In the fall of 1859 Henry Brown, a friend and schoolmate of mine, who had been living in Oregon for several years, came back on a visit with the intention of buying a number of horses for breeding purposes to put on his stock ranch. Also another object he had in view was to get a wife. Being a man of good business qualities, he succeeded in both cases. He gave such a glowing account of the climate and productiveness of the soil, not to speak of the gold mines, that the family concluded to sell out and go with him, and as I was intending to marry his youngest sister, after due consideration, I concluded to go too. The family consisted of his mother, an old lady nearly 70 years old; Elizabeth, the oldest daughter, married to James Cocroft; George, married to a daughter of James Tinker, of Racine, who had a baby two months old; William, the youngest boy, and Annie, the youngest of the family. There were two other boys, Robert and Richard, who were living in Oregon. There were besides these, two other young men going, George Tinker and Abe Jones. In the early part of the winter all business was suspended with the exception of preparing for our journey in the spring. We spent most of our time sleigh-riding, visiting and going to parties and balls and having a good time generally. Towards spring we commenced to fix up our wagons. George Tinker and I concluded to go into partnership on our outfit so we procured a good light wagon gear and made the box ourselves. We geared our wagon long and overdecked the box to make room, covering it with double canvas on the sides and patent leather on the top which made our wagon proof against storms and rain. George Brown had a light wagon covered the same; he had three horses. Henry Brown had three wagons, one a double covered buggy for his mother, a heavy four-horse wagon and spring wagon, together with eighteen horses. On the second day of April, being the anniversary of my 26th birthday, Annie and I were married. Sometime prior to this event, Henry was married to Martha Beamsley, of Lake Geneva. We had now decided to start on the 26th of April, but three days before the time came, George Tinker was taken sick and seemed to get worse. As we could not wait very well he told me to take his horses and things and he would overtake us at Council Bluffs, so we decided to start. Our rendezvous was at the old Tinker place in the town of Rochester, where the Browns were living at that time. When the day arrived all the neighbors came, I think without exception, to bid us goodbye and see us start. Our horses were all hitched to the wagons and there was nothing but to bid goodbye to our friends. The first one to shake hands with me was a middle-aged man whom I thought a great deal of. He said, "Well, William, I bid you farewell, for I shall never see you again." It rather staggered me for a little while, for I had not looked at it in that light. I soon recovered, however, and shook hands with all the men and boys and kissed all the women and girls. At least I intended to, but if in the excitement I missed any, if they will make it known their application will still be honored. I saw a young couple standing by themselves. I went to them, shook the man's hand and kissed the girl. In looking over her shoulder, the expression of his face I shall never forget; it brought me to my senses so I ran to my wagon.
    Having bid our friends goodbye, we started on our long journey. The horses, having been well fed, felt rather frisky. I had four on my wagon, and the leaders were very spirited and high strung and it was all I could do to manage them but there were two young men, my brother-in-law, Andrew Eccles, and John William Noble, volunteered to go with us as far as Lake Geneva. Andrew was a good horseman and took turns with me in driving my team. We passed through the village of Burlington and the streets were lined with people, many of whom came to the wagons, shook hands with us and bade us goodbye. The next place we came to was Lake Geneva, arriving there about three o'clock where another team awaited us to join the party. There were three young men--one Harry Brown's brother-in-law, James Beamsley, owner of the team, and John Smith and Harry Buckingham. As I will have more to say of Harry afterwards I will tell how he happened to join our party. He was born in England of wealthy parents, but being a wild boy, enlisted as a soldier to fight in the Crimean War. He got tired of fighting, deserted, fled to Africa and joined Gordon Cummings and his party in a hunting expedition. In the party was a scientist collecting specimens, who after they had gone 250 miles, got sick and as he knew he was going to die, offered a good round sum to anyone who would take his specimens to the coast and see that they were sent to England. Harry volunteered to take the job and hired two natives to help him manage the boats down the river to the coast and he got through all right. After receiving his money as he couldn't go to England himself he took passage on an American vessel and landed at New Orleans. He came up the Mississippi on a steamboat and in some way or other drifted to Lake Geneva. Mr. Beamsley got well acquainted with him and offered him passage in his wagon to Oregon. So being of a roving disposition he joined our party, was a pleasant companion and we all got along very well together. Our captain, Henry Brown, with his wife and quite a number of others in our party, concluded to stop at Lake Geneva overnight. As the rest of us had an invitation