Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/104

96 are involved in uncertainty. Five men from the emigrantscompany returned, after they had proceeded as far as Fort Hall, who stated that the company were obliged to leave all their wagons and take the pack horses through the mountains a distance of 600 miles. We have learned too by ten of Lieut. Fremont's men who returned that the company of emigrants were reduced to the necessity of eating horse flesh for meat.

We hope to learn more definitely and positively when Lieut. Fremont returns, which will probably be in two or three weeks. Should we learn that the distance from Fort Hall to the mouth of the Willamette is impassable by wagons, we feel that it will be more than our young family can encounter to take pack horses and provisions and necessary cooking utensils and clothing and bedding and, thus arrayed, attempt to urge our way through the defiles of the mountains. We learn that a very large company from Platt County, Missouri are making arrangements to emigrate next spring for Oregon, some from this Territory and some from Ill. A Mr. Flint from Missouri writes that probably the emigrating camp will consist of 3000 men. We feel ourselves thrown into an uncomfortable suspense on the subject, but it is all right. Our disappointment was great. It is distressing to abandon the enterprise, and the thought of presumptously hazarding the lives of my family is equally distressing, especially while so wide a door is open in this wide Valley. Our friends here will none of them advise to go, unless we receive more favorable reports of the way. Yet I have some reason to suspect them of selfishness. We trust the Lord will soon remove our doubts. I can truly say my mind is strongly inclined to preach the gospel in Oregon.

We came all the way (from New York) with our own conveyance, which was the cause of our reaching Iowa so