EARLY DAY STORIES. 65 



short themselves, and those that had a Httle to spare gener- 

 ally felt that it ought to be kept for others that were short, 

 who had women and children dependent upon them. This 

 reason for not selling to us, and which was unanswerable, 

 was given in a number of instances. Upon one occasion I 

 had quite an adventure while trying to buy something to 

 eat of a man belonging to a company that was in camp near 

 where we stopped for lunch. I said stopped for lunch, but 

 we could have no lunch that time unless I succeeded in buy- 

 ing something. I bought for a dollar about as much bread 

 as one can now get at a bake shope for ten cents, and was 

 just turning away with my purchase, when a man belonging 

 apparently, to another wagon asked, "What did you sell 

 that bread for?" and began cursing the man that sold it, 

 and declaring he would shoot him, went to his wagon and 

 got a revolver. I thought there would be bloodshed, and 

 did not know whether to offer to trade back, or to run. I 

 did neither. The man who sold the bread never said a 

 word, probably knowing that to be the best way, and pre- 

 sently the other quieting down somewhat, approached me 

 and said in an apologetic sort of way, "We are short our- 

 selves, and haven't enough for our own women and chil- 

 dren." I told him how we were fixed and he seemed con- 

 siderably mollified. It is probable that some of the emi- 

 grants let us have a little food when they really could not 

 spare it — in fact I am sure that was the case. After cross- 

 ing the Blue mountains, from the western slope of which 

 Mt. Hood, one of the highest and sharpest peaks in the Cas- 

 cade range was in plain sight away to the west, all white 

 with snow, we came down upon the Umatilla river, where 

 we found Indians that farmed a little, and they brought to 

 us potatoes and dry shelled peas to sell. Our money by this 

 time was gone, and in fact the Indians cared little for it 

 anyway, not well knowing its value. They also had dried 

 camas roots. The camas is a bulbous plant with a root or 



