Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail Part 19

I recalled my boyhood days when father spoke approvingly if I plowed two acres a day, and when to harrow ten acres was the biggest kind of a day's work. I also recalled the time when we cut the wheat with a sickle, or maybe with a hand cradle, and threshed it out with horses on the barn floor. Sometimes we had a fanning mill, and how it would make my arms ache to turn the crank! At other times, if a stiff breeze sprang up, the wheat and chaff would be shaken loose and the chaff would be blown away. If all other means failed, two stout arms at either end of a blanket or a sheet would move the sheet as a fan to clean the wheat. Now we see the great combination harvester garner thirty acres a day, and thresh it as well and sack it ready for the mill or warehouse. There is no shocking, no stacking or housing: all in one operation, the grain is made ready for market.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Brown Bros._

In spite of the wide-spreading farms and fruit orchards, there are still forests in Was.h.i.+ngton and Oregon, and lumbering is still a great industry.]

As we journeyed eastward, the Blue Mountains came into distant view.

Half a day's brisk travel brought us well up toward the snow line. The country became less broken, the soil seemed better, the rainfall had been greater. We began to see red barns and comfortable farmhouses, still set wide apart, though, for the farms are large.

In the Walla Walla valley the scene is different. Smaller farms are the rule and orchards are to be seen everywhere. We now pa.s.sed the historic spot where the Whitman ma.s.sacre occurred in 1847. Soon afterward we were in camp in the very heart of the thriving city of Walla Walla. It was near here that I had met my father when I crossed by the Natchess Pa.s.s Trail in 1854.

Another day's travel brought us to Pendleton, Oregon. Here the Commercial Club took hold with a will and provided funds for a stone monument. On the last day of March it was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies.

That evening I drove out to the Indian school in a fierce rainstorm to talk to the teachers and pupils about the Oregon Trail. A night in the wagon without fire and with only a scant supper sent my spirits down to zero. Nor did they rise when I learned next morning that the snow had fallen eighteen inches deep in the mountains. However, with this news came a warm invitation from the school authorities to use a room they had allotted to us, with a stove, and to help ourselves to fuel. That cheered us up greatly.

There was doubt whether we could cross the Blue Mountains in all this snow. I decided to investigate; so I took the train. About midnight I was landed in the snow at Meacham, with no visible light in the hotel and no track beaten to it.

Morning confirmed the report of the storm; twenty inches of snow had fallen in the mountains.

An old mountaineer told me, "Yes, it is possible to cross, but I warn you it will be a hard job."

It was at once arranged that the second morning thereafter his team should leave Meacham on the way to meet me.

"But what about a monument, Mr. Burns?" I said. "Meacham is a historic place, with Lee's encampment in sight." (It was in 1834 that the Reverend Jason Lee had crossed the continent with Wyeth's second expedition.)

"We have no money," came the quick reply, "but we've got plenty of muscle. Send us a stone and I'll warrant you the foundation will be built and the monument put in place."

A belated train gave opportunity to return at once to Pendleton, where an appeal for aid to provide an inscribed stone for Meacham was responded to with alacrity. The stone was ordered, and a sound night's sleep followed.

I quote from my journal. "Camp No. 31, April 4, 1906. We are now on the snow line of Blue Mountains (8 P.M.), and am writing this by our first really out-of-doors camp fire, under the spreading boughs of a friendly pine tree. We estimate we have driven twelve miles; started from the school at 7 A.M. The first three or four miles over a beautiful farming country; then we began climbing the foothills, up, up, up, four miles, reaching first snow at three o'clock."

True to promise, the mountaineer's team met us on the way to Meacham, but not till we had reached the snow. We were axle-deep in it and had the shovel in use to clear the way, when Burns came upon us. By night we were safely encamped at Meacham, with the cheering news that the monument had arrived and could be dedicated the next day.

The summit of the mountain had not been reached, and the worst tug lay ahead of us. But casting thoughts of this from mind, all hands turned to the monument, which by eleven o'clock was in place. Twist and Dave stood near it, hitched up, and ready for the start as soon as the order was given. Everybody in town was there, the little school coming in a body.

After the speech we moved on to battle with the snow, and finally won our way over the summit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A monument to the old trail, on the high school grounds at Baker City, Oregon.]

The suns.h.i.+ne that was let into our hearts at La Grande was also refres.h.i.+ng. "Yes, we will have a monument," the people responded. And they got one, too, dedicating it while I tarried.

We had taken with us an inscribed stone to set up at an intersection near the mouth of Ladd's Canyon, eight miles out of La Grande. The school near by came in a body. The children sang "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," after which I talked to the a.s.semblage for a few moments, and the exercises closed with all singing "America." Each child brought a stone and cast it upon the pile surrounding the base of the monument.

The citizens of Baker City lent a willing ear to the suggestion to erect a monument on the high-school grounds, although the trail is six miles off to the north, and a fine granite shaft was provided for the high-school grounds and was dedicated. A marker was set on the trail.

