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Show ' T,KK NF.T SON'S broke their lead ropes and joined the flow of stampeding buffalo. Many of those who could not break their ropes lost their footing and were injured or killed beneath the thundering hooves. It seemed like hours before the last buffalo trotted through the circle cir-cle of battered wagons. The dust had already begun to settle, and the stars were facing before a gray dawn. For the first time in many mornings, the ground around the wagons was not covered with frost. EXHAUSTED people began to crawl out of their wagons to inspect the damage. Half the wagons were unfit for travel, but that didn't matter. mat-ter. There were not enough horses and oxen remaining to pull more than two wagons. Fortunately, no one had been killed. A man had broken a leg when his wagon overturned. Several Sev-eral buffalo had broken necks and legs in tangling with the wagons. Those still alive were quickly put out of their misery. There would be could walk back to Fort Laramie and spend the winter there, or they could continue on foot, using the two remaining wagons to carry the babies and old people, food and bedding. Several of the young men could be left behind to guard the valuables left behind with the wagons. The people voted unanimously to continue on. From Salt Lake, teams could be sent back to get the wagons, still before winter if the weather cooperated. With the two wagons to carry food and bedding, they could expect to make at least 20 miles a day on foot. THE NEXT morning. 74 people of the Glenn Hill Company began the final stretch of their 2,000 mile migration. Several of the old people, peo-ple, who felt they would slow down the walkers, stayed behind with the young men to guard the wagons. Sarah and Caroline joined the marchers. A place for young Pat was arranged in one of the wagons. THE GROUP covered nearly a hundred miles the first four days. It was a gray day in late October, 1848, when the Glenn Hill wagon train left Fort Laramie. The yellow prairie grass shivered before a brisk wind sweeping down from the north. The risk of snow was increasing daily, but the Mormon pioneers in the Hill Company were determined to reach the Salt Lake Valley before winter. CAROLINE and Sarah had not been left behind at Fort Laramie, but Ebenezer McConklin was no longer helping them get through the tough places. The man who had offered so much assistance earlier troy grazing for the stock at future campsites. Gradually the weary pioneers retired re-tired to their beds, leaving two sentries sen-tries to keep an eye on the stock and their sleeping companions. When all should have been quiet, however, an increasing number of voices were heard throughout the camp, especially from under the wagons where some of the people were sleeping on the ground. THE VOICES were discussing a distant rumbling, or vibration, that seemed to be coming through the "WOMEN AND children, get in wagons on the downstream side," shouted the bishop. "I don't want anybody in the upstream wagons. The buffalo will hit those first." By the time the bishop's orders were carried out and everything was ready, the thunder of thousands of hooves permeated everything-the ground, the cold night air, and the ears and hearts of every pioneer. It seemed the herd would be on them at any moment. But the delay continued, the thundering thun-dering growing louder and louder. "The stamping buffalo smashed like a huge tidal wave into the upstream side of the circle, rolling over the wagons like this..." was now tneir enemy. Caroline wondered why it was that one's enemies frequently came from the ranks of former friends. It had been that way with Dick Boggs and was now that way with Ebenezer McConklin. Many of Joseph Smith's and Brigham Young's worst enemies were former for-mer members of the church. THE CHANGE in Ebenezer had occurred at Fort Laramie when neither Caroline nor Sarah would respond favorably to his hints of offered matrimony. Even Ebenez-cr's Ebenez-cr's subtle hints that they would probably get left behind at the fort if they didn't tie up in a permanent way with a man failed to produce results. Upon reaching Fort Laramie, his awkward courtship suddenly be- ground. One couldn't hear it as much as feel it, but it was there. And unlike the glow in the western sky that was remaining fairly constant, con-stant, the trembling in the ground was getting stronger. Soon everyone in the camp was awake-wondering, listening, feeling. feel-ing. No one had ever experienced anything like this before. Some thnnrtkl it . . . .1 1. 