, all hands turned to
the monument, which by eleven o'clock was in place. Twist and Dave stood
near it, hitched up, and ready for the start as soon as the order was
given. Everybody in town was there, the little school coming in a body.
After the speech we moved on to battle with the snow, and finally won
our way over the summit.

[Illustration: A monument to the old trail, on the high school grounds
at Baker City, Oregon.]

The sunshine that was let into our hearts at La Grande was also
refreshing. "Yes, we will have a monument," the people responded. And
they got one, too, dedicating it while I tarried.

We had taken with us an inscribed stone to set up at an intersection
near the mouth of Ladd's Canyon, eight miles out of La Grande. The
school near by came in a body. The children sang "Columbia, the Gem of
the Ocean," after which I talked to the assemblage for a few moments,
and the exercises closed with all singing "America." Each child brought
a stone and cast it upon the pile surrounding the base of the monument.

The citizens of Baker City lent a willing ear to the suggestion to erect
a monument on the high-school grounds, although the trail is six miles
off to the north, and a fine granite shaft was provided for the
high-school grounds and was dedicated. A marker was set on the trail.
Eight hundred school children contributed an aggregate of sixty dollars
to place a children's bronze tablet on this shaft. Two thousand people
participated in the ceremony of dedication.

News of these events was now beginning to pass along the line ahead. As
a result the citizens in other places began to take hold of the work
with a will. Old Mount Pleasant, Durkee, Huntington, and Vale were other
Oregon towns that followed the good lead and erected monuments to mark
the old trail. A most gratifying feature of the work was the hearty
participation in it of the school children.

[Illustration: _Howard R. Driggs_

A sheep herder's wagon in the sage-covered hills of Wyoming near the
Oregon Trail.]

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TRAILING ON TO THE SOUTH PASS

THE Snake River was crossed just below the mouth of the Boise, about
where, almost fifty-four years before, we had made our second crossing
of the river.

We were landed on the historic site of old Fort Boise, established by
the Hudson's Bay Company in September, 1834. This fort was established
for the purpose of preventing the success of the American venture a