osquitoes. Our men endured the penalties of the journey
without comment. I do not recall that I ever heard even the weakest
woman complain. Thus at last we reached the South Pass of the Rockies,
not yet half done our journey, and entered upon that portion of the
trail west of the Rockies, which had still two mountain ranges to cross,
and which was even more apt to be infested by the hostile Indians. Even
when we reached the ragged trading post, Fort Hall, we had still more
than six hundred miles to go.

By this time our forces had wasted as though under assault of arms. Far
back on the trail, many had been forced to leave prized belongings,
relies, heirlooms, implements, machinery, all conveniences. The finest
of mahogany blistered in the sun, abandoned and unheeded. Our trail
might have been followed by discarded implements of agriculture, and by
whitened bones as well. Our footsore teams, gaunt and weakened, began to
faint and fall. Horses and oxen died in the harness or under the yoke,
and were perforce abandoned where they fell. Each pound of superfluous
weight was cast away as our motive power thus lessened. Wagons were
abandoned, goods were packed on horses, oxen and cows. We put cows into
the yoke now, and used women instead of men on the drivers' seats, and
boys who started riding finished afoot. Our herds were sadly lessened by
theft of the Indians, by death, by strayings which our guards had not
time to follow up. If a wagon lagged it was sawed shorter to lessen its
weight Sometimes the hind wheels were abandoned, and the reduced
personal belongings were packed on the cart thus made, which
nevertheless traveled on, painfully, slowly, yet always going ahead. In
the deserts beyond Fort Hall, wagons disintegrated by the heat. Wheels
would fall apart, couplings break under the straining teams. Still more
here was the trail lined with boxes, vehicles, furniture, all the
flotsam and jetsam of the long, long Oregon Trail.

The grass was burned to its roots, the streams were reduced to ribbons,
the mirages of the desert mocked us desperately. Rain came seldom now,
and the sage-brush of the desert was white with bitter dust, which in
vast clouds rose sometimes in the wind to make our journey the harder.
In autumn, as we approached the second range of mountains, we could see
the taller peaks whitened with snow. Our leaders looked anxiously ahead,
dreading the storms which must ere long overtake us. Still, gaunt now
and