where, or water for gold washing failed. By rapid stages the prospectors passed up the several branches of the Columbia, until they stood once more upon the summit of the Rockies, this time coming from the west. At South Pass, Helena, and many other camps, they met and mingled with the crowds of gold seekers arriving from the East. These were "tender feet "to the rugged men who had spent twelve or fifteen years in the mining districts of California, British Columbia, eastern Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and who rather gloried in the name "yonder siders," applied to them by the other class.
Carrying supplies to the mining camps. When the miners turned toward the northeast the pack trains headed in the same direction, carrying the eager gold seekers with their outfits, and following from camp to camp with regular supplies of bacon and flour, picks, shovels, pans, quicksilver, and other necessities of the business. From ten to fifty horses or mules usually made up the train, though sometimes more than one hundred animals were employed. They were loaded with packs varying from two hundred to four hundred pounds. At first many of these trains set out from the Willamette valley directly, crossing the Cascade Mountains; but in a very short time (as early as 1862) the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, with headquarters at Portland, made arrangements for carrying goods up the river as far as old Fort Walla Walla, then as now called Wallula. Intermediate points were The Dalles and Umatilla Landing.