to stop at a farm house five miles farther with a man by the name of Kaye, a particular friend of the Brown family, George Brown and I drove on to Kayes' where we were well entertained for the night. In the morning, we had to wait for the other teams, so it gave us an opportunity to look around. The house stood forty rods from the lake shore. There was thick underbrush between the road and the lake, but I understand at the present time there is a beautiful park on the same place called Kaye's Park. It was ten o'clock before the teams arrived and looking around we found that Beamsley hadn't come and on inquiring they said he was superstitious about starting on Friday and would wait until Saturday morning and overtake us. Mr. Hayes accompanied us as far as Big Foot. He told us he had crossed the plains in fifty-two, the same time Harry Brown went, and under the circumstances it was very entertaining to hear him tell about the journey. Arriving at Big Foot Valley about four o'clock we turned where we stopped overnight near a farm house. We had to buy hay for our horses as the grass was not grown. As there was a school house close by we got permission to sleep in that night, some of the party not liking the idea of sleeping in the wagons. We had a big dog that we were taking with us, thinking he might help to guard us from the Indians. We left him outside to watch the wagons but when we got up in the morning and looked around to see if all was right we found everything safe except the dog. We heard afterwards that he got to his old home that same day.
    Our road still continued south, passing through a very fine farming country, but within a few miles of Belvidere it angled to the southwest. About a mile from Belvidere was our next camping place and the following day being Sunday we drove only a few miles. That night we were joined by Mr. Beamsley and the first incident of the trip in the way of hard luck occurred during that night. One of his best horses got cast and in its efforts to rise became injured so badly that it was necessary to leave the animal with a neighboring farmer to be sent back to Lake Geneva. This little misfortune I mention to show that hard luck may follow a man as well on any other day as Friday and Mr. Beamsley really had more to contend with during the whole journey than anyone else in the company. After crossing Rock River our road turned south again, following the stream through bluffs and hills and to us who had never seen much else but prairie country it was indeed picturesque. At Grand Detour the river bends in a perfect horseshoe and is significant of its French name. At that time it was a manufacturing town of some importance but my remembrance of it is due to its peculiar location and also to the fact that it was at this point we had our first experience in ferrying rivers. The man who owned the ferry boat charged so much for each wagon and a smaller price for each horse. We got one wagon and team on the boat and started across and as good fortune would have it all the horses which were loose swam over and thus saved considerable expense. The next place was Dixon, and here we had a thrilling experience. The river was spanned by a very long, high bridge. Our caravan drove onto the structure and what was our dismay when the bridge commenced to sway and totter as if it would collapse. However, the teams were brought to a standstill and only one allowed to pass over at a time. The reader cannot imagine our fear when we saw our horses stagger and drop to their knees, this feeling being increased by our not at first knowing the cause. Afterwards we learned that the bridge had been condemned, and no party of travelers were ever more thankful for a narrow escape from a frightful death than we.
    The next day we turned westward and our first view of the Father of Waters was at Fulton. We crossed the Mississippi on a steam ferry to Clinton and as we resumed our journey through Iowa we began to realize that we were in the wild and woolly west, or to say the least, on the borders of civilization.
    As I will have more to say about Abe Jones, the boy whom Harry Brown had hired to help him with his horses, I might as well introduce him now. He was a lad about eighteen years old, of a lively disposition and had rigged himself up in regular western style, having bought himself a pair of buckskin pants and a rifle and said he was ready to fight all the Indians in the West. It was his duty to ride a horse and see that none of the loose horses got away. We drove all one day without seeing any house until about four o'clock in the afternoon and as we found we could get hay that night we tied all the horses to a post and rail fence and camped for the night. In the morning while some were getting breakfast ready Jones took a bag of oats and went in front of the horses and scattered the oats along the ground. All went well until he came to a young horse which Harry Brown had bought the day before and while stooping over to pour out the oats the horse seized him with his teeth by the seat of the pants and lifted him off the ground, shook him like a rat then dropped him on his hands and knees. Jones got up, put his hands behind him and ran around the yard yelling and swearing like a trooper. He always said it was the first time he ever swore in his life but we didn't believe him, for he used cuss words in a very scientific way. I noticed that for several days he walked instead of riding horseback and ate his meals out of the tail end of the wagon.

