CONTENTS

PAGE
The Fur Traders[9]
Why I am not a Fur Trader[11]
Striving to Plan for the Future[13]
An Inquisitive Stranger[15]
An Unexpected Proposition[16]
I set Out as a Guide[18]
John Mitchell's Outfit[20]
Making the Bargain[23]
We Leave St. Louis[25]
The Hardships to be Encountered[26]
The Camp at Independence[28]
A Frontier Town[30]
The Start from Independence[33]
Careless Travelers[35]
Overrun by Wild Horses[38]
Searching for the Live Stock[40]
Abandoning the Missing Animals[42]
Meeting with Other Emigrants[43]
A Tempest[46]
Facing the Indians[49]
Teaching the Pawnees a Lesson[51]
The Pawnee Village[53]
A Bold Demand[54]
I Gain Credit as a Guide[56]
A Difficult Crossing[58]
Wash Day[60]
Indian Pictures[62]
A Plague of Wood Ticks[64]
Another Tempest[66]
The Cattle Stampeded Again[68]
Difficult Traveling[69]
Colonel Kearny's Dragoons[71]
Disagreeable Visitors[73]
Driving away the Indians[75]
Turkey Hunting[76]
Eager Hunters[77]
Antelope Country[79]
Shooting Antelopes[81]
A Pawnee Visitor[83]
The Pawnees try to Frighten Us[85]
Defending Ourselves[87]
Scarcity of Fuel, and Discomfort[89]
Lame Oxen[91]
An Army of Emigrants[92]
The Buffalo Country[95]
Hunting Buffaloes[97]
My Mother's Advice[99]
Ash Hollow Post Office[100]
New Comrades[102]
Fort Laramie[103]
A Sioux Encampment[106]
Indians on the March[107]
The Fourth of July[109]
Multitudes of Buffaloes[111]
We Meet Colonel Kearny Again[113]
Across the Divide[115]
Fort Bridger[117]
Trading at Fort Hall[122]
Thievish Snakes[123]
The Hot Springs[124]
The Falls of the Snake River[126]
Signs of the Indians[128]
Beset with Danger[129]
Hunger and Thirst[131]
Nearly Exhausted[133]
Arrival at Fort Boise[135]
On the Trail Once More[137]
Cayuse Indians[139]
The Columbia River[140]
An Indian Ferry[141]
The Dalles of the Columbia[143]
Our Live Stock[144]
My Work as Guide Ended[145]
I Become a Farmer[146]

ANTOINE OF OREGON

THE FUR TRADERS

There is ever much pride in my heart when I hear it said that all the trails leading from the Missouri River into the Great West were pointed out to the white people by fur buyers, for my father was well known, and in a friendly way, as one of the most successful of the free traders who had their headquarters at St. Louis.

It is not for me to say, nor for you to believe, that the fur traders were really the first to travel over these trails, for, as a matter of fact, they were marked out in the early days by the countless numbers of buffaloes, deer, and other animals that always took the most direct road from their feeding places to where water could be found.