OCR Text |
Show Page 143 thousands of buffalo, at their thinnest due to the season, but nonetheless an awesome sight - Brigham Young strictly forbade slaughter of the buffalo, and the camp lived mostly on antelope meat. Orson came upon a feeble buffalo cow and thought about helping her, but had no means; the calves had to be carried bodily out of the trail, they were so numerous. Orson writes that the buffalo's presence was in some ways convenient: "Our camp have, for the want of a better substitute, made their fires of the dry excrement of the buffalo, which burns something like dry turf." But the grazing of the immense herds left the already charred plain without a blade of grass; the pioneer stock became weak from scanty feed. Signs of Indian anger were everywhere. Skulls and bones of vanquished opponents littered the already ragged carcasses of great buffalo hunts, and the camp kept up strictly military discipline, firing the cannon periodically and parading for practice nearly every day. The wagons at night were formed into a "circular fortification," as Orson put it, and by day a large party of outriders kept the stock on course - straggling was stringently forbidden, as the Indian practice of shadowing the last wagons was well-known. Indian problems remained minor, however, although a few horses were stolen - the pioneers remained gravely aware that they were being watched continuously. The confluence of the two forks of the Platte awakened a lyric voice in Orson: "On the north, the surface of the country exhibited a broken succession of hills and ravines very much resembling the tumultuous confusion of ocean winds...the high peaks far below were distinctly seen resembling bluish clouds just rising in the distant horizon...while the glistening waters of the river were here and there sweeping along its base...the roily yellow waters of the north fork were making their way over and between innumerable beds of quicksand, while the rich, level, green, grassy bottoms upon each side, formed a beautiful contrast. 25 |