E. S. Curtis
Indians traveling.
The next day we packed up early and hit the trail pretty hard. For several days we headed south. We left the Piupa, or Snake River, and crossed over the mountains. Finally we came to a place called Tosaibi, which I learned later to be Soda Springs, in southeastern Idaho. We could not use the water of these springs, so we went on a short distance and camped on a good-sized river which the Indians called Titsapa; this was the Bear River.
They said that this stream ran into a big salt lake that reached nearly to my old home. That started me to thinking about my dear father and mother, my brothers and sisters I should like so much to see, and I could feel the tears running down my cheeks. Mother saw them and came and sat down by my side.
“Yagaki,” she said, “I fear you do not like to live with us.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“What are you crying about?”
I told her that I was thinking of my white mother.
“Am I not as good to you as your own mother?” she asked.
I told her that she was. But I could not help wanting to see my white mother and my people just the same.