    As these recollections are written nearly thirty-seven years after the events transpired and nothing but my memory to remind me of them, I cannot recall the names of all the towns we passed through and only the leading incidents as they occurred. We found Iowa a beautiful country but not very much settled at that time, very often journeyed a day without seeing a house. After we had traveled four days from the Mississippi we happened to see three farmers who had been to Muscatine on the riverside with their grain to sell. I asked them the distance to Muscatine and they said it was eighteen miles. I told them they must be mistaken, but they said they were not. So it proved to be and we had traveled four days and yet were only a little more than eighteen miles from the river. It seemed that we had traveled almost parallel with the river.
    I was interested in seeing the old capitol building, which was erected in 1841. A cousin of mine helped build it. He was a young man at that time and came from England a year before my father arrived in America. When we came to Wisconsin my father wrote informing him of our arrival and as soon as he received the letter he started on foot to Wisconsin. Sometimes he traveled three days without seeing a white man. He reached Milwaukee all safe and went straight to the land office and found my father and bought eighty acres of land in Racine County. He then came to our house and stayed all winter helping us to get out rails. I have often heard him tell his adventures on this trip. It was very interesting to me.
    This cousin, Charles Kaye by name, afterwards lived in Milwaukee, Whitewater and Delavan, in which places he followed his trade of carpenter and wagon maker. After ten years' residence in Wisconsin he returned to England. He has since been president of the Mechanic's Institute, and member of the city council in Huddersfield. I mention this fact to show the kind of emigrants which came to America in the early settlement days.
    Leaving Iowa City we took the most direct way to Fort Des Moines. Of course we passed through small villages, the names which I have forgotten; sometimes our road was a mere track through the grass and once we came to where the road appeared to fork. We stopped our teams undecided which road to take but thought the left-hand road was the most direct and appeared to have been traveled the most, so we traveled about five miles through a beautiful prairie when our road came to an end at a big pile of rails, Now we knew we had taken the wrong road and some of the party wanted to turn back and take the right-hand road and some thought if we traveled to the north we would soon come to the road we ought to have taken but it took nearly all the afternoon before we found it. Soon after finding the road we discovered a good place to camp but had not seen a house of any kind all day. Our horses were getting fat, and so were we, for we could buy oats and corn for ten cents a bushel and eggs for three cents a dozen. Game was plentiful through Iowa and we could see prairie chickens almost all the time and shoot them without leaving the wagons. Next morning we could hear wild turkeys down in the grove about a mile distant so Harry Buckingham and I took our rifles and went to see if we could find them. We hunted through the woods until we got tired but never got a turkey. There was a beautiful prairie around these woods, and I have often thought if we had stayed there and taken up farms it would have been a good thing for us, but we started for Oregon and never thought of stopping until we got there. As we got near Des Moines the country was more settled, and the farms well improved and good buildings. We camped near a farm house that night, about four miles from Fort Des Moines. Before we started from home our folks had baked a lot of bread, cakes and ginger snaps and we did not have to bake any bread up to this time, but our bread was so dry we could not eat it so we soaked the loaves in a pan of water and baked them over again and found it made the bread almost as good as new. Next morning we started for Des Moines, and Beamsley traded a fine blackhawk stallion for two horses; it was a poor trade but he couldn't manage the horse he had. We had to ford the river as there was no bridge. There was a stone grist mill nearly like the Waterford mill and we found the town about as large as Waterford but it was all on the west side of the river. We drove through the town and camped for dinner as some of the women wanted to do a little trading. Here we found a man by the name of Fiske, who was going to Yreka, California, which was about sixty miles from the Rogue River Valley, our destination. He proposed that we all travel together. He had a splendid outfit, four good horses and two wagons. Harry Brown asked how far he intended to drive each day and he said he had come from Ohio and averaged thirty miles a day. He thought he could travel that for all the way. Harry said we didn't intend to make over half that distance, so he started on without us. We did not see or hear from him again until we were crossing the Serra Nevada mountains in California, where we met him walking and driving a yoke of cattle. We stopped to talk with him, and he told us all his horses were dead and he had left one wagon with everything he had about 250 miles back and had to walk until he came to where he could buy a yoke of cattle to bring in his wagon. After dinner we started again, our next point being Council Bluffs.
