was found impracticable for so large a company to make a permanent halt, so they kept moving.
The hunters in large numbers went out each morning, with pack horses, and came in loaded at night with spoils of the chase. The noble bison was there by the million.
When reaching the dusty alkaline plains, where both good water and grass were scarce, naturally the best tempered people often turned grumblers. One of the chief causes of complaint laid before the superior court was that which arose between the horse companies and the cattle companies. They did not agree well together. The court decided to divide the caravan into two columns, "the horse" and "the cow" column. In 1876 the Honorable Jesse Applegate, a member of that immigration, delivered an address before The Historical Society of Oregon, entitled "A Day with the Cow Column." It is one of the most precise and graphic pictures ever drawn of life as it was, in this advance column of civilization, destined for its great work in the future Pacific states. The last third of the distance of that memorable journey proves the courage of the American, and at the same time arouses our commiseration and pity. I passed over the larger portion of the same road a few years later, with goggles drawn over my eyes, and a handkerchief bound about my face, as a defense from the
