Читать книгу Vigilante Days and Ways. The pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho онлайн

72 страница из 135

“Their provisions soon being all gone they commenced subsisting on their horses, killing one after another, until they had eaten them all but a celebrated race-horse which had been valued on the Upper Columbia at over a thousand dollars. Seeing now that they must all perish unless they soon reached a point where supplies could be obtained, the race-horse had to share the fate of the others. His meat was ‘jerked’ or hastily dried, that they might the more conveniently carry it on their backs. They then made snowshoes of the hides of the horses, and started back towards, and aimed to reach, Fort Hall, where they supposed they would meet with human beings of some kind, white men, half-breeds, or Indians.

“The party kept together until they had got beyond Soda Springs, where some had become so exhausted they could scarcely travel,—and their meat getting frightfully small in amount, Helm and a man named Burton concluded not to endanger their own lives by waiting for the wearied ones, so they left them behind.