Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/98

88 miles. June 8 we killed some more buffalo as they came out of the water. There was great sameness of the scenery, and we passed many trails but saw no Indians yet.

June 10—We saw ahead of us a bio: castle on a small mountain. As we approached it, it appeared like a big tower of sandstone standingalone. It was called the "Chimney Rock," and is probably three hundred feet high. On the south side of the Platte were immense herds of buffalo.

June 12—We arrived at the Laramie Fork of the Platte. It was high, cold, and rapid, and comes from the mountains of the same name. The banks of this stream were covered with willows. Here we made a halt to make "bull boats "and rafts to carry ourselves and goods across.

A "bull boat" is made of willow branches twelve or fourteen feet long, each about one and one half inches at the butt end. These ends were fixed in the ground in converging- rows at proper distances from each other, and as they approached nearer the ends the branches were brought nearer together so as to form something like a bow. The ends of the whole were brought together and bound firmly together like ribs of a great basket; and then they took other twigs of willow and wove them into those stuck in the ground so as to make a sort of firm, long, huge basket. After this was completed they sewed together a number of buffalo skins and with them covered the whole; and after the different parts had been trimmed off smooth, a slow fire was made under the "bull boat," taking care to dry the skins moderately; and as they gradually dried and acquired a due degree of heat they rubbed buffalo tallow all over the outside of it so as to allow it to enter into all the seams of the concern, now no longer a willow basket. As the melted tallow ran down into every seam, hole, and crevice, it cooled into a firm body, capable of resisting the water and bearing a considerable blow without damage. Then the willow-ribbed buffalo skin tallowed vehicle was carefully pulled from the ground behold! a boat, capable of transporting men, horses, and goods over a pretty strong current.

At the sight of it we Yankees all burst into a loud laugh, whether from surprise or pleasure I do not know. Captain Wyeth made a raft against the advice of Captain Sublette, who did not believe the ropes strong enough to stand against the current. However, Captain Wyeth was not a man easily diverted by the advice of others.

We fixed a rope to our raft and with some difficulty got the other end across the river by a man swimming with the rope in his mouth. He fastened the rope to a tree, and we loaded our raft with our anvil, large vise, and other valuable articles belonging to the smithery, bar iron, steel traps, and alas! a cask of powder and a small number of valuable articles. When we got about halfway over the rope broke