    The second night from Des Moines we had our first experience of what a stampede was like. Our horses which were turned out to graze became frightened by the approach of the stagecoach coming down a long hill just after dark. The coach was lit up and the set brakes gave out a loud groaning noise. With a frightened snort our horses started but fortunately one mare was staked out by a long trail rope. She tried to go too, but when she got to the end of the rope it threw her back on her haunches which gave me time to get hold of the rope. She had pulled the stake out of the ground. They followed the road back toward Des Moines. As soon as I got a bridle I followed them. I had noticed as we were coming that the road made a long bend to the north and I knew by going straight across I could save considerable distance. I made this shortcut, but just as I got to the road the leaders were going by and I could not stop them. The mate to my horse came up to me and I caught him. I hesitated a little whether to wait for the other boys to come but I considered the horses would get so far ahead we could not catch them so I let the horse go and tried to get ahead of the leaders. I could easily keep along with the main body of them, for quite a number had trail ropes which hindered their movements, but the two horses Beamsley had traded for were far enough ahead that the ropes did not interfere. I was on a good animal and proved again the old theory that blood will tell. She was sired by one of the fastest running horses in the state of Illinois. After running about two miles I caught up to and passed the leaders. I jumped off and tried to stop them but failed. However, I luckily caught their trail ropes and tied them to my horse. This did not stop the now thoroughly wild horses but caused them to run in a circle, and as fast as the others came up I caught their ropes and when the boys came I had thirteen tied together, which broke up the stampede. It took quite a while to untangle them but we were glad to get them without having to follow them to Des Moines.
    A few days after this we overtook two ox teams; we found they were owned by six young men from Minnesota going to Pikes Peak, Colorado. We traveled together and found them very pleasant companions, full of life and fun, so we kept with them and camped together every night until we got to Council Bluffs. We had plenty of fun and frolic while we were with them, and as we only traveled about 15 miles per day we had plenty of time in the evening for amusement. We had all kinds of games, running, jumping or playing ball; sometimes one of them would mount a stump and give us a speech or a comic recitation, then end with "every man that loves his country, fall into the ranks," and he would put us through a course of military tactics; every man would grab the first thing that came handy for a gun and he would march us all over the prairie, sometimes for miles. There was one man in the party they were taking to do the cooking for them but he was lazy and disagreeable and did not do anything if he could get out of it. They told us they would like to get rid of him but did not know how to do it. After crossing Walnut Creek we stopped for dinner; the young men camped on one side of the road and we on the other. They said this lazy man was always bragging what a good cook he was and accordingly insisted on taking his turn at cooking that day. He said he was great on mush and would make some of the best mush they ever had for dinner. They bought some milk of a farmer and were anticipating a good dinner of mush and milk. While he made the mush the rest of the party were busy among the cattle, and when the mush was ready he carried it around in a big iron kettle calling pig, pig, pig, pig. The boys came running and had a sham battle to see who would get the big spoon. They got down to business, each one dipped out a big bowl of mush; first one took a mouthful and then another and spit it out again; one said "you didn't put any salt in it," another said "you didn't let it boil well." The man said "that's as good mush as you ever had." One of them took a big spoonful and said if you like it you can have it and he threw it at him. It struck him on the breast and ran all down. Another of the boys said, "You can have mine too," and he threw his at him too. Then all commenced to throw mush, he turned his back to them to keep the mush from going in his face; they threw the whole kettle full at him and plastered him from head to foot. He began to think they were trying to insult him so he left the train and started on foot. After going about a mile and a half we overtook the man on the prairie; he walked off from the road a ways and turned his back toward us. It was very laughable to see him standing there with mush plastered all over his back. When we camped for the night we told the boys how we had seen him on the prairie. They said they hadn't seen anything of him and didn't want to any more. This was our last camp before we reached Council Bluffs. Before this we had met several men who were looking for their horses which had been stolen at the Bluffs. They said there was a great deal of horse stealing done there and advised us to look very sharp after our horses.

