Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/213

Rh Mountain, able to go ahead only a mile or two each day. The road had to be cut and opened for us, and the mountain was covered with snow. Provisions gave out and Mr. Pringle set off on horseback to the settlements for relief, not knowing how long ho would be away, or whether he would ever get through. In a week or so our scanty provisions were all gone and we were again in a state of starvation. Many tears were shed through the day, by all save one. She had passe. I through many trials sufficient to convince her that tears would avail nothing in our extremities. Through all my sufferings in crossing the plains. I not once sought relief by the shedding of tears, nor thought we should not live to reach the settlement. The same faith that I ever had in the blessings of kind Providence strengthened in proportion to the trials I had to endure. As the only alternative, or last resort for the present time, Mr. Pringles's eldest son, Clark, shot down one of his father's best working oxen and dressed it. It had not a particle of fat on it, but we had something to eat poor bones to pick without bread or salt.

Orus Brown's party was six days ahead of ours in starting; he had gone down the old emigrant route and reached the settlements in September. Soon after he heard of the suffering emigrants at the south and set off in haste with four pack horses and provisions for our relief. He met Mr. Pringle and turned about. In a few days they were at our camp. We had all retired to rest in our tents, hoping to forget our misery until daylight should remind us again of our sad fate. In the stillness of the night the footsteps of horses were heard rushing toward our tents. Directly a halloo. It was the well-known voice of Orus Brown and Virgil Pringle. You can realize the joy. Orus, by his persuasive insistence, encouraged us to more effort to reach the settlements. Five miles from where we had encamped we fell into the company of half breed French and Indians with packhorses. We hired six of them and pushed ahead again. Our provisions were becoming short and we were once more on an allowance until reaching the first settlers. There our hardest struggles were en-led. On Christmas day, at 2 P. M. I entered the house of a Methodist minister, the first house I had set my feet in for nine months. For two or three weeks of my journey down the Willamette I had felt something in the end of my glove finger which I supposed to be a button; on examination at my new home in Salem, I found it to be a 6¼-cent piece. This was the whole of my cash capital to commence business with in Oregon. With it I purchased three needles. I traded off some of my old clothes to the squaws