The Road to Oregon City Read online

  As Pa predicted, you are able to cover much more ground over the next few days. But soon you realize that your food supply is not going to get you to Oregon City.

  “A few men are volunteering to scout for food while the rest remain camped,” Caleb says to Pa. “What do you think?”

  “Don’t you think we should all stick together?” Ma asks, looking worried.

  “I won’t go if you don’t want me to,” Pa says, looking at all of you.

  You exchange looks with Ma. Without saying a word, you know she feels the same as you. She doesn’t want Pa to leave you behind, but at the same time she realizes the reasons he needs to go.

  What do you say?

  If you ask Pa not to go, turn to page 60

  If you tell Pa it’s okay for him to go, turn to page 74

  Return to page 158

  Everyone wants to get out of the desert-like conditions as quickly as possible and votes for going through the dunes.

  “Okay, so it looks like we have a hike ahead of us tomorrow,” Caleb says. “Rest up, everybody.”

  “I’m too hot to rest,” Samuel complains. “And I’m always thirsty.”

  You feel a rush of sympathy for your little brother, whose temperature is always running hotter than the rest of your family’s. And you also have a small pang of guilt. He wasn’t keen on coming this way all along and has been finding it difficult.

  “I have a piece of honey candy,” Joseph offers Samuel. “Will that help?”

  Samuel takes the candy gratefully and sucks on it in silence as you help to prepare camp.

  * * *

  The next morning when the early bugle sounds, everyone gets ready for the day’s hike through the dunes. If all goes well, you should be well across them by your midday break.

  Everything goes smoothly for a while. The animals pull the wagons without a hitch, and Pa smiles, pleased with the progress. But when you reach halfway up the dunes, your wagon is stuck! The oxen keep pulling the wagon and straining, but it won’t budge. And when Pa tries to help push it out, it just sinks deeper into the sand.

  Finally, with a tremendous amount of effort, the wagon is freed. But in the process, your animals are overworked, and they don’t recover. Soon, their carcasses line the Trail, and you are left stranded. It’s too hard to go on without them, and you can’t carry everything you need for the journey on your backs. Pa decides to stop at the next trading post and try to get some more oxen. If you’re lucky, you might find some go-backers willing to sell you theirs. But until then, your trip is on hold.

   THE END

  Return to page 108

  I agree,” Pa says. “Let’s use the rope to set traps.” You spend the rest of the afternoon making traps with Pa and are proud when you put together four strong ones. Pa asks you to come with him to set them, and you bait each with a small piece of bacon.

  As night falls, Pa says it’s time to check on the traps. You turn over the first three traps and find nothing. As you approach the fourth trap, you hear something struggling inside and smile at Pa.

  “Sounds like a good dinner,” he says. You hear a rustling and wonder if there’s another small animal nearby. But it’s a mountain lion! You scream and try to run, but you don’t get very far.

   THE END

  Return to page 80

  Everyone agrees to push through the snowstorm, since the idea of sitting around in the freezing cold and wind and waiting for it to pass seems more dangerous. Instead, you all bundle up in extra layers of clothes to keep warm, and drape all the extra blankets over the oxen. Pa feeds the animals handfuls of grain to help calm them down and give them energy to keep moving.

  You trudge through the snow, amazed by how quickly everything around you is covered in a sheet of white. The cold wind is chapping any part of your skin that is exposed. Even though your scarf is wrapped around your head and much of your face, the part of your nose peeking through is freezing.

  “This must be what it feels like to be a snowman,” Hannah says, hugging herself for warmth as she struggles to keep up with you.

  “I know,” you say, imagining that your nose is as bright as a carrot.

  “I wish we could play in the snow instead of having to walk all day,” she says, looking wistful.

  “Yeah, it’s no fun to have snow if we can’t even play in it,” Samuel adds.

  “Maybe we can play for a little while when we make camp,” you say.

  “If I’m not completely frozen by then,” Hannah complains.

  “It’ll be even better if you are,” you say, picking up a handful of snow and tossing it at her gently. “Snowmen are supposed to be cold, right?”

  Hannah sticks out her tongue playfully and runs back to the wagon for a rest, huddling inside it with Archie for warmth.

  As you hike for the next couple of hours, the wind and snow ease up and then taper off completely. By the time you stop to make camp, the sun is shining again. You help Pa set up the tents, and Ma builds a roaring fire. The animals are fed and left to recover, and then you finally have time to play until supper.

  “Let’s have a snowball fight,” Joseph says. “We’ll pick teams.”

  “Yeah!” Samuel says. “I want to play.”

  Joseph and you are the team leaders. You form your teams and then split up to plan. You pick Samuel and Eliza.

  “Let’s make a hundred snowballs and have them ready to use,” Samuel says.

  “And then let’s go around that way, and plan a sneak attack on the other team,” you say, pointing in the direction away from camp.