    Council Bluffs consisted of one street which followed the course of a very crooked ravine. The town was about three miles from the Missouri River, with a low, level prairie lying between the town and river. After passing through the town about half a mile we camped on this prairie. It was at this place we purchased supplies for our long journey across the plains. Immediately on our arrival we visited the post office to see if there were any letters from home. We were very much pleased to find there were some for us, but very strangely not a line or any news from my partner, George Tinker, who had promised to meet us at Council Bluffs. This left me in a rather uncomfortable predicament as I was at a loss whether to buy supplies for both of us or not. However, we learned that a mail boat had been sunk on the Missouri River a week before and concluded that his missing letters for that reason had not reached their intended destination. Therefore we considered it advisable to wait at least three days and if he did not come or no word be received we would push on without him. Our first business was to buy our supplies; we had bought our groceries at Racine before we started, consisting of sugar, tea, coffee, currants, raisins, spices, salt, etc., and had everything wrapped in tinfoil to preserve it. We now had to get flour, bacon, beans, crackers and other things too numerous to mention. I might as well tell, I made a grand mistake in buying my crackers; instead of buying the plain crackers I bought the sweet ones, thinking they were better, but we soon got sick of them. I would trade five sweet ones for one plain cracker any time. The only way we could use them was trading with the Indians. We also bought oats for our horses, first filling our wagon beds with oats and then putting the other things on top. When I went to pay for my supplies I found thirty dollars in silver that I had was turned black by carrying it on top of the salt. The storekeeper refused to take it so I had to scour it and make it its natural color; he then took it all right. After looking after supplies and attending to other business we were obliged to while away our time waiting for word on the arrival of my partner. In company with William Brown, who was something of a gamester, and by the way, the best chess player I ever met, we wandered into a saloon that day. There we found one of our Pikes Peak friends playing a game of billiards with the proprietor. He seemed to be very awkward with the cue but very lucky in making caroms. The game stood about even, each man had two points to go. It was our friend's turn to shoot, he struck the ball hard and missed the first one, it struck two cushions and just as it was about spent it made the carom which won the game. The other man said he was the luckiest fellow he ever saw playing billiards and accordingly paid the cigars. He said he would play another game. I told our friend he had better quit while he was well off but he said he would play one more. He seemed to blunder along but kept making points and won again. The other man began to get mad and said he wouldn't play anymore for cigars, but would play for one dollar a game. "All right," said he, "seeing I'm in luck I'll try you one." They played again and our friend won; the other man seemed vexed and said he would play him all day. They played two more games and he won them both. With this the fellow got mad and commenced to abuse him and said he couldn't play billiards but his luck would beat anybody. Our friend plagued him considerably about losing the games and told him he could beat him all day. Now, said my friend, I have been fooling with you and if you have any good players in town bring them out and I will play anyone for five dollars a game. He sent for the best player, the money was put up and the game was resumed. They played five games and our friend beat them all. The man said he wouldn't play any more. Our friend, "if you want to get even, I will discount you and play for fifty dollars," but they had had enough of him; they found out he was an expert. Our friends started for Pikes Peak the next day and we never saw them again.
    Next morning we moved our camp about a mile and camped near a saloon called the Half Way House. We went to the post office every morning but found no letters; the womenfolks took advantage of the wait by washing. Someone will want to know how the baby and grandmother were getting along. The baby was healthy and felt well all the time and its grandmother enjoyed the trip as well as any of us. This was our second day at the Bluffs; we spent the time in fixing everything that was necessary. We found our wagons too full for comfort so we emptied two feather and one flock bed ticks on the ground and told the man who kept the saloon he could have them. For our benevolence he told us there was a gang of horse thieves stopping at his place and he had overheard them laying plans to steal our horses that night. He wished us to say nothing about it for his life wouldn't be worth a cent if they found out he had told. He advised us to watch our horses as closely as possible so we cast lots who should stand guard. William Brown and I were the lucky ones. After dark we got our horses and tied them to the wagons. And soon after that, a big thunder storm came up, lightning flashed, the thunder roared and the rain poured down in torrents but we had our oilcloth suits on which kept us dry. It seemed the longest night I ever experienced and as if the day would never break again, but it cleared off in the morning and we found our horses were all right. We concluded to move on across the Missouri River but we still had another day to spend before we could start, on account of not hearing from George Tinker. We wrote back to his folks telling them when we were going to start and left letters in the post office at the Bluffs telling him when we started and if he came soon he