Two young men who were traveling with us were in a great hurry to get to the gold fields at Bannock City, so they started on ahead, saying that they had no fear of trouble. The second night after they left us one of them was standing guard over their horses and the other was in camp asleep. The latter was shot and killed by the Indians, but the other, under the cover of friendly darkness, mounted his horse and escaped. We camped at the same place the next night and found there a circus train of about sixty men and a few women on their way to Portland, Oregon. Such frightened people I never saw before.
At the summit of Steen's Mountain I was taken quite sick, and we had to make camp there. That night the men tied four horses to my wagon. About midnight I heard some one untying the horses and I spoke to the men who were asleep on the ground. They jumped up quickly, with guns in their hands, and this frightened the Indians away. When the men went to drive in the loose cattle they found sticking in them arrows shot by the Indians.
In a few days we arrived at Boise, a place of about a dozen houses. The stores were tiny rooms, mostly in the dwellings. My first calico dress cost 50 cents a yard; I bought ticking for my feather bed, and paid $20 for twenty yards. A lady friend was shopping with me. At lunch time we wished to get something to eat. We bought a pie and paid $1 for it, and our cup of tea cost 25 cents. Our first supply of provisions cost us as follows: Flour, $40 per 100 lbs.; bacon, 75 cents per lb.; sugar, 75 cents per lb.; butter, $1 per lb.; syrup, $15 per gallon, and everything else equally expensive. Gold dust was the only kind of money we saw. Most of it came from Idaho City, which had the richest placer mines known in the world at that time.
Mr. Frost had brought from California a mower, and he cut the wild grass which grew in great abundance in the natural meadows. This he sold for $150 per ton.
As there was no lumber, my house was made of native timber, which was very small. My new home was 12 by 12 feet.
The Indians were troublesome all through this country until after the war in 1878. In that year the settlers near where we lived built a fort, and twice we were so frightened that the women and children stayed in it two days. A few miles from the fort thirty emigrants were killed. Only one, a boy of 16, escaped. During the terrific fight of that one night his hair turned white. A beautiful field of clover now covers the graves where these poor people were buried.
Our pioneers who helped to build up this desolate country are indeed getting scarce, and will soon be forgotten. As for myself, no words can tell what I experienced in those pioneer days, raising my family of nine children.