1 . SUDDENLY the bishop shouted, "The fires! Build up the fires! Pile on all the wood!" HIS ORDER made sense. Why hadn't anyone thought of it earlier? If there had been a full or even half moon, the buffalo could have seen the circle of wagons possibly in time to avoid it. But in the black- plenty of fresh meat for a few weeks. BISHOP HILL called a council meeting to decide what to do. The alternatives seemed clear. Without oxen and horses, the wagon train could not continue. The people Pacific Springs and the continental divide were far behind. The fourth night, many of the tents caved in on the sleeping pioneers, as the snows that had been threatening for many weeks finally came, dumping over 24 inches in one night. The next day travel was impossible. iiiLuiu ii mi an cai uiijuaKC, oui the ground wasn't shaking. Some of the babies began to cry, including includ-ing young Pat O'Riley. It probably wasn't the rumbling as much as the concern in their parents' voices and faces that alarmed the children. chil-dren. AFTER A while a distant thunger could be heard, a continuous thunder thun-der growing gradually louder. It was coming from the west. In the dark, moonless night, scouts were sent upstream to investigate the strange thunder. Bishop Hill ordered that all livestock hobbled outside the circle of wagons be brought inside the circle. The camp was quiet, except for the distant rumbling, but no one went back to sleep. It seemed like the scouts had been gone a long time, too long, but they finally returned, re-turned, all of them, running through the blackness, shouting, "BUFFALO! Thousands! Stampede!" Stam-pede!" The camp came alive with activity. activ-ity. A huge herd guessed to number in the tens of thousands was stampeding down the valley between be-tween the hills and the river, and the circle of wagons was in its path. "PULL THE wagons closer together!" shouted the bishop. "Make the circle smaller." "Get ropes on the horses," shouted someone else. "Tie them to the wagons." ness oi a moonless night, the panicked animals leading the herd would not see the wagons until it was too late. Their companions would push them headlong into the wagons. So it was. The bishop's last order came too late. The fires were not yet blazing when the first of the stamping buffalo smashed like a huge tidal wave into the upstream side of the circle, rolling over the wagons as if they were toys. The bishop had acted wisely in ordering people out of these wagons. Had he not done so, many more would have been injured. AS THE wagons rolled over, stampeding buffalo charged in among the frightened oxen and horses. Confusion reigned. Babies .cried. Women screamed and '. prayed. Men shouted. Many blindly blind-ly fired rifles at the stampeding buffalo. buf-falo. It being too dark to see, they merely pointed in the direction of the thundering hooves and pulled triggers. It was too dark to reload for all but the most practiced riflemen. rifle-men. The air filled with the smell of dirt and sweat until it was hard to breathe. SEVERAL OF the downhill wagons were pushed over too, finally fin-ally making an opening for the buffalo buf-falo to get through the corral of wagons and join their companions in the stampede down the valley. The oxen and many of the horses . came a vicious attempt at revenge. It was McConklin who went from wagon to wagon arguing that the two women should be left behind at the fort. It was McConklin who went to Bishop Hill and demanded the return of his oxen, claiming he had to have them to get over the mountains. THE BISHOP refused. The oxen would stay where they were as long as the women needed them. While the bishop acknowledged the fact that the two women might slow the party down, he refused to force them to remain behind at Fort Laramie against their will. The cold wind was incessant, sweeping down from the north and sometimes the west. Every morning morn-ing the ground was frozen, making travel easy, though the wagons rattled rat-tled and shook as the frost refused to give way under the iron rimmed wheels. Sometimes the ground thawed out and became muddy by afternoon, sometimes not. Nevertheless, Never-theless, the Hill Company made good time until it reached the Sweetwater River. ONE EVENING after crossing to the south side of the Sweetwater near Independence Rock, the company com-pany made camp in a gently sloping valley that formed a chute between the steep southern hills and the river. It wasn't until the last people were retiring for the night that someone spotted a yellow glow in the western sky. People were roused form their beds to see the strange but beautiful sight. Some suspected the distant glow was from a prairie fire, and the hint of grass smoke carried on the wind confirmed their belief. THE GRASS in the chute-like valley was mostly green, so there was little concern of immediate danger from the fire. The biggest worry was that the fire would des- |