Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/22

Rh day and a half, endeavoring to make up a small company to precede the main body and follow on the trail of Mr. Wm. Sublet and Sir. Wm. Stewart, who were ahead, with a company of men, on a party of pleasure to the Mountains, we succeeded in making our company eight persons, and again began to travel.

The Emigrants, amounting, in all, to about six hundred persons, after they had finished crossing, organized themselves into a sort of traveling Government; adopted a short code of laws, employed a pilot, and elected a captain and officers of the guard. We still continued to travel up the Kanzas; but leaving it further and further to the left. The valley of this stream is high rolling prairies, and is very fertile. Its bottoms are wide, and there are numerous branches coming in from both sides, on all of which there is timber in most varieties found West of the Mississippi, some of which is good.

Ninety miles above our crossing, we came to and crossed Big Blue River, one of its main branches. Here the Emigrants came up with us, and it was late in the night before their last wagons got over. This region has the character of being the residence of inhabitants introduced themselves in a manner that was by no means agreeable. After the sun went down, a dense black cloud covered the sky, from which the rain fell in torrents during the whole night. The extreme darkness was dispelled by the dazzling and incessant flashes of lightning. The thunder kept up a constant roar, and frequently its sharp peals resembled the discharge of voleys of artillery. The wind blew so high that most of the tents were thrown down, and one of the wagons was fairly blown over. The surface of the ground was flooded with water, and in the morning we found the River, which we had crossed on the past evening without difficulty, had risen so rapidly as to overflow its bottoms near one fourth of a mile on either side, and was entirely impassable.

This is the middle ground between the Kanzas and Pawnee Indians. The day before we crossed the Big Blue River, we met a war party of Kaus, (Kanzas,) returning from the Pawnee country. They told us they had seen the Pawnees, and had beaten them in battle; but we learned afterwards, from a more creditable source, that it was exactly the other way. They had one or two fresh scalps and as many wounded men, and were leaving the world behind them as fast as possible. We saw their battle-ground afterwards, and found on it two or three dead bodies. Here, the