Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/168



saw them all at the same time ; some were slowly aud painfully making their way, others with only a head or leg above the snow, and others entirely hidden under it. Ludicrous as the accidents sometimes were, the situation was far too serious for laughter or even conversation; it was a funeral procession where each mourner expected himself to be a corpse.

The February sun shone bright through the day and softened the snow on top ; but as night approached it became intensely cold. A clump of dead aspens furnished us firewood, and a huge Lambert pine broke away a little of the keenness of the wind from our camp ; but it was too cold to sleep in our single blankets ; and around that stick fire were discussed subjects the gravest that it ever falls to the lot of man to consider.

The last to arrive in camp was James Fields. He w r as a large, rather fleshy man, weighing over two hundred pounds. He carried an extra heavy pack and rifle, so that his snowshoes had to sustain a weight of about three hundred pounds. As soon as the duties of the camp were completed, Mr. Fields addressed the expedition to the following effect: "It is my painful duty, gentlemen, to an nounce that I can accompany you no further on this expedition. It has been only by the assistance I have received from others, and the fortunate crusting of the trail this evening that I am able to camp with you tonight, not two miles from the place of starting. It is impossible for me to accomplish the remaining twenty miles of snow that we know lies before us on this mountain. I regret that I volunteered upon this walking expedition, not so much because of the loss of my own life, as that by overrating my ability to perform it I occupy the place of some better man, where men are already too few. Before I joined this expedition in the Walla- met valley I fully understood the gravity of the undertaking. Against the performance of so great an object I weighed my own life as nothing ; in fact, if one only of the party should reach the end of the journey, and the rest fell by the way, the object of the expedition would be cheaply obtained. My loss will, I know, in crease your dangers and hardships ; but I yield to inexorable cir cumstances. I will get off the snow in the morning while the trail is hard, and take my chances alone with famine and the savages. I am not so pusillanimous as to die in this camp, or throw my life away without an effort."

This speech was received in profound silence. No man ventured to express what was in his heart, lest he should be alone. When the silence was broken, Tetherow alone remained firm to the expe dition. With him alone, brave, strong, and powerful as I knew him to be, I felt success was impossible. We should be not only throwing away our lives uselessly in the attempt, but the lives of the young men with us, who were as helpless to go back without us as we to go forward without them. A vote was then taken on two