Thursday, August 24.
We came to a toll bridge over the Blackfoot this morning, where the
toll was one dollar per team, and fifty cents for horseback riders.
There had been an excellent ford just below the bridge. The men
collecting the toll had spoiled it by digging ditches on both sides
near the bank. The water was clear, and they were plainly visible.
Hillhouse mounted Dick to see if we could ford it. One of the men
screamed out at him: “You will mire your horse if you try that.”
“I’ll risk it.” And he rode in below where the ditches were dug. The
pony’s feet were not muddy. Hillhouse found we could easily ford the
creek below the ditches, which we did without accident.
It does seem a shame that we should have to pay toll for crossing a
stream like that, after fording South Platte, North Platte and Green
River.
The Missourians refused to pay the exorbitant price, and offered them
fifty cents per wagon. They swore they would not take a cent less
than one dollar. But the travelers were too many for them, and they
drove over and did not pay a cent. The toll men were fearfully angry,
and made great threats, but the men dared them to do their worst and
laughed at them.
I do hope we will get ahead of these people to-morrow. They are not the
kind of people I like to travel with.
We have met as many as twenty men to-day going back to the States from
the Virginia City mines. George Mays was with them. I mentioned about
his leaving the train to go through on horseback, expecting to get his
meals at stations and emigrant trains, when his brother with his bride
went to Colorado. Says he worked just one day and got five dollars for
it, and took the back track the next day.
“Mining is the only work a man can get to do, and it would kill an
ordinary man in less than a week.”
He is distressingly homesick. He is going to Denver to his brother.
* * * * *
Friday, August 25.
We were up at the first peep of dawn, had breakfast, and were hitching
up to start, when the folks in the eight wagons began to emerge and
light their camp fires, so we have left them some distance behind. We
have been meeting men all day returning from the mines. They give a
doleful account of the hard times in Montana. They say: “There are a
few fortunate ones who are making money like dirt, but they are the
exception, about one in a hundred.”
One man was very anxious to buy Dick. I told him: “This pony is not for
sale,” and rode away before he could say anything more. The boys say
we have met as many as two hundred men to-day returning from the mines.
I believe we are all somewhat discouraged this evening. We have always
heard such flattering reports from Alder Gulch and Virginia City.
* * * * *
Friday, August 26.
We have overtaken Mr. Grier, Mr. Bower and Mr. Kennedy. Some of Mr.
Bower’s cattle have eaten a poisonous herb--wild larkspur, I believe it
is. One ox has died and several are poisoned, but will not die. They
got the poison weed the day before yesterday, when they stopped at
noon. I am glad we have overtaken them, but sorry for their misfortune.
Hillhouse has just now come in, and says Joe, one of our big white
oxen, is poisoned. He came for remedies and to sharpen his knife to
bleed him. No doubt he got the poison the same place Mr. Bower’s cattle
did when we stopped for noon. Sim, Hillhouse and Winthrop have gone to
his relief.