Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/191



To the Trustees of the McLoughlin School at Oregon City, Oregon:

The writer crossed the plains and mountains from Missouri to Oregon in 1844, with Americans and as an American. I was under a verbal engagement to assist one of the leading family men to Oregon with his family and effects, but as we neared Ft. Hall on the Snake river, I realized that my labor could not expedite the movement of the train, and that the food I would consume might be seriously needed by the women and children before reaching western Oregon (as indeed it was), and obtained my employer's consent to join two other young men who were leaving their families for a similar reason, and push on ahead.

With 15 pounds of pemmican, a saddle horse and rifle each, we left our train at Ft. Hall, an estimated 800 miles from Oregon City, as the trail then was, and in a few hours were joined by three other young men who were leaving Col. N. Ford's train for the same reason we were leaving Gilliam's. They were without provisions and one of them on foot. This made six consumers of the little provisions we had, but before night we killed three young sage grouse—the only ones we saw on the trip.

On the third day, when we were out of anything to eat, we met an Hudson's Bay messenger acting as guide to a Catholic priest who was on his way to join another whom I had seen at Ft. Hall. This guide was a man in style and build closely resembling Kit Carson, whom I saw and observed closely at Ft. Bridger; a man easy to tell your wants to. At all events, we quickly let this cheerful Canadian Frenchman know our condition and he did not change his manner, as he said, "We