THE OREGON TRAIL

CONTENTS

I THE FRONTIER

II BREAKING THE ICE

III FORT LEAVENWORTH

IV "JUMPING OFF"

V "THE BIG BLUE"

VI THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT

VII THE BUFFALO

VIII TAKING FRENCH LEAVE

IX SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE

X THE WAR PARTIES

XI SCENES AT THE CAMP

XII ILL LUCK

XIII HUNTING INDIANS

XIV THE OGALLALLA VILLAGR

XV THE HUNTING CAMP

XVI THE TRAPPERS

XVII THE BLACK HILLS

XVIII A MOUNTAIN HUNT

XIX PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS

XX THE LONELY JOURNEY

XXI THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT

XXII TETE ROUGE, THE VOLUNTEER

XXIII INDIAN ALARMS

XXIV THE CHASE

XXV THE BUFFALO CAMP

XXVI DOWN THE ARKANSAS

XXVII THE SETTLEMENTS

CHAPTER I

THE FRONTIER

Last spring, 1846, was a busy season in the City of St. Louis. Not only
were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the journey
to Oregon and California, but an unusual number of traders were making
ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. Many of the emigrants,
especially of those bound for California, were persons of wealth and
standing. The hotels were crowded, and the gunsmiths and saddlers
were kept constantly at work in providing arms and equipments for the
different parties of travelers. Almost every day steamboats were leaving
the levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded with passengers on their
way to the frontier.

In one of these, the Radnor, since snagged and lost, my friend and
relative, Quincy A. Shaw, and myself, left St. Louis on the 28th of
April, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains. The
boat was loaded until the water broke alternately over her guards. Her
upper deck was covered with large weapons of a peculiar form, for
the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for the same
destination. There were also the equipments and provisions of a party
of Oregon emigrants, a band of mules and horses, piles of saddles and
harness, and a multitude of nondescript articles, indispensable on
the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley one might have seen a small
French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a "mule-killer"
beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a tent, together with a
miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels. The whole equipage was
far from prepossessing in its appearance; yet, such as it was, it was
destined to a long and arduous journey, on which the persevering reader
will accompany it.

The passengers on board the Radnor corresponded with her freight. In her
cabin were Santa Fe traders, gamblers, speculators, and adventurers
of various descriptions, and her steerage was crowded with Oregon
emigrants, "mountain men," negroes, and a party of Kansas Indians, who
had been on a visit to St. Louis.

Thus laden, the boat struggled upward for seven or eight days against
the rapid current of the Missouri, grating upon snags, and hanging for
two or three hours at a time upon sand-bars. We entered the mouth of
the Missouri in a drizzling rain, but the weather soon became clear,
and showed distinctly the broad and turbid river, with its eddies, its
sand-bars, its ragged islands, and forest-covered shores. The Missouri
is constantly changing its course; wearing away its banks on one
side, while it forms new ones on the other. Its channel is shifting
continually. Islands are formed, and then washed away; and while the old
forests on one side are undermined and swept off, a young growth springs
up from the new soil upon the other. With all these changes, the water
is so charged with mud and sand that it is perfectly opaque, and in
a few minutes deposits a sediment an inch thick in the bottom of a
tumbler. The river was now high; but when we descended in the autumn
it was fallen very low, and all the secrets of its treacherous shallows
were exposed to view. It was frightful to see the dead and broken trees,
thick-set as a military abatis, firmly imbedded in the sand, and all
pointing down stream, ready to impale any unhappy steamboat that at high
water should pass over that dangerous ground.

In five or six days we began to see signs of the great western movement
that was then taking place. Parties of emigrants, with their tents and
wagons, would be encamped on open spots near the bank, on their way to
the common rendezvous at Independence. On a rainy day, near sunset, we
reached the landing of this place, which is situated some miles from
the river, on the extreme frontier of Missouri.

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THE OREGON TRAIL