76 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



the herd down to the junction of the rivers, where we found a 

 good supply. So great had been the travel over the plains 

 this season, that all the best camping places had been denuded 

 of grass, so that the eleventh-hour caravans were sometimes 

 hard beset to find feed for their animals. The excessive 

 drought which was now blasting these elevated regions, had 

 also tended greatly to dimish the supply of edible vegetation, 

 and from these causes our oxen were continually in a half- 

 famished condition, and their numbers were every day de- 

 creasing. 



Passing over a broad and desolate ridge, we struck the 

 Platte the next morning, and proceeding along the top of the 

 bluffs overlooking the river, we encamped at noon near its 

 shore. The country passed over was awfully desolate. From 

 the waters of the river to as far as the eye could reach on 

 either side, dreary artemisia-covered plains, with drearier 

 hills arose above them in broken and rugged ridges. The 

 little herbage that appeared above the sterile earth was seen in 

 crisp, sapless bunches, and the want of a sufficiency was 

 telling sadly on our animals, which were daily " falling faint 

 by the wayside," never to rise again. The road was now 

 lined with the carcasses of the oxen of preceding trains, which 

 we were obliged to pass with hermetically sealed nostrils on 

 account of the insufferable stench they emitted. They were in 

 every stage of decomposition, and the sight of these reeking, 

 putrid remains was another disagreeable feature of our 

 journey. We reached Deer Creek, which is one hundred and 

 ten miles west from Fort Laramie, in the afternoon. There was 

 quite a considerable settlement of French traders and Indians 

 here, and it was a pleasant sight to see this village after our 

 long wilderness journey. We had been so long outside the 

 pale of civilization, that the sight of human habitations, how- 

 ever rudely built, with little children, however scantily or 

 duskily hued, playing around their doors, was very refreshing 



