EARLY DAY STORIES. 55 



how to handle a bow and arrows. If I had had a Chippewa 

 bow I believe I could have beaten them. I had used a Chip- 

 pewa bow and arrows from the time I was eight years old 

 until I was grown, and had become expert. The bows of 

 the Chippewas are much longer than those of the Sioux, 

 but the arrows are about the same. 



When we reached the upper waters of the Platte, and 

 also farther west on the Sweetwater there were an abund- 

 ance of wild, ripe gooseberries, and also yellow and black 

 wild currants, and after crossing the divide and getting over 

 into Bear river valley and beyond as far as Snake river, 

 we found ripe, wild service berries in such quantities as T 

 had never seen before nor have I ever seen anything like 

 it since. There were also wild strawberry plants in great 

 abundance on the Sweetwater, but the fruit was all gone 

 before we reached that place. 



Probably from what has been told in this and some of 

 the preceding chapters, the reader will be of the opinion that 

 it was a very pleasant thing to cross the continent with an 

 ox team in the early fifties, and this opinion will be at least 

 partly correct. It was not only in many respects a pleasant 

 trip, but it was also instructive — it was an education of a 

 kind that could be had in no other way — it was worth more 

 to a young man than any term of equal length in school. 

 But there was a serious side also — it was not all pleasure 

 and there was very little play. The next chapter, or at 

 least a part of it, will be devoted to some of the more serious 

 problems that presented themselves during the trip. 



