Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1911-08-16
CHAPTER XIV.
Oregon.

Oregon.
The spell and the light of each path we
pursue
If woman be there. there is happiness
too Moore.
Twenty miles a day, week in and
week out, we edged westward UP the
Platte. in heat and dust part of the
time, often plagued at night by clouds
r of mosquitoes. Our men endured the
penalties of the journey without COM
ment. / do not recall that l ever
heard even the weakest woman COM
plain. 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 noun
tain 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 600 miles
to go.
Bv this time our forces had wasted
as though under assault of arms. Far
back on the trail, many had been
forced to leave priced belongings, rel
acs. heirlooms, implements, machinery
all conveniences. The finest of ma
hogany blistered in the sun, aban-
doned and unheeded. Our trail might
have been followed by discarded I'M
plements of agriculture, and by
whitened bones as we'll. 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 superfuous weight
was cast away as our motive power
thus Iessened. Wagons were aban-
doned. 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.
Gaunt and brown and savage, hun
CRY and grim, ragged, hatless, shoe-
less. our cayalcade closed up and came
on, and so at last came through Ere
autumn had yellowed all the foliage
hack east in gentler clmes, we crossed
the shoulders of the Blue mountains
and came into the valley of the Walla
WaIla: and so passed thence down the
Columbia to the valley of the VIII
lamette. 800 miles yet farther, where
there were then some slight centers
of our civilization which had gone for
ward the year before.
Here were some few Americans. At
Champoeg, at the little American mis-
sions. at Oregon City, and other scat
tered points, We met them, we hailed
and we're hailed by them.
Messengers spread abroad the news
of the arrival of our wagon train.
MESSENGERS, too, came down from the
Hudson bay posts to scan our equip
ment ana estimate our numbers. There
was no word obtainable from these OF
any Canadian column of occupation TO
the northward which had crossed at
the head of the Peace river or the
Saskatchewan, or which lay ready at
the head waters Of the Fraser or the
Columbia to come down to the lower
settlements for the purpose of bring
ing TO an issue, or making more diff
cuIt this question of the joint occu-
nancy of Oregon. As a matter of fact,
Intimately we won that transcon-
tipental race so decidedly that there
never was admitted to have been
second.
So we took oregon by the only law
of right. Our broken and weakened
cavaicade asked renewal from the soil
.tsalf. We ruiled no drum, 1uttered
no flag, to take possession OF the land.
But the canvas covers of our wagons
gave way to permanent roofs. Where
"a had known hundred camp-hras,