Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/330



290 JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK

Thursday, May 12th.

Fine weather in the morning, but heavy rain and snow and very cold afterwards.

Raised camp and marched 10 miles across the mountains, and encamped on a small rivulet of snow water. The head of Raft river appears in a deep valley to the west of us. The road on the mountains hilly and rugged and some places stony, and in places very boggy. The snow still lies in banks of considerable depth, and appears but very recently to have disappeared off most of the ground. The grass is barely be- ginning to spring up except on small spots exposed to the south, which has been some time clear of snow, where vegeta- tion has made some progress. From the very ruggedness of the road and the badness of the weather this was a harassing day both on horses and people. For want of water we could not encamp sooner. In order that we may make a better I sep- arated a party this morning and sent 8 men, viz. C. Plante (who is in charge of the party), J. Deslard, F. Champagne, L. Rondeau, L. Quenstall, A. Dumarais, Bt. Dubrielle and A. Longtin to hunt to the Westward on the heads of small rivers which run into Snake river and on the Eastern fork of Sand- wich Island River, 1 while I with the remainder of the party proceed to the southward to Ogden's river, and then to the head of Sandwich Island river.

Plante was directed to push on and make a good encamp- ment today so that he might get out of the reach of the Black- feet who are still following our track, but instead of doing so some of the people who went in pursuit of a horse that fol- lowed the party found the encampment only a few miles from our last night's station. If they push on they will in a short time be out of the reach of the Blackfeet.

Friday, May 13th. Raw, cold weather, froze keen in the night.

i Owyhce riyer.