The Winning of the West 



herds of the settlers. 14 The scanty supply of corn 

 gave out, until there was not enough left to bake 

 into johnny-cakes on the long boards in front of 

 the fire. 15 Even at the Falls, where there were 

 stores for the troops, the price of corn went up 

 nearly fourfold, 16 while elsewhere among the sta- 

 tions of the interior it could not be had at any price, 

 and there was an absolute dearth both of salt and 

 of vegetable food, the settlers living for weeks on 

 the flesh of the lean wild game, 17 especially of the 

 buffalo. 18 The hunters searched with especial eager- 

 ness for the bears in the hollow trees, for they alone 

 among the animals kept fat; and the breast of the 

 wild turkey served for bread. 19 Nevertheless, even 

 in the midst of this season of cold and famine, the 

 settlers began to take the first steps for the educa- 

 tion of their children. In this year Joseph Doni- 

 phan, whose son long afterward won fame in the 



14 McAfee MSS. Of the McAfees' horses ten died, and 

 only two survived, a brown mare and "a yellow horse called 

 Chickasaw." Exactly a hundred years later, in the hard 

 winter of 1879-80, and the still worse winter of 1880-81, the 

 settlers on the Yellowstone and the few hunters who win- 

 tered on the Little Missouri had a similar experience. The 

 buffalo crowded with the few tame cattle round the hayricks 

 and log-stables; the starving deer and antelope gathered in 

 immense bands in sheltered places. Riding from my ranch 

 to a neighbor's I have, in deep snows, passed through herds 

 of antelope that would barely move fifty or a hundred feet 

 out of my way. 



15 Do. 



16 From fifty dollars (Continental money) a bushel in the 

 fall to one hundred and seventy-five in the spring. 



McAfee MSS. 18 Boone's Narrative. 19 McAfee MSS. 



