EARLY DAY STORIES. 63 



stantial raft. The wagons were unloaded and taken apart, 

 and every thing ferried safely over, it taking a good many 

 trips, but it was accomplished with little difficulty. The cat- 

 tle were driven across, having to swim part of the way, and 

 it fell to my lot here as elsewhere, when any large stream 

 was to be crossed, to follow them over on horseback. Re- 

 suming our journey we soon came to Boise or Wood river, 

 which was crossed and then followed down to its mouth, 

 where we again crossed Snake river in the same way as 

 at first. All along Boise river there was an abundance of 

 rabbits, the common cottontail kind such as are found here. 

 The first mess of these procured on Boise river was shot by 

 Mr. Knapp. I went with him and carried the rifle and the 

 game, Mr. Knapp doing the shooting. He had the best 

 rifle in the whole outfit — in fact the only real good one, and 

 he was a good shot, but at this time was just recovering 

 from the illness caused by eating too much salmon, and was 

 not yet strong enough to carry the heavy rifle. In about 

 half an hour he killed seven rabbits, scarce missing a shot. 



The country passed over along Boise river looked good 

 to us, being thickly covered with grass about eight or ten 

 inches high, but dry and dead at that time of year, and 

 having a dark and evidently productive soil provided there 

 was suflficient water for the growing plants. I have under- 

 stood that this is one of the best parts of Idaho, and is now 

 well settled and improved. Not long after crossing Snake 

 river the last time, we came to the camp on Burnt river 

 where we parted company and started on afoot. We took 

 very little in the provision line from the train as it could 

 not be spared — the only thing as I remember being a little 

 of the dried buffalo meat that had been killed and prepared 

 at the last camp on Platte river near Red Buttes, as pre- 

 viously told. We had each a gun, a blanket or two, an over- 

 coat, and among us a small tin pail and a frying pan, and 

 one of the men. Root I think, had a watch. We could have 



