A kettle of hot steaming soup, and blankets all spread out on which to
rest, was the work Rogers and I had done to prepare for them, and they
sank down on the beds completely exhausted. The children cried some but
were soon pacified and were contented to lie still. A good supper of hot
soup made them feel much better all around.
The first thing Bennett and Arcane did was to look round and see the
situation at the falls, and see if the obstacle was enough to stop our
progress, or if we must turn back and look for a better way. They were
in some doubt about it, but concluded to try and get the animals over
rather than to take the time to seek another pass, which might take a
week of time. We men all went down to the foot of the fall, and threw
out all the large rocks, then piled up all the sand we could scrape
together with the shovel, till we had quite a pile of material that
would tend to break a fall. We arranged everything possible for a forced
passage in the morning, and the animals found a few willows to browse
and a few bunches of grass here and there, which gave them a little
food, while the spring supplied them with enough water to keep them from
suffering with thirst.
Early in the morning we took our soup hastily and with ropes lowered our
luggage over the small precipice, then the children, and finally all the
ropes were combined to make a single strong one about thirty feet long.
They urged one of the oxen up to the edge of the falls, put the rope
around his horns, and threw down the end to me, whom they had stationed
below.
Pages:
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254