the former now much out of rifle shot. I counted and found seventeen Indians scattering just like so many wolves driven from their prey. I had just missed being robbed and stripped by the length of time it took to close my hands on my gun. It is hard to say now whether the end would have been a white man robbed or an Indian shot in the breast in the next half second, as the gun was an old flintlock and often missed fire. I was very angry and talked very bad English as long as any of the cowardly wretches were in sight. That evening we met an Indian from the mission at The Dalles who spoke English plainly.
October 15.—We got to The Dalles and went into camp near the mission. We found it was Sunday, and we had camped right against the log building in which service was held in preaching to the Indians. We felt like trespassers, and had no right to complain of cold treatment, as our disregard of the Sabbath was an added obstacle to the objects of the missionaries.
At The Dalles our party divided: Crockett, Ferguson, and myself taking the horses across the Cascades via the trail the missionaries had used to bring cattle from the Willamette—the only one used until S. K. Barlow and others forced their way through on the south side of Mount Hood in 1845-46. The original trail passed close to the mountain on its north side. We camped one night in the dense timber without grass for our horses, and reached Oregon City on the evening of October 18, in three days from The Dalles; and it began to rain that night.
October 19.—We rode in a pouring warm rain from Oregon City to McCarver's farm on the Tualatin Plains, and found our friends had beaten us one day. There were five of them who made the trip from The Dalles down the Columbia in one Chinook canoe. These were General
