Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/196

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THE RETURN.
145

toward the San Jose mission with their first purchase, there to obtain the remaining five hundred. The administrator of San Francisco, for collecting and guarding the cattle as far as Martinez, exacted presents for his Indians, as he pretended, to the value of over fifty dollars, and Young had a sharp altercation with the authorities there on account of these exactions. The whole number of cattle purchased was not delivered until the 22d of June, three weeks having been occupied in going from San Francisco to the mission of San Jose. Some of the animals escaped on the way; and of those at the mission, some were found to have been kept seven days in a corral with little or nothing to eat. The wildest were starved or beaten until sufficiently subdued to drive; but then they were too weak to travel, and many dropped to the ground the first day. Complaint being made to the administrator, he agreed to furnish others for those that were lost, from a place beyond, but on reaching the spot designated no cattle were there. Then another order was given, to be filled from a rancho still farther on; nevertheless when they reached the San Joaquin River, the 25th of June, eighty animals were missing.

To cross the river was next in order, and at the same time to train these wild snorting brutes to cross rivers, for there were more of them beyond. The company were nearly all together again, and their number was here augmented by Henry Wood, B. Williams, Moore, and two others. First, a strong corral was put upon the river bank, and the cattle driven into it. Then on the 12th of July a few cows were induced to swim over after their calves, which were towed across by men in a canoe. Next day all present, some on foot and some mounted, lent their aid to induce the cattle to take to the water. Most of them were driven in; but when half-way across a panic seized them and they turned back, with a loss of seventeen drowned. To lasso and tow each animal over singly was next attempted, for the accomplishment of