drop out of line, and a fire would be hastily kindled, and at night the wagon would come along and join the caravan, and the cheerful face of the doctor would tell to all the anxious matrons who might expect a similar event before the journey's end. that all was well, and that the mother and child were both doing nicely. He ministered to the failing, and said the last sad rites over the improvised caskets, or the graves of the departed that were left along the Overland.

Sometimes there were courting on the prairies, the same as now -- the same old moon shown for the young then as it does now, and a young Oregonian and his chosen one would seek out the same fine old doctor, and Marcus Whitman would say the words that made them man and wife. These weddings on the prairie were close to nature's heart, and yet, the pranks of the young were not different from those prevailing in the settlements. At night when the newly-weds would retire to their own wagon, the golden chariot that would be forever theirs, not infrequently did the youngsters serenade, or oftener still, run the wagon in the ditch, or creek or river.

Among the chroniclers of events along the old trail, occasionally one indulged in classical poetic expression. It was John Minto, I think, who tells of the prosaic activities of a cowcaravan, in a way to hold interest, and it was he who therein contributed the following stanzas to the plodding oxen, which for the moment felt the exultant thrill of their forebears in the years when the world was young.