the women some thread, which furnished lines for fishing, by which means they kept from starving. As the howlings of the Indians could still be heard, no travel was attempted except at night. After going about seventy miles, the men became too weak from famine to carry the young children. Still they had not been entirely without food, since two dogs that had followed them had been killed and eaten.
After crossing Snake River near Fort Boisé they lost the road, and being unable to travel, encamped on the Owyhee River. Just before reaching this their final camp, a poor cow was discovered, which the earlier emigration had abandoned, whose flesh mixed with the berries of the wild rose furnished scanty subsistence, eked out by a few salmon purchased of some Indians encamped on the Snake River in exchange for articles of clothing and ammunition. The members of the party now awaiting their doom, in the shelter of the wigwams on the banks of the Owyhee, were Alexis Vanorman, Mrs Vanorman, Mark Vanorman, Mr and Mrs Chase, Daniel and Albert Chase, Elizabeth and Susan Trimble, Samuel Gleason, Charles and Henry Utter, an infant child of the murdered Mrs Utter, Joseph Myers, Mrs Myers, and five young children, Christopher Trimble, several children of Mr Chase,[1] and several of Mr Vanorman's.
Before encamping it had been determined to send an express to the settlements. An old man named Munson, and a boy of eleven, Christopher Trimble, were selected to go. On reaching Burnt River they found the Reith brothers and Chaffey, one of the deserting soldiers. They had mistaken their way and wandered
- ↑ These are all the names mentioned by Myers in his account of the sojourn on the Owyhee; but there are other names given by the Reith brothers who first arrived at Umatiila. These were William Anttly, a soldier from Fort Hall; A. Markerman, wife and five children; an old man named Civilian G. Munson; and Charles Kesner, a soldier from Fort Hall. U. S. Sen. Doc. 1, vol. ii. 143, 1860–61, 36th cong. 2d sess. Munson was among the rescued; all the others must have been killed in flight. Myers of course could not see all that was transpiring in the moment of greatest emergency.
