone's train reached Scott's Bluff, it was found that the rate of travel was too slow. The chief cause of the trouble was that some of the company who were bringing with them a considerable number of cattle, were careless, or had committed their stock to irresponsible herders, and allowed them to stray too far from camp, or to fall out by the way, as many of them, being footsore, were much inclined to do; and so it happened that each morning when the time to start came, much valuable time had to be wasted in hunting the missing stock.

The captain's scheme for finding a remedy well illustrated his wisdom and resourcefulness. Calling the company together and laying the gravity of the situation before them, he invited each man who had a plan to step out of line and state his plan to the company; and all who approved the plan proposed were to come forward and stand with its author until counted—a majority vote being necessary to adopt any plan. When several plans had been successively rejected, Mr. Jory, who had the reputation of being the quietest man in the company, came forward and proposed a plan which met with hearty approval. The plan embraced the following provisions: First, each owner of stock must carefully count his animals in the evening on reaching camp before turning them out to graze; second, he must bring into camp and count them again early each morning; third, if any cattle proved missing in the morning that were known to have been present on the previous even-