Eight hundred school children contributed an aggregate of sixty dollars to place a children's bronze tablet on this shaft. Two thousand people partic.i.p.ated in the ceremony of dedication.

News of these events was now beginning to pa.s.s along the line ahead. As a result the citizens in other places began to take hold of the work with a will. Old Mount Pleasant, Durkee, Huntington, and Vale were other Oregon towns that followed the good lead and erected monuments to mark the old trail. A most gratifying feature of the work was the hearty partic.i.p.ation in it of the school children.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Howard R. Driggs_

A sheep herder's wagon in the sage-covered hills of Wyoming near the Oregon Trail.]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TRAILING ON TO THE SOUTH Pa.s.s

THE Snake River was crossed just below the mouth of the Boise, about where, almost fifty-four years before, we had made our second crossing of the river.

We were landed on the historic site of old Fort Boise, established by the Hudson's Bay Company in September, 1834. This fort was established for the purpose of preventing the success of the American venture at Fort Hall, a post established earlier in 1834 by Nathaniel J. Wyeth.

Wyeth's venture proved a failure, and the fort soon pa.s.sed to his rival, the Hudson's Bay Company. Thus for the time being the British had rule of the whole of that vast region known as the Inland Empire, then the Oregon Country.

Some relics of the old fort at Boise were secured. Arrangements were made for planting a doubly inscribed stone to mark the trail and the site of the fort, and afterwards, through the liberality of the citizens of Boise City, a stone was ordered and put in place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Brown Bros._

Sheep ready for s.h.i.+pment at Caldwell, Idaho.]

At Boise, the capital of Idaho, there were nearly twelve hundred contributions to the monument fund by the pupils of the public schools.

The monument stands on the State House grounds and is inscribed as the children's offering to the memory of the pioneers. More than three thousand people attended the dedication service.

The spirit of cooperation and good will towards the enterprise that was manifested at the capital city prevailed all through Idaho. From Parma, the first town we came to on the western edge, to Montpelier, near the eastern boundary, the people of Idaho seemed anxious to do their part in marking the old trail. Besides the places already named, Twin Falls, American Falls, Pocatello, and Soda Springs all responded to the appeal by erecting monuments to mark the Old Trail.

One rather exciting incident happened near Montpelier. A vicious bull attacked my ox team, first from one side and then the other. Then he got in between the oxen and caused them nearly to upset the wagon. I was thrown down in the mix-up, but fortunately escaped unharmed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The monument to the trail at Boise, Idaho.]

This incident reminded me of a sc.r.a.pe one of our neighboring trains got into on the Platte in 1852, with a wounded buffalo. The train had encountered a large herd of these animals, feeding and traveling at right angles to the road. The older heads of the party, fearing a stampede of their teams, had ordered the men not to molest the buffaloes, but to give their whole attention to the care of the teams.

One impulsive young fellow would not be restrained; he fired into the herd and wounded a large bull. The maddened bull charged upon a wagon filled with women and children and drawn by a team of mules. He became entangled in the harness and was caught on the wagon-tongue between the mules. The air was full of excitement for a while. The women screamed, the children cried, and the men began to shout. But the practical question was how to dispatch the bull without shooting the mules as well. Trainmen forgot their own teams and rushed to the wagon in trouble. The guns began to pop and the buffalo was finally killed. The wonder is that n.o.body was harmed.

From c.o.keville to Pacific Springs, just west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains at South Pa.s.s, by the road and trail we traveled, is one hundred and fifty-eight miles. Ninety miles of this stretch is away from the sound of the locomotive, the click of the telegraph, or the voice of the "h.e.l.lo girl." The mountains here are from six to seven thousand feet above sea level, with scanty vegetable growth. The country is still almost a solitude, save as here and there a sheep herder or his wagon may be discerned. The sly coyote, the simple antelope, and the cunning sage hen still hold sway as they did when I first traversed the country.

The old trail is there in all its grandeur.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Monument at Pocatello, Idaho.]

"Why mark that trail!" I exclaimed. Miles and miles of it are worn so deep that centuries of storm will not efface it; generations may pa.s.s and the origin of the trail may become a legend, but these marks will remain.

We wondered to see the trail worn fifty feet wide and three feet deep, and we hastened to photograph it. But after we were over the crest of the mountain, we saw it a hundred feet wide and fifteen feet deep. The tramp of thousands upon thousands of men and women, the hoofs of millions of animals, and the wheels of untold numbers of vehicles had loosened the soil, and the fierce winds had carried it away. In one place we found ruts worn a foot deep into the solid rock.

The mountain region was as wild as it had been when I first saw it. One day, while we were still west of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming, two antelopes crossed the road about a hundred yards ahead of us, a buck and a doe. The doe soon disappeared, but the buck came near the road and stood gazing at us in wonderment, as if to ask, "Who the mischief are you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Deep ruts had been worn in the solid rock of the trail through the mountain country.]

Our dog Jim soon scented him, and away they went up the mountain side until Jim got tired and came back to the wagon. Then the antelope stopped on a little eminence on the mountain, and for a long distance we could see him plainly against a background of sky.