onset.
All relapsed into silence, in which man ner an hour was passed, and we were be ginning tu think the alarm false, when one of the mt'U espied a dark object, as he fan cied, slowly nearing him.
Without a second thought, crack went his rifle, and instantly, as if by magic, a dark spot to the north of us became peo pled by some fifty savages, who, finding themselves discovered, and doubtless think ing this the alarm of the sentinel, uttered frightful yells, and sprang forward, in a body. Rushing to the point of attack, we haslily formed a line, and placing our rifles to our shoulders, silently waited until not more than twenty yards divided us from the main body of our enemies.
"Fire!" cried a voice; and instantly a dozen rifles poured their deadly contents among the dusky horde, with good effect, as could be told by several frightful groans of pain.
This was a reception the savages had not counted on, and they in turn became nlanned. Suddenly pausing, they uttered yells of dismay, and discharging their pieces at random, the balls of which whis tled past us without a single injury, they turned and fled precipitately. The victory was ours, and to Prairie Flower we owed our lives. The remainder of the night we kept to our arms, but were not again dis turbed, and by sunrise the whole party was on the move up the mountains.
As I could not think of parting with my friends (above all with Lilian) in the wil derness, I resolved to accompany them to their destination; and then to to I scarcely knew what. Teddy of course went with me, and the trappers, out of friendship, bore us company many days.
1 shall not weary you, reader, 'with a detail of all the little incidents of our tedi ous progress to Oregon city. Suffice, that it w<is such as all emigrants experience in H greater or less degree, and was attended with a succession of scenes similar to those described throughout these pages. As I had predicted, the health of Mrs. Huntly was gradually restored; and within ten days from the commencement of her con- Yalesc:nce, she declared herself as well as at any period of her life, and that the word of her young doctor, as she jokingly termed rnt, was equal in eft'ect to the
combined virtues of the whole materia medico,.
The return of Mrs. Huntly's strength and spirits, brought pleasuie to the eye and bloom to the cheek of Lilian, which my daily presence, as I was vain enough to flatter myself, did not tend to dissipate.
Be that as it may, (and I leave the reader to judge) this long journey, so full of hardship and peril, however unpleas ant it might have proved to her and to others, I must ever look back to with pleasure, as one of the happiest periods of my so far eventful life.
Crossing the Rocky Mountains at th well known South Pass, we continued on the regular Oregon route passed Fort Hall went down the Snake river and over the Salmon Mountains to Fort Boise through the country of Shoshones, or Snake Indians, over the Blue Mountains to Fort Walla Walla, on the Columbia down the Columbia, over the Cascade range, to Oregon City, on the pleasant little Willa mette where we all safely arrived about the middle of December.
At this period, as I before remarked, Oregon City existed only in name being with the exception of a few log houses, (erected during the summer and fall pre vious, by a few emigrants who had reach ed here in advance of our party,) a com plete wilderness. The appearance of the place, so different from what they had expected to find it, disheartened my wor thy friends not a little; and had such a thing then been possible, I believe they would at once have returned to their native land. But this was out of the question; there was no help for their oversight now, only by making the best of a bad bargain; and so, after having grumbled to their hearts' content wished Oregon for the thousandth time at the bottom of the sea, and themselves b^ck home as many they set to work in earnest, to provide them selves homes for the winter, declaring that spring should see them on their way to the States.
With proper energy, properly directed, a great deal may be accomplished in a very short time; and in less than two weeka from their earnest commencement, no lesa than eight or ten cabins were added to the few already there. In these the different
