Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/225



LETTER 213

in vain to stop them to see men, women and children getting pitched out of the wagons to hear them scream and the driv- ers shouting. I shall never forget the occurrence. One man got his shoulder dislocated and was otherwise badly bruised; several others were somewhat injured some of the women were rather roughly handled, but no serious accident occurred. Several oxen got their necks broken. Our driver had been engaged for some time in driving for the Government on the Santa Fe route, and was somewhat acquainted with the nature of stampedes. When the affair took place, he was sitting on the tongue of the wagon smoking his pipe. As soon as he heard that terrible bawl he jumped, dropped his pipe and whip, and took to his heels for the "dear life," to get out of the way. Fortunately no accident occurred to my wagon or team, and I am disposed to attribute the credit of it all to the wise and prudent management of our Dutch driver. As soon as the stampede was over (it did not last over 3 minutes) we went to work mending up things, and, in an hour afterwards, we were travelling on as usual. We had several stampedes after this, but I cannot find room or time to describe them.

When we reached Fort Kearney, we had one of the greatest storms I ever experienced. It rained almost incessantly for three days. The hail stones were as large as peaches. The whole surface of the ground was covered with water to the depth of six inches. Whilst we were in our tent, which afforded some little protection, the wind and hail beat it down with us in it. When it came down, we became entangled in its folds, and there we lay for some time, in the water, unable to extricate ourselves, all the while the wind blowing furiously, and the wet tent-sheet flopping up and down and beating us over our backs and heads with the tent pins. After this rain, we had no more rain until we got to Oregon ! !

Soon after we started out I had our train christened the "Tornado Train." Your humble servant was elevated to the honorable post of "Sergeant of the Guard." The duty of stand- ing guard is the most disagreeable, irksome, and fatiguing duty I had to perform on the whole trip. As might be expected,