THE INTERIM AND SECOND TRIP.
The preceding chapter, "The End", was written more than eight years ago. Readers will have noted the work of monumenting the Oregon Trail was left unfinished, that only a beginning had been made, that the seed had been planted from which greater results might reasonably have been expected to follow; that though in one sense the work had failed, nevertheless the effort had been fully justified by the results obtained.
A great change has come over the minds of the American people in this brief period of eight years. Numerous organizations have sprung into existence for the betterment of Good Roads, for the perpetuation of "The Old Trails" and the memory of those who wore them wide and deep. It is without the province of this writing to give a history of these various movements, and in any event space forbids undertaking the task. Suffice it to say the widespread interest in the good roads movement alone is shown by the introduction of sixty bills upon the subject during the first month of the Sixty-fourth Congress—more than double that introduced in any previous Congress. But we are now more concerned to record a brief history of what happened to the "Overland Outfit" since the so-called great trek ended.
At the Yukon Exposition, 1909.
Dave and Dandy, after a few weeks of visiting, were put into winter quarters in Seattle, where the admonition of the Israelite law, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn", was observed and both showed more fat on the ribs for the nearly three years of the strenuous life on the road. The dog "Jim" had likewise fattened up under a less strenuous life, but did not lose his watchful, faithful care of things surrounding him, that had seemed to have become a sort of second nature while on the trip. The owner of the "outfit", the writer, soon became restless under enforced idleness and arranged to participate in the Alaska Yukon Exposition held in Seattle during the summer of 1909, for illustrating pioneer life in the cabin and feeding the hungry multitude. Neither enterprise succeeded financially and the "multitude" soon ate him out of "house and home", demonstrating he had missed his calling by the disappearance of his accumulation, leaving him the experience only, to be vividly felt, though mysterious as the unseen air. To "lie down" and give up, to me was unthinkable. I had contemplated a second trip over the Trail to add to what had been done even if it was impossible to "finish up", but winter was approaching and so a trip to the sunny climate of California was made to remain until the winter 1909-10 had passed into history.
March 16, 1910, the start was made for a second trip over the old Trail from The Dalles, Oregon. "Dave" by this time had become a "seasoned ox" though had not yet worked out of him the unruly meanness that seemed to cling to him almost to the last. "Dandy" was not a whit behind him as an ox and kept his good nature for the whole trip before him (which lasted nearly two years) and to the end of his life.
On this trip no effort was made to erect monuments, but more special attention paid toward locating the Trail. Tracings of the township survey through which the Trail was known to run were obtained at the state capitals at Boise, Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Topeka, Kansas. The United States deputy surveyors of public lands are instructed to note all roads or trails crossing section or township lines. Here came "confusion worse confounded" by the numerous notations, some appearing on several section lines in succession, others on one line and then not again for many miles and, of course, it was not known by the deputies which was the Oregon Trail, or which was a later road or which was simply an old buffalo trail, and later followed by the Indians.
If we could pick up a known point of the Oregon Trail noted on a section line crossing and search for another even if many miles distant and find it and get the general direction, I don't recall a single failure to locate the intervening points. This, however, did not always result in finding the visible marks on the ground, but the memory of the old settlers would come in or an Indian might remember, and then sometimes we would stumble on it before we knew where the mysterious track lay. Once I remember finding two rods in length of the "old trough" in a fence road crossing, where the traces in fields on both sides had been cultivated, the road graded, and only this little spot left undisturbed. Other places out on the plains were left undisturbed by improvements. Nature had come in to it in parts and obliterated the marks. Then again at other places the marks remained so plain one might almost say it could be seen miles ahead, both wide and deep—200 feet wide in places where the sage had been killed out, and then again in sandy points so deep one hesitates to tell fearing lest he may be accused of exaggerating; but here goes: I did measure one point fifteen feet deep and seventy-five feet wide.