I quote from my journal:
"June 7.—Up at 4:30; started at 5:30; arrived at Montpelier 11:00 a. m. * * * A dangerous and exciting incident occurred this forenoon when a vicious bull attacked the team, first from one side and then the other, getting in between the oxen and causing them to nearly upset the wagon. I was finally thrown down in the melee, but escaped unharmed," and it was a narrow escape from being run over both by team and wagon.
THE WOUNDED BUFFALO.
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 feeding and traveling at right angles to the road. The older heads of the party, fearing a stampede of their teams, had given orders not to molest the buffaloes, but to give their whole attention to the care of the teams. But one impulsive young fellow would not be restrained, and fired into the herd and wounded a large bull. Either in anger or from confusion, the mad bull charged upon a wagon filled with women and children and drawn by a team of mules. He became entangled in the harness and on the tongue between the mules. An eye-witness described the scene as "exciting for a while." It would be natural for the women to scream, the children to cry, and the men to halloa, but the practical question was how to dispatch the bull without shooting the mules as well. What, with multiplicity of counsel, the independent action of everyone, each having a plan of his own, there seemed certain to be some fatalities from the gun-shots of the large crowd of trainmen who had forgotten their own teams and rushed to the wagon in trouble. As in this incident of my own, just related, nothing was harmed, but when it was over all agreed it was past understanding how it came about there was no loss of life or bodily injury.
The Old Oregon Trail.
COKEVILLE, WYOMING.