"Deeper and deeper into the flinty mountains the forlorn mass drives its weary way. Each morning the weakened team has to commence a struggle with yet greater difficulties. It is plain the journey will not be completed within the anticipated time, and the dread of hunger joins the ranks of the tormentors.... The Indians hover in the rear, impatiently waiting for the train to move on that the abandoned trinkets may be gathered up. Whether these are gathering strength for a general attack we cannot tell. There is but one thing to do--press on. The retreat cannot hasten into rout, for the distance to safety is too great. Slower and slower is the daily progress." Marcus Whitman, however, had known these difficulties before, and guarded his caravan from many of them. Up to that date almost no man had crossed into Oregon by the route he was taking. A few missionaries had made the journey on horseback, driving some head of cattle with them, and three or four wagons drawn by oxen had reached the Snake River at an earlier date, but it was the general opinion of trappers that no large company of people could travel down the Snake River because of the scarcity of pasturage and the rugged road through the mountains. It was also thought that the Sioux Indians would oppose the approach of such a large caravan because the emigrants might kill or drive away the buffaloes, which were already diminishing in number and were hunted by this tribe for food. When they came to cross the Snake River Whitman gave orders to fasten the wagons together in one long line, the strongest ones being placed in the lead. When the teams were in position Whitman tied a long rope about his waist and fastened the other end to the first team. Riding his horse into the current he swam across the river. He called to the other riders to follow him, and at the same time to pull on the rope that was tied to the first team. In this way the leaders were started into the water, and all were drawn over in safety. At times, however, it took a great deal of pulling on the ropes by many men to drag the weaker teams to a safe foothold on the farther bank. The Snake River at the place where Whitman forded it was divided into three separate rivers by islands, and as the last stream on the Oregon shore was a deep and rapid current fully a mile wide, it can be seen what a task it was to get so many wagons, tired ox-teams, and the great company of men, women and children across it. But Whitman had solved many such problems before. When he and his wife went to Oregon six years earlier she had said it was a shame that her husband should wear himself out in getting their wagon through. "Yesterday," she said, "it was overset in the river and he was wet from head to foot getting it out; to-day it was upset on the mountainside, and it was hard work to save it."