A few days later when we stopped at noon beside a spring, we found a forlorn party already there. The outfit consisted of two wagons carrying a man and his wife, his young sister, two children and a hired man. All were sick, too sick to travel, so sick in fact that they had dropped out of a train and stayed behind to die.

The girl and the hired man were able to move about a little; the babies were mere skeletons. For three days they had been steadily growing weaker and all hope of reaching Oregon was gone. Dysentery is a terrible thing when it attacks an emigrant party.

Father fed their horses and he and Mother got out our medicine box to try to help them. He filled a saucer with brandy and placed a lump of sugar and a lump of mutton tallow on a fork. Then he set the brandy afire and held the sugar and the mutton tallow in the flame. They both melted and dripped down into the burning brandy. At last nothing was left but a brown syrup-like substance in the saucer. This was the medicine. That and some other remedies and some food were taken to the sick people. Then we left them as comfortable as Father and Mother could make them.

Later we learned from one of the scouts who were continually passing from train to train carrying news of the road that they following day they were so much improved that they joined another train. Later still we learned that they reached Oregon safely.

One day as Father was hunting, hoping to get some fresh meat, he found a little antelope fawn crouching in some brush. He petted the tiny spotted creature and it followed him into camp. We were delighted and wanted to keep the little playful thing. Father told us that as we had no milk we could not possibly do so. It must go back to its mother. All the evening we played with it, the pretty little animal following us about, a delightful pet. Every child in the train wanted to pat its head and play with it, for never was there a more winning little creature.

The next morning Father took it out onto the prairie to leave it where its mother would find it. We children were watching it, loath to see it go. Father had told us that the mother had surely followed it to the camp and was probably hiding near-by at the time.

In the train was a party of men who kept a pack of hounds. The men and hounds were always eager for a chase. As Father started with the fawn, to our horror we saw the men collecting their dogs. Father went back for his gun.

He put the little creature on the ground some distance from the wagons and left it. As he started away, a hound was turned loose. A wail went up from the children as it started for the little antelope.

Father raised his gun and aimed at the dog, and Uncle Isaac shouted, "Call off your dog, man! He'll kill it!"

"Yes," called Father, "I'll kill every dog I can hit if it is chasing that fawn."

The dogs were called off in a hurry. Father was too sure a shot for chances to be taken. The men grumbled, but the little antelope was not disturbed. I hope it found its mother.