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"The kind McAuley, who had opened his house and heart in expectation of the whole twenty boys from London, had himself been overwhelmed with love-offerings in the shape of food the good neighbours had sent in, vying with each other in showing kindness to the orphan and the stranger.
We had all along refused to dig little wells near the banks of the Platte, as many others did; for we had soon learned that the water obtained was strongly charged with alkali, while the river water was comparatively pure, except for the sediment, so fine as seemingly to be held in solution. "Keep cool," McAuley continued. "Maybe we'll have to lay down, and maybe not.
Andrew McAuley, the wealthiest farmer in the glen, invited him to have "a drop o' something," adding, by way of encouragement, "Ye needn't be afeerd there's plenty iv it in the house." "Maybe, then, ye 'd like to mak' a wee bit o' a prayer afore ye go back?" Unreasonably, perhaps, the rector felt rebuked and annoyed by this incident, and he walked home with a heavy heart.
Jacob, the younger of the brothers, fell sick and gradually grew worse as the journey grew harder. Shortly after reaching Portland the poor boy died. Thomas McAuley settled in the Hobart hills in California and became a respected citizen of that state. When last I heard of him he was eighty-eight years old. William Buck has long since lain down to rest.
Thanks to the adroit management of McAuley and my brother Oliver, we were able to fulfill our engagement to deliver the boat safely to the owner. We were now across the river, and it might almost be said that we had left the United States. When we set foot upon the right bank of the Missouri River we were outside the pale of law.
One yoke of oxen that had reached the farther shore deliberately reëntered the river with a heavy yoke on, and swam to the Iowa side; there they were finally saved by the helping hands of the assembled emigrants. "What shall we do?" was the question passed around in our party, without answer. Tom McAuley was not yet looked upon as a leader, as was the case later.
The plan of action was to push ahead and make as big a day's drive as possible; hence it is not to be wondered at that nearly all the thousand wagons that crossed the river after we did soon passed us. "Now, fellers, jist let 'em rush on. If we keep cool, we'll overcatch 'em afore long," said McAuley. And we did. We passed many a team, broken down as a result of those first few days of rush.
McAuley, united with our improved diet to promote to the restoration of our health, so that by the end of February the swellings of our limbs which had returned upon us entirely subsided, and we were able to walk to any part of the island. Our appetites gradually moderated and we nearly regained our ordinary state of body before the spring.
Some years ago there came into the McAuley mission, in New York City, a man who was, because of his sin, unable to speak and was bound down until, instead of standing a man six feet high, as he should have done, he was like a dwarf.
Some parties ahead of us had paid, while others were hesitating; but with a few there was a determined resolution not to pay. When our party came up it remained for that fearless man, McAuley, to clear the way in short order, though the Indians were there in considerable numbers. "You fellers come right on," said McAuley.
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