Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/403

Rh horses and wagons. At Independence, Missouri, they sold the wagons and bought mules to carry packs. Mr. Farnham was chosen captain. They traveled to Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River without mishap, and to Bent's Fort on the Platte River [generally called St. Vrain's] became demoralized. Some went back, Mr. Farnham went to Santa Fé, others went through the next year, but Joseph Holman, with Cook, Fletcher and Kilbourn, determined to go to Oregon. While away from the fort to get dry buffalo meat for food the Indians stole their horses. They worked at the fort until they earned more horses, and late in the fall the four started alone and reached Green River, in the Rocky Mountains, and camped in a sheltered place called "Brown's Hole," also Joe Meek, Doctor Newell, Cary and others. Joseph Holman's mechanical knowledge helped him here, for he stocked guns, made saddles for Indians, and received an extra horse and beaver skins (as good as money) in return. Doctor Newell decided to start early in the spring, with the beaver skins to Fort Hall, in Idaho, to avoid Indian war parties who would be out later on. They were caught in the snow and nearly perished. Where Doctor Newell expected to see buffalo they did not see one. They were four days without any food, until they met a Digger Indian woman who sold them her two dogs. After that they now and then killed an antelope until they reached Fort Hall where they remained three weeks to recuperate themselves and horses. Doctor Newell remained here. The four young men left with a Hudson Bay agent for Fort Boise, but went alone from there to Walla Walla, arriving there May 1, 1840; from there down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver, was the hardest part of the trip, especially from The Dalles to Fort Vancouver, on the north side of the Columbia. The water was high at that season of the year, had covered the Indian