[4] A branch of the Green River, in Wyoming.
During the winter many of the men came home. Poor though we were we had happy times. They had social gatherings at which they sang and danced and played games to while away the wintry evenings. Sometimes, to pay the fiddler, the people took squash or wheat or carrots. There was little money in the country.
Echo Canyon, Utah. The Overland Trail ran through this pass.
I have said that the people were very poor. They were poor in furniture, bedding, clothing, but generally they had enough to eat, and they were gradually getting cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens to help out. Their furniture and dishes, however, had been broken and used up in their long journey across the plains and it was hard to get more. Sometimes a coat or a dress would be patched so many times and with so many different kinds of cloth that it was difficult to tell which piece of cloth it had been made of in the first place.
When spring came, matters had not been yet arranged between our leaders and the government. The leaders were uncertain how the trouble would end, so they ordered the settlers to abandon their homes for the time being and move south. This was a trying thing to do. The crops were all in when the order came to move. A guard was left to take care of what was left behind, and if it came to the worst, they were to burn everything that might be useful to the army. My father with his family and most of our neighbors moved down to Spanish Fork, Utah. Here we stayed for further orders from the authorities.
To make this move from their homes, the people had to use any kind of outfit they could get together. Everything from a wheelbarrow to an eight-mule team could be seen along the roads. An old wagon with a cow and a horse hitched up together was a common sight. Some had good buggies, others an old ox hitched between the shafts of a rickety old two-wheeled cart. Some of the women led the family cows with their bedding and a little food packed on their backs. Some were rich and many were poor, but they all were traveling the same road, and all appeared to be happy, and none of them very badly scared.
By this time I had traded my Crow Indian pony for a white man’s saddle and a two-year-old heifer. I wanted to go back to live with Washakie and my dear old Indian mother, but I did not care to do so until I found out what the army was going to do.
We had not been in Spanish Fork long before some Spaniards from California brought in a band of wild horses to trade for cattle. A good many people had gathered around the corral to see the mustangs. While sitting on the corral fence, I saw a little black three-year-old mare that took my fancy. I asked the man what he would take for her.
