perfect the practice, that the hindmost wagon of the train always precisely closes the gateway. As each wagon is brought into position, it is dropped from its team (the teams being inside the circle), the team unyoked, and the yokes and chains are used to connect the wagon strongly with that in its front.
Within ten minutes from the time the leading wagon halted the barricade is formed, the teams unyoked and driven out to pasture. Every one is busy preparing fires of buffalo chips to cook the evening meal, pitching tents and otherwise preparing for the night.
There are anxious watchers for the absent wagon, for there are many matrons who may be afflicted like its inmate before the journey is over, and they fear the strange and startling practice of this Oregon doctor will be dangerous. But as the sun goes down, the absent wagon rolls into camp, the bright, speaking face and cheery look of the doctor, who rides in advance, declare without words that all is well, and that both mother and child are comfortable.
I would fain now and here pay a passing tribute to that noble and devoted man, Dr. Whitman. I will obtrude no other name upon the reader, nor would I his, were he of our party or even living, but his stay with us was transient, though the 160 good he did was permanent, and he has long since died at his post.
