Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/422

412 Nolan, who had been in the region of the Rocky Mountains several years, so informed me; and he also stated that the wolves very frequently run them down, and that he had often fell in with the wolves and the antelope when the latter was much jaded with the race, and had then caught the antelope himself. June 17th we encamped for the last time on Blue River. Our course since the 13th has been up the Republican Fork of Blue. Here we saw a hunting party of Pawnees, who were returning from a buffalo hunt south. They had not their heads shaved like the Kanzas Indians: but their hair was cut like white men, and they were fine looking fellows. They had many packs of buffalo meat, which they cure by cutting it into very thin, long, and wide slices, with the grain of the meat, and then drying it in the sun. After it is dried they have a mode of pressing it between two pieces of timber, which gives it a very smooth and regular appearance. Of this meat they gave us very liberally. They amused themselves very much, by imitating our driving of cattle and teams. We informed them of the war party of Kanzas and Osages that we had seen, and they were much excited, and vowed to take vengeance upon their enemies. They did not interrupt us, or our stock, but were very kind and friendly. The road from independence to this point is generally through prairie and a most excellent road, except the fords upon the streams, which are miry, and difficult to cross. The Kanzas country as it may be called, is nineteen-twentieths prairie, generally fertile, but destitute of timber, except upon the streams. This timber is elm, low burr oak, and small swamp ash, along the margin of the streams. I saw only a very few places where good farms could be made, for want of timber. This whole country has very little game of any kind, except a very few wild deer and antelope. We saw no squirrels on Blue, and very few birds, except a small species of snipe. I remember a wild-cat, killed by some of the company, that was a mere skeleton, from starvation, no doubt; but few fish were found in the stream.

Your friend,

P. H. B.

LINNTON, Oregon Territory, 1844.

James G. Bennett, Esq. DEAR SIR: In my letter of the 26th instant, I continued my account of our trip to our last encampment on the waters of the Blue. On the eighteenth day of June we crossed the main dividing ridge between the waters of Kanzas and the Great Platte. We traveled twenty-five miles over the finest road imaginable, and our eyes first beheld the wide and beautiful valley of the Great Platte just as the sun was going down behind the bleak sand hills. We encamped in the bottom, about two miles from the river, without fuel. Next morning we