Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail

by Ezra Meeker; Howard R. Driggs

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TRAILING ON TO THE SOUTH PASS

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 passed 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.

Brown Bros.

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 coöperation 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.

The monument to the trail at Boise, Idaho.

This incident reminded me of a scrape 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 nobody was harmed.

From Cokeville to Pacific Springs, just west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains at South Pass, 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 "hello 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.

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 pass 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?"

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.

At another time we actually got near enough to get a shot with our kodaks at two antelopes; but they were too far off to make good pictures. Our road was leading us obliquely up a gentle hill, gradually approaching nearer to one of the antelopes. I noticed that he would come toward us for a while and then turn around and look the other way for a while. Then we saw what at first we took to be a kid, or young antelope; but soon we discovered that it was a coyote wolf, prowling on the track of the antelope, and watching both of us. Just after the wagon had stopped, I saw six big, fat sage hens feeding not more than twice the length of the wagon away, just as I had seen them in 1852.

Jim, the collie that made the journey from Washington to Washington.

The dog, Jim, had several other adventures with animals on the way. First of all, he and Dave did not get along very well. Once Dave caught Jim under the ribs with his right horn, which was bent forward and stood out nearly straight, and tossed him over some sage brush near by. Sometimes, if the yoke prevented him from getting a chance at Jim with his horn, he would throw out his nose and snort, just like a horse that has been running at play and stops for a moment's rest. But Jim would manage to get even with him. Sometimes we put loose hay under the wagon to keep it out of the storm, and Jim would make a bed on it. Then woe betide Dave if he tried to get any of that hay! I saw Jim one day catch the ox by the nose and draw blood. You may readily imagine that the war was renewed between them with greater rancor than ever. They never did become friends.

One day Jim got his foot under the wheel of our wagon, and I was sure it was broken, but it was not; yet he nursed it for a week by riding in the wagon. He never liked to ride in the wagon except during a thunderstorm. Once a sharp clap of thunder frightened Jim so that he jumped from the ground clear into the wagon while it was in motion and landed at my feet. How in the world he could do it I never could tell.

Jim had some exciting experiences with wild animals, too. He was always chasing birds, jack rabbits, squirrels, or anything in the world that could get into motion. One day a coyote crossed the road just a few rods behind the wagon, and Jim took after him. It looked as if Jim would overtake him, and, being dubious of the result of a tussle between them, I called Jim back. No sooner had he turned than the coyote turned, too, and made chase, and there they came, nip and tuck, to see who could run the faster. I think the coyote could, but he did not catch up until they got so near the wagon that he became frightened and scampered away up the slope of a hill.

At another time a young coyote came along, and Jim played with him awhile. But by and by the little fellow snapped at Jim and made Jim angry, and he bounced on the coyote and gave him a good trouncing.

Before we sheared him, Jim would get very warm when the weather was hot. Whenever the wagon stopped he would dig off the top earth or sand that was hot, to have a cool bed to lie in; but he was always ready to go when the wagon started.

Cokeville was the first town reached in Wyoming. It stands on Smith's Fork, near where that stream empties into Bear River. It is also at the western end of the Sublette Cut-off Trail from Bear River to Big Sandy Creek, the cut-off that we had taken in 1852.

Brown Bros.

The people of the locality resolved to have a monument at this fork in the old trail, and arrangements were made to erect one out of stone from a local quarry. This good beginning made in the state, we went on, climbing first over the rim of the Great Basin, then up and across the Rockies.

I quote again from my journal: "Pacific Springs, Wyoming, Camp No. 79, June 20, 1906. Odometer, 958. [Miles registered from The Dalles, Oregon.] Arrived at 6 p.m., and camped near Halter's store and the post office. Ice found in camp during the night."

On June 22 we were still camped at Pacific Springs. I had searched for a suitable stone for a monument to be placed on the summit of the range, and, after almost despairing of finding one, had come upon exactly what was wanted. The stone lay alone on the mountain side; it is granite, I think, but mixed with quartz, and is a monument hewed by the hand of Nature.

Chas. S. Hill

Immediately after dinner we hitched the oxen to Mr. Halter's wagon. With the help of four men we loaded the stone, after having dragged it on the ground and over the rocks a hundred yards or so down the mountain side. We estimated its weight at a thousand pounds.

There being no stonecutter at Pacific Springs to inscribe the monument, the clerk at the store formed the letters on stiff pasteboard. He then cut them out to make a paper stencil, through which the shape of the letters was transferred to the stone by crayon marks. The letters were then cut out with a cold chisel, deep enough to make a permanent inscription. The stone was so hard that it required steady work all day to cut the twenty letters and figures: THE OREGON TRAIL, 1843-57.

We drove out of Pacific Springs at a little after noon and stopped at the summit to dedicate the monument. Then we left the summit and drove twelve miles to the point called Oregon Slough, where we put up the tent after dark.

The reader may think of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains as a precipitous defile through narrow canyons and deep gorges. Nothing is farther from the fact. One can drive through this Pass for several miles without realizing that the dividing line between the waters of the Pacific and those of the Atlantic has been passed. The road is over a broad, open, undulating prairie, the approach is by easy grades, and the descent, going east, is scarcely noticeable.

All who were toiling west in the old days looked upon this spot as the turning point of their journey. There they felt that they had left the worst of the trip behind them. Poor souls that we were! We did not know that our worst mountain climbing lay beyond the summit of the Rockies, over the rugged Western ranges.

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Nooning beside the prairie schooner.