Brother Adam had an adventure here that came near ending in tragedy.  One morning one of our best oxen was missing.  When time came to "yoke up" it could not be found anywhere.  Our guide was urging all possible speed for winter was too near to lose even a day, so Father had one of our loose oxen put under the yoke and we started on.  Adam had driven the lost ox all the way across the plains and he was loath to abandon him, so he drove along slowly behind the rest of the wagons and looked everywhere.  We were following the banks of the Snake River.  He had gone but a short distance above the falls when he saw the old ox browsing along on the opposite bank.  Adam did not stop to consider the danger, but prepared to swim over after him.  The usual number of juvenile pedestrians, who loved to pelt the cattle with stones and annoy the drivers of the loose stock by kicking up dust and sand, were bringing up the rear.  Some of the drivers were on horseback, but most of them were on foot.  The drivers and their small tormentors stopped to watch Adam swim the river.  Some of the older ones, realizing that he was close to the falls, tried to stop him.  But Brother Jasper with all the confidence of his nine years, said, "Never you mind, Adam, go ahead and I'll see you over."

     Adam made it across without mishap, but he was a long time in getting the ox to take to the water, they saw him caught in a swirl that carried him perilously near the falls.  Then he seemed to regain his lost control and swam as only an expert swimmer could.  The older ones had waded in as far as they could to catch and help him when he came within reach.  They saw the ox go over the falls and disappeared in the spray.  A few minutes later they saw him wade out and begin to feed exactly as though nothing had happened.

     Word had been carried ahead that Adam was swimming the river and a number of the men rode back.  Mother was frantic with worry, for everyone knew that it was dangerous.

     Adam said afterwards that the reason that he had faltered was because he happened to look down and he saw the reflection of the clouds and the sky and it seemed to him that he was suspended in space.  His confusion lasted but a moment, but that moment came very near costing him his life.

     Father gave him that ox and its mate.  This same animal was later lost in the Cascade Mountains and was found a year later by members of the emigration of 1844.  He was real fat and they brought him on into the Willamette Valley.