Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/171

 dians attempted to steal some of our horses, but as soon as the guards hailed them, the rascals ran like deer. One of the guard fired after them but the villians were too far out of the way. The report of the gun aroused the whole camp, but by day all was quiet on the Potomac, without any bloodshed. After breakfast we ascended a hill and crossed a sage plain. At the end of eight miles our road strikes the bottom, which we traveled down three miles and camped at a large spring one mile above the American Falls on Snake river. Here had good grass and brush wood.

July 20.—The scenery about the falls is grand here. We see a snowy range in the far west. The falls pour and foam over loose rock for a distance of about 100 yards and then run down off smoothly. The perpendicular descent, I should say, to be about 20 feet. We traveled about 14 miles this day. For the first seven miles the road was very rough and hilly; at one very short pitch we had to lock both hind wheels and then attach a rope to the hind end of the wagonbox and hold them back for safety. Here we are near the river, which at this place is very narrow, making its way between huge boulders. Seven miles more down a smooth valley road brought us to where the bluffs close in to near the river. Here we struck camp; good water but poor grass. The country along here is broken and very sandy.

July 21.—This morning our road led down the valley. Three miles brought us to Beaver Dam creek, a small creek that passes over a succession of natural stone dams of from three to four feet each and from four to five rods apart. We followed the river bottom two miles farther; then up a ravine half a mile farther to a sage plain, then six miles over the sage plain to the head of another ravine, which we followed down to the bottom of the stream, called Raft river. Here we met five men just from the Willamette valley, who had been to look at the country and were returning to take their families to Oregon. They gave us great encouragement with regard to the