Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/260

 252 WILLIAM BARLOW We rolled on without a hitch, crossed the Mississippi at Quincy, Illinois, and the Missouri river at Utica, Missouri. Went up on the south side all the way to Independence, where the grand start was to be made. There we lost one yoke of oxen, strayed or stolen, we never knew which, but they were the only animals we lost on the whole trip. Bought another yoke of oxen for twenty-two dollars and two or three cows for five dollars a head, to give milk on the road. We wanted father to buy one hundred cows, as he could have got them for five or six dollars apiece, and could get plenty of young men to drive them just for their board. Of course, we would have to furnish them each a horse or mule. Mules were better for the trip, but American mares were more profitable. When we got to Oregon father sold a young American mare, bought in Missouri, and which he had ridden nearly all the time, for $300.00 in Oregon City. I bought a nice yearling filly and traded her for a half a section of land on the Clacka- mas river, six miles from Oregon City. If we had bought American cows they would have been worth from $75.00 to $100.00 each in Oregon. But we did not do it; if we had it would have changed our whole lives. We would only have had to go up the valley on account of range and could have sold out the first year. But we got a hundred and fifty dollars for what oxen we had to sell. Of course, it was all in Oregon currency, which were orders on any of the stores in Oregon City, from Ermatinger to Abernethy. But these orders would bring flour and money, which we needed. Now, I will go back to Independence, Missouri, and fix for starting across the great American desert, as a great many thought it was. But now it is the richest part of the United States, and it has furnished the gold and silver to make the balance of the country blossom like a rose; and if they had not have demonetized silver it could have blossomed like a hundred roses. Of course, this demonetization set the country back at least a hundred years. For without gold and silver at the old parity of 16 to 1, we would have had no use for the worthless rag money which we can heap all together, and