Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/74

68 kindled a fire, supper was soon prepared, spread upon the ground, and we took our seats upon the grass around it. Three articles—bread, meat, and coffee—completed the variety of the board; and although they were not prepared in the neatest and most tasteful manner, yet our appetites poke abundant praises for the ability of the cook. Supper being finished, as the night grew dark, we retired one by one to rest, spreading our beds upon the ground. We slept to dream of all that we loved and had left behind us, and awoke to know that they were far from us and that our home was the wild uncultivated field of nature, "whose walls the hills and forests were, whose canopy the sky." Having traveled up the Kanzas River 90 miles, we came, on the 30th of May, to where the Emigrants were crossing. We saw here the first village of Kanzas Indians. Their huts are made of poles and bark, and are about sixteen feet wide, by thirty long, and eight high. The ends are perpendicular, but the sides joining with the roof in a gradual curve, make the whole very nearly in the shape of the half of a circular cylinder. They were very filthy and almost entirely naked, not disposed to be hostile to the whites, but like most other Indians, they are expert and inveterate thieves. The River not being fordable, the Emigrants constructed two large canoes, which they fastened together at a sufficient distance apart, by a platform of round poles laid across and extending from one end to the other. Upon this they placed the wagons by hand, and ferried them across the stream. The cattle and horses were turned loose and made to swim to the opposite shore. We succeeded in getting across on the same day that we arrived, and after delaying one day and a half, endeavoring to make up a small company to precede the main body and follow on the trail of Mr. Wm. Sublet [Sublette] and Sir Wm. Stewart, who were ahead with a company of men on a party of pleasure to the