  You see Joseph hiding behind a tree and decide to get him first. Samuel gives you the signal that the coast is clear. Crouching down so you can’t be seen, you run around in a wide circle so he won’t see you coming. You’re holding two of the biggest snowballs you’ve ever made. As you’re running, your footsteps sink into the freshly fallen snow, leaving big footprints. But then you suddenly step into a frozen pond without realizing it. With a crunch, the thin layer of ice gives way and . . .

  SPLASH!

  You plunge into the icy water!

  Instinctively, you gasp as you fall and take in a huge breath of air before your head goes underwater. But now you are trapped underneath the ice and have only a few minutes to act before you will run out of air.

  Don’t panic, you tell yourself. You look up and attempt to find the hole in the ice where you fell in. That way, you can try to climb out of it again. Underwater, the ice all looks the same to you, until you notice a darker spot to your left and a lighter spot to your right.

  Which one do you slowly move toward so you can try to pull yourself out of the water?

  If you move toward the darker spot, turn to page 136

  If you move toward the lighter spot, turn to page 153

  Return to page 100

  Seeing Samuel looking so cozy curled up with Archie only reminds you of how freezing you are. With that one small ember still glowing in the campfire, you grab a couple of nearby twigs and gently place them into the pit. You can put out the fire after you’ve warmed yourself up just a bit. You know that starting a fire when everyone else is asleep could be incredibly dangerous, but right now, you’re too cold to think of anything but warming up. You blow on the embers softly to ignite the flames, but nothing happens for several minutes.

  Finally, your work pays off when you see the embers glowing a warm yellow-white. Soon enough, small flames tickle the branches. You hurry to grab more kindling before the twigs die out completely, because you haven’t even had a chance to really warm yourself up.

  After you pile on branch after branch, watching the flames lick around the burning wood, you finally have a roaring fire that crackles and glows in the dark. You hold your trembling hands near the edge of the campfire, enjoying the way the heat travels through your fingertips to the rest of your chilled body.

  But you’re so exhausted, and you desperately want to lie down. Sitting on the cold, hard ground isn’t entir
ely pleasant, even with the fire. You grab your mat and drag it over to the campfire, placing it alongside the pit to receive the greatest amount of warmth. Once you lie down, you enjoy the heat radiating off the flames. Before you know it, you burrow down into your mat and drift off to sleep.

  You’re jolted awake by the smell of smoke and the stench of something burning. You have fallen asleep too close to the fire, and no one is awake to help you.

   THE END

  Return to page 122

  We’ll make camp and wait out the storm,” Pa says, glancing at the clouds with a worried expression. “I just hope it passes quickly.”

  You help him set up the tents, struggling to get them to stand up. It’s too windy to start a fire, so you eat a cold supper of prairie biscuits and jerky. And then you ask Ma if you can play in the snow.

  “Okay,” she says. “But not for too long. It’ll be dark soon.”

  You, Hannah, and Samuel build a giant snow fort and hide behind it, piling up an arsenal of snowballs. Joseph and Eliza do the same on the other side of camp.

  “Charge!” Joseph shouts, and the battle begins. Snowballs fill the air as you pelt one another. The cold snow stings your skin, and you finally call a truce when both sides are out of snowballs. You run in the snow and fall over, laughing.

  “Let’s make snow angels!” Hannah says, lying down next to you and waving her arms and legs in the snow.

  “Come on back now,” Ma calls.

  You go back to the tents and only realize how cold it is once you’ve stopped running around. Even though you try to warm up under the blankets, as it gets darker, the temperature drops and you are really cold.

  “I’m freezing,” Samuel whines. “I can’t sleep.”

  “Me either,” Hannah adds.

  Ma looks concerned.

  “I was going to put these blankets on the oxen, but you better use them,” she says.

  Finally, huddled together, you are able to get to sleep.

  By morning, the snow has stopped falling. You step out of the tent, and the thick blanket of snow reaches above your knees as you walk. After only a few moments, you hear shouting.

  “The oxen!”

  It’s Pa! You rush over to where he is and find him looking distraught.

  “Half of them have perished,” he says, sounding devastated. “What will we do?”

  The remaining oxen won’t be able to pull the weight of the wagon on their own. Other wagons have lost animals too.

  “We should have kept moving through the storm,” Caleb says, sounding regretful. “We’ll just have to take what we can carry on the animals. There’s no other choice.”

  Even though you are filled with sadness over the lost animals, there’s no time to waste. You spend the next few hours helping your parents sort through your things, choosing only the most important items to take with you.

  While Ma and Pa are trying to attach bags to the remaining oxen and onto Daisy, Samuel runs over to you.

  “Hannah and I found some wild berries,” he says. “Come see!”

  You follow Samuel and run over to some bushes in the distance. As you approach, you see Hannah pulling berries off the bush and filling up her apron. She looks up at you and smiles.

  “Look how many I have,” she says. “I hope they are good to eat.”

  Just then you spot something moving behind the bush. It’s a bear!

