live and of
occupations by which they live. I wish I could share with every boy and
girl in the country the panorama view that unrolled itself before me in
this journey from tidewater to tidewater.

The ox team was chosen as a typical reminder of pioneer days. The Oregon
Trail, it must be remembered, is essentially an ox-team trail. No more
effective instrument, therefore, could have been chosen to attract
attention, arouse enthusiasm, and secure aid in forwarding the work,
than this living symbol of the old days.

Indeed, too much attention, in one sense, was attracted. I had scarcely
driven the outfit away from my own dooryard before the wagon and wagon
cover, and even the map of the old trail on the sides of the cover,
began to be defaced. First I noticed a name or two written on the wagon
bed, then a dozen or more, all stealthily placed there, until the whole
was so closely covered that there was no room for more. Finally the
vandals began carving initials on the wagon bed and cutting off pieces
to carry away. Eventually I put a stop to such vandalism by employing
special police, posting notices, and nabbing some offenders in the very
act.

Give me Indians on the Plains to contend with; give me fleas or even the
detested sage-brush ticks to burrow into the flesh; but deliver me from
cheap notoriety seekers!

I had decided to take along one helper, and a man by the name of Herman
Goebel went as far as The Dalles with the outfit. There William Marden
joined me for the journey across the Plains. Marden stayed with me for
three years, and proved to be faithful and helpful.

And now a word as to my oxen. The first team consisted of one
seven-year-old ox, Twist, and one unbroken five-year-old range steer,
Dave. When we were ready to start, Twist weighed 1,470 pounds and Dave
1,560. This order of weight was soon changed. In three months' time
Twist gained 130 pounds and Dave lost 80. All this time I fed them with
a lavish hand all the rolled barley I dared give and all the hay they
would eat.

[Illustration: Preparing to cross a river; unyoking the oxen.]

Dave would hook and kick and perform every other mean trick. Besides, he
would stick his tongue out from the smallest kind of exertion. He had
just been shipped in off the Montana cattle range and had never had a
rope on him, unless it was when he was branded. Like a great over-grown
booby of a boy, he was flabby in flesh, and he could not endure any sort
of exe