Page:Recollections of My Boyhood.djvu/20

Rh Of the Platte rivers there were the South Platte, Laramie's Fork, and the North Platte. At times we traveled along the banks of the rivers, which were low, and the water often seemed spread over a wide surface and shallow. The pasturage was fresh and abundant, and I do not remember that we endured great hardships journeying through this part of the country. Buffalo and small game were plentiful and the men had great sport hunting. We had an abundance of buffalo meat and venison. Sometimes buffaloes were found among our cattle of mornings, quietly grazing with them. One day as we were traveling along the bank of one of the Platte rivers, a buffalo was seen swimming the river and coming in the direction of the train. Some of the men got their guns and when he came up the bank attacked and finally killed him near the wagons, but they had to shoot so many times to bring him down that the firing sounded like quite a battle. I think they said he was an old bull. He had very large shoulders rising to a hump, which was covered with long dark hair, and he had a very ugly burly head. I thought him a very dangerous looking beast. While traveling through this country of rivers and broad plains, we were, as I remember, never out of sight of wild game.

I remember crossing two Platte rivers. One crossing where we forded, the river seemed to he very wide and quite rapid; the water was so deep in places that it ran into the wagon boxes and a single team and wagon would have been swept away, so they formed the entire train in single file, and attached the teams and wagons to a chain extending through the entire length of the train. The crossing here severely tried the courage and endurance of the men, for they waded the river alongside their oxen, at times clinging to the ox yokes, and swimming; at some deep places the teams seemed to swim and the wagons to float, being held up and in line by the chain to which they were attached.

Whether at this crossing or another, I do not remember, but at one place where we forded one of the rivers, mother, myself, and the other children were in a wagon, which we called the "little red wagon;" it was drawn by one yoke of oxen, and it appears to me now that our wagon was attached to the last end of the train. As we were just getting up the