Whitman's Ride Through Savage Lands, with Sketches of Indian Life by Oliver W. Nixon

Author:Oliver W. Nixon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: NW, History
Publisher: Gutenberg
Published: 2013-01-29T08:00:00+00:00

After going to her silent and deserted room, she wrote:

“I look from my window and see the grave of our dear child, surely God will take care of my noble husband and return him to me!”

Love is the greatest word in the English language, and when united to Faith, it lifts the heaviest burdens of life. Who can measure the power of the prayers of one faithful, trusting soul, in guiding that heroic little band over the dangers of their unknown way? Possibly some reader may scoff at such sentiment, but unnumbered instances have proved that there comes an emergency in every human life, when the soul, if reason is not clouded, cries out in prayer to a Being higher than itself.

The cavalcade is made up of rapid riders. The favorite gait of Cayuse horses is a lope, and small as they are, carry a heavy man fifty and sixty miles per day. But as the journey was to be a long one, they selected the finest horses to be found, only those thoroughly broken and tested. They knew the value of caring for their animals in the earlier stages, and lessened their speed.

The first four hundred and fifty miles to Fort Hall was made in eleven days. The Indians, except two to look after the animals, had returned to Waiilatpui.

At Fort Hall their old friend, Captain Grant, was still in command, and when he learned of the proposed journey to the States, openly protested that “it was madness to attempt it at this season of the year.” Undoubtedly Captain Grant this time was right, even if Whitman had proved him, to his chagrin, wrong about the wagon in 1836. “It so happened” that a company of scouts just then reached the fort, and confirmed all Captain Grant had said, and more. They reported that the snow in many of the cañons was from ten to twenty feet deep, and badly drifting. The Silent Man listened, and sat thinking. He knew those mountains and cañons, and could readily believe the statement of the scouts, and the old Captain, who was an admirer of Whitman, felt certain that he would give up his dangerous expedition and return home. But he did not yet know his man.

The Old Map

Whitman was face to face with a new problem. As he prayed and pondered, a new inspiration came to him. We have no reason to believe that such an idea had occurred to the missionaries, when discussing the dangers of the journey by the route they knew. We have no knowledge that even Whitman had ever before studied the possibilities of a new and undiscovered way to the States.

The old trappers and scouts sat around the stove swapping stories of bears, mountain-lions, of Indians, and wonderful escapes. Whitman, upon looking up, discovered an old United States map hanging upon the wall. It at once attracted his attention, and he brought it to the light and began to study. It had the outlines of all the great West as far as geographers of that day knew and understood.

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