Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/85

Rh in any way. They saw we were mere travelers through their country, and would only destroy a small amount of their game. Besides, they must have been impressed with the due sense of our power. Our long line of wagons, teams, cattle, and men, on the smooth plains, and under the clear skies of the Platte, made a most grand appearance. They had never before seen any spectacle like it They, no doubt, supposed we had cannon concealed in our wagons. A few years before a military expedition had been sent out from Fort Leavenworth to chastise some of the wild prairie tribes for depredations committed against the whites. General Bennett Riley, then Captain Riley, had command, and had with him some cannon. In a skirmish with the Indians, in the open prairie, he had used his cannon, killing some of the Indians at a distance beyond a rifle shot. This new experience had taught them a genuine dread of big guns.

The Indians always considered the wild game as much their property as they did the country in which it was found. Though breeding and maintaining the game cost them no labor, yet it lived and fattened on their grass and herbage, and was as substantially within the power of these roving people and skillful hunters as the domestic animals of the white man.

On the 24th of July we crossed the North Fork of the Platte by fording, without difficulty, having traveled the distance of one hundred and twenty-two miles from Fort Laramie in nine days. On the 27th we arrived at the Sweetwater, having traveled from the North Fork fifty-five miles in three days. On the 3rd of August, while traveling up the Sweetwater, we first came in sight of the eternal snows of the Rocky Mountains. This to us was a grand and magnificent sight. We had never before seen the perpetually snowclad summit of a mountain. This day William Martin brought into camp the foot of a very rare carnivorous animal, much like the hyena, and with no name. It was of a dark color, had very large teeth, and was thought to be strong enough to kill a half-grown buffalo.

On the 4th of August Mr. Paine died of fever, and we remained in camp to bury him. We buried him in the wild, shelterless plains, close to the new road we had made, and the funeral scene was most sorrowful and impressive. Mr. Garrison, a Methodist preacher, a plain, humble man. delivered a most touching and beautiful prayer at the lonely grave.

On the 5th, 6th and 7th we crossed the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and on the evening of the 7th we first drank of the waters that flow into the great Pacific. The first Pacific water we saw was that of a large, pure spring. On the 9th we came to the Big Sandy at noon. This day Stevenson died of fever, and we burled