Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/321

Rh clouds into the air, moving over the highlands. These frightened bands were never out of sight, so numerous are the wild horses on the St. Wakine. Continuing up the river we came, on the second day, to a coral, which had been built some time previous by our acquaintance, for the purpose of taking these wild horses. It was situated in a large slough of the river at a part which was then dry for several hundred yards, and was the principal crossing for the horses from an island containing several thousand acres, which was formed by the slough. There were two large bands upon the island when we arrived, and we made an effort to drive them into the coral, but they took another crossing and we did not succeed. Our friend pursued the first band that left the island, with the lasso, endeavoring to take a fine mule, which he selected; but his horse being fatigued, he was not able to come up with it. When the second started we put spur for the crossing which they were about to take, and arrived at the same time that the foremost horses of the band leaped down into the water. We endeavored to turn them, whooping and yelling most manfully, but those behind, urging those before, forced them forward and they began to rush by. The pass was narrow and the dust so obscured us that they frequently ran near enough for us to strike them in the sides as they were passing; but we were at length compelled to retire, on account of the suffocating effect of the dust. Presently, again approaching, with whooping and yelling we endeavored the second time to turn them, but they only gave way and closed around us and the dust again obliged us to retire; we finally succeeded in turning a few of the last, yet they were so determined to follow the others that we only drove them a few hundred yards towards the coral before they plunged down a perpendicular bank fifteen or twenty feet into the slough, burying themselves