Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/129

Rh to unite our small and inefficient forces; which, when thus united, amounted to only twenty-six persons. Under such circumstances, especially, as it brought together friends and acquaintances together, and who, before, had long been ignorant even of the existence of each other. And the event was more thrilling and impressive, as it occurred in such a wild, gloomy, barren, and savage country, far away from home and friends, where the human kind was seldom seen, and when they were, most generally avoided. We will not describe the scene, but leave it to the imagination of those who are not destitute of sensibility, and who cannot but appreciate, in some degree, the feelings which were awakened, by such an occasion.

On the 22d of June, two companies united, and proceeded, by moderate traveling, to the camp of Vasques and Peg Leg; the former of whom, had left his trading house, for fear of the Sioux and Shians. We found them several miles from the emigrants trail, on one of the branches of Green River; and, as many of our animals were much fatigued and reduced, we determined to remain several days.

We found, upon arriving at this place, that those persons who wrote the letter, which we received at Fort Hall, had met with a company of traders, and had been gone about twenty days. While remaining here, we were entertained by accounts of all the prairies that ever had been cut to pieces by the Sioux, all the difficulties and dangers which the white men, living in the mountains, had ever encountered by them, and probably a great many more. We passed, here, the 4th of July, and on the 5th, again proceeded.

Having crossed Green River, by rafting and swimming, on the 7th of July; in the morning, of the succeeding day, we met the van of a large Emigration, from whom we learned some of the principal events, which had occurred in the States, during the past year; among which, was the election of Mr. Polk to the presidency.

In a few days after we had met the Emigration, several of our party, anxious to travel faster than was deemed prudent by the majority, and unwilling to yield their own opinions, separating from the company, proceeded ahead. It is strange, that men so surrounded, on every hand, with danger, and at the same time perfectly conscious of their situation, should allow little trivial differences of opinion, to separate them; exposing their lives on account of a mere whim, which, at most, does to profess any