  You freeze, terrified. It feels like everything is happening more slowly than it really is as the bear comes toward Hannah. You’re afraid that it wants the berries and will attack her, and you have only a moment to react. Do you pick up Hannah’s doll from where it is lying on the ground near you and throw it at the bear to distract it? Or do you yell for Hannah to run?

  If you throw the doll, turn to page 71

  If you yell, turn to page 151

  Return to page 100

  The taste of fresh honey is too mouthwatering to resist. You relent and agree to let Joseph smoke out the bees. Joseph finds a large, heavy stick and sets it on fire, then douses the flames with his foot, creating a smoking log. He holds it up to you.

  “Here, take this while I climb,” he orders.

  You hesitate. The bees are already swarming around you. Still, you take the smoking stick. Joseph jumps to clamber up the tree, his movements shaking the nest even more than yours first did. A bee whizzes by your ear.

  “Joseph, I don’t think this is a good idea,” you say nervously.

  “I’m almost there,” he grunts. “Do you want honey or not?”

  “Joseph,” says Eliza, “I think we should just get down.”

  But Joseph ignores her and grabs the smoking branch. He holds it up to the nest. The smoke clouds the nest, and the humming increases to a dull roar.

  “Joseph!” Eliza shouts. “Stop it!”

  “Just calm down!” Joseph says, but he also sounds scared.

  You scramble to climb down, too frightened of the bees buzzing around your head. But as you reach for a branch, something stings the back of your neck.

  “They’re stinging me!” you shout.

  “Me too!” Eliza and Joseph cry out.

  As the three of you tumble to the ground, your eyes feel puffy, and you can’t catch your breath. You look down at your fingers and see that they’re swelling up.

  You have an allergic reaction to the bee stings. Your journey ends here.

   THE END

  Return to page 138

  The idea of floating down the rapids on a raft sounds too dangerous to everyone in your family. You decide the Barlow Toll Road sounds safer, even if that means spending the extra money and facing the steep hill. It’s worth it to avoid the risk of capsizing into the icy cold waters of the Columbia River. You shiver, remembering how cold you were in the pond you fell into. The last thing you want is anything even remotely close to that dreadful experience.

  Most of the families agree and plan to follow the Barlow route and pay the toll at the end. A couple of others decide to risk the rapids. You wish them luck and leave them as they start building rafts. You hope to see them again in Oregon City before too long.

  If all goes well on the toll road, you should be in Oregon City in about two weeks. As your family makes its way down the path Barlow carved, the first stop is the Tygh Valley, where you make camp. You have entered the famous Cascade Mountain range now, and the path is steep and treacherous at times.

  “The tollgate is coming up,” Pa says as you make camp. “We should reach it tomorrow.”

  As promised, you arrive at Barlow’s Gate the next day after a long trek through the mountains. The station there is a welcome change, and Ma is pleased to find fruit available for sale. Your food supplies have slowly been dwindling, and you are down to the basics now. Ma has been careful to make sure everyone gets enough to eat to replenish their energy but nothing extra. She’s afraid that you will run out before the journey ends if you have any delays.

  “This almost makes paying the toll worth it,” Ma says with a smile as she shows you the apples she selected. “I’m going to make a pie with these tonight.”

  The pie is delicious, but it doesn’t make up for the grueling travel through the mountains. After hours of climbing, you are hungrier than ever. You pass the time dreaming of the big meals you will enjoy in Oregon City. You know you will sit down to a table loaded with all your favorite foods. It’s been nothing but beans, bacon, and pan bread for weeks now.

  “We are approaching Laurel Hill,” Caleb declares after two more days of exhausting climbs. This is the steep hill you were warned about.

  “How in the world will we get down there?” Ma asks, looking at the tremendously sharp descent.

  You think back to Alcove Spring, at the beginning of the Trail, where the men of the train used their collective strength to lower the wagons down the challenging incline. That seems like much longer than five months ago. And with everyone as worn out and exhausted as they are, it’s probably not a good idea.


  “We could lower the wagons with ropes,” a woman suggests. “Tie them securely to trees first.”

  She explains that you would lead the animals down separately, after loading as much as you could onto them.

  “Or we could cut some of the biggest trees down and tie them to the backs of the wagons,” a man says.

  You wonder what that would do.

  “The weight of the trees would create enough drag on the wagons to stop them from rolling too quickly and bumping into the animals,” he explains.

  Both options sound risky. As expected, there are lots of opinions about which to choose, and the debate grows intense. Finally, Caleb makes everyone quiet down.

  “We’ll vote,” he says, “and settle it that way.”

  There are seven wagons left in your group. Three choose the ropes, and three others choose to cut down the trees.

  “Your family is the tiebreaker,” Caleb says, turning to Ma and Pa. “What do you want to do?”

  If you decide to lower the wagons with rope, turn to page 127

  If you cut the trees and pull them with the wagons, turn to page 131

  Return to page 153