Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/53



REMINISCENCES 45

air and the pins and ropes become entangled together, so as to tie the horses into bunches. They could not run, but kept circling, and were soon overhauled.

"We forded the South Platte river early in July, I think about the 6th. It was at high water. We had to raise every- thing in the bottoms of the wagons, and the horses had to swim some and then pull along on the floating sand bottom. We had to keep on the move all the time, and keep moving we did, until we were over the river."

"We had a commissary sergeant whose name was Jones. Captain Thompson, who later became well known at Salem, Portland and Oregon City, was our wagon master. One- Armed Brown, also well known at Salem and Portland, was orderly for Captain Thompson. Major Reynolds' two pay- master wagons were independent of our command, and were kept along for protection, but under no immediate control of our officers. M. P. Deady, later one of Oregon's distinguished lawyers, was a big husky looking young fellow. He had no team to drive, so it came about that he and Jones rode together. Jones had to look out for the commissary wagons, while Thompson and Brown looked after all wagons and loose stock. We moved on up the South Platte and then up the North Platte until we reached Fort Laramie. Colonel Loring had left Captain Barnwell Rhett in command of Laramie, with some troopers, to hold the place.

"After we had rested a day or two and were ready to move, Captain Morris arrested Sergeant Jones and a man named Coulter, and turned them over to Captain Rhett. We moved on and Major Reynolds remained at Fort Laramie until we were well out of the way. The cause of this was that Jones, while riding with Deady and being so chummy, had proposed a plot, by which the two paymasters' wagons should be left behind our train when we reached the Rocky Mountains, and then be robbed. The 'Red Headed Young Blacksmith' Deady had given the plot away, hence the arrest of Jones and Coulter, and the reason for Major Reynolds bidding us goodbye.