could take the overland stage to Fort Kearny and we thought he could overtake us before we got there, as we were going to drive slow. After crossing the Missouri on a steam ferry boat we camped near the river. There was not a house on either side of the river. In the morning the last thing before we started was for one of us to go back across the river to the post office once more but he found no letter so we harnessed up and started on our journey. We saw a few houses about half a mile away on the prairie which we were told was a town called Omaha. There was one street with five small houses on each side and one store. As I wanted to buy a bake kettle, or Dutch oven, as some call it, I went to the store to see if he had any. He pointed to a house about fifteen rods away and said that is the hardware store. I went there and sure enough he had one and I bought it. After a short drive that day we camped near a creek about five miles from Omaha. They told us in town we wouldn't find any more houses for thirty miles. That was on the Elkhorn River, where a man had a toll bridge. We found the Elkhorn a very nice valley and rich land. We had now been traveling just one month and made about 500 miles on our journey. Soon after we had crossed the Elkhorn River we camped near a beautiful spring of clear, cold water, and it was an ideal camp, the grass was up to our horses' knees; we would have liked to stay there longer but we had to move on. Our next camp was near a small village called Fremont, on the bank of the Platte River in Nebraska. The road up the Platte River is said to be the best natural highway for its length in the world and we thought so after traveling it. In four or five hundred miles we didn't find a hill of any consequence. We next came to a very small village called Columbus, near the Loup fork of the Platte River. The town was about a half a mile from the river, and between the town and the river was a low, flat piece of land. They said after we got there we must not stop our wagons as it was quicksand and they would sink. Just before we arrived at the ferry we found a little island of higher ground, drove on it and stopped until we could ferry the river. The channel of the river was not very wide but deep. The man who tended the ferry ran his boat across as near to us as he could come yet there was still quite a strip of shallow water between us and the ferry. He told us to drive one wagon on at a time. Harry Brown tried to do so first but he could not make his horses go on the boat as they seemed afraid. All the men waded into the water to help him but it was no go, we could not pull or push them on. So we unhitched that team and I put my team on and they went without any trouble. I had to pull every wagon on in turn. All the men were very wet with having to wade in the river.

    My next recollection was camping near a place called North Bend on the Platte where we found a good spring. The country around here was the best we found on our journey up the Platte River. As we had a good camping place, plenty of grass and water, we concluded to stop one day as we wanted to do some horse shoeing and set a loose tire. Our plan of setting tires was to nail leather on the outside of the fellies then heat the tire and put it back on the wheel. Two or three of us went out hunting in the afternoon and saw plenty of antelope but could not get near them, they being so shy. They look like a small deer but they have a different gait. Instead of bounding over the ground like a deer they run and can go the swiftest of any animal I ever saw. Next morning as we hitched up our horses my leaders felt so good and were so impatient to go that I unhitched them and after that drove only one pair until we crossed the Rocky Mountains. I found it a much better plan than driving four horses. In the afternoon we crossed a creek that was noted as a place where the Indians and the emigrants had a great battle in 1852. A large number were killed on both sides. Soon after we met a man looking for two horses which had been stolen by the Indians. He said that the Indians were considered to be at peace but we had better look out for our horses. Accordingly we came to the conclusion that we had better put out a guard every night from this time on. We drove until nearly dark and went about a mile from the road where we camped near the river by some low bluffs. Here we cast lots again to see who should stand guard, leaving William Brown and I out as we had stood guard at Council Bluffs. The lot fell on Jones. After our horses had filled themselves with grass we tied them all to the wagons. Jones got his rifle and went upon the bluffs where he could see the wagons plainly. He said, "Boys, you needn't be afraid of the Indians for I won't let an Indian come near the wagons without he has a bullet hole through him." It was moonlit that night when we went to bed. We could see Jones sitting down on the side of the bluffs with his rifle on his knee. About midnight my wagon commenced to move; my first thought was of Indians; I made a spring over the footboard and lit on the whiffletrees. I fell on my side with my face towards Jones. He had his rifle pointed right at me, but I hollered to him and said "Jones what are you doing." He replied, "Oh, G-d, I thought it was an Indian." Several of the boys, hearing the racket, got up and we found it was the horses that pulled the wagon by their halters so we blocked the wheels and went to bed again. About this stage of our journey, we passed a small shanty about 10x12 built of common boards with a crudely painted sign with the words "Grand Island City." It certainly did not appear grand to us and the only thing beside the building was a small garden patch. The enterprising fellow who set up his vine and fig tree at this point probably little dreamed that there is something in a name. On the exact spot of this rude shanty is the now famous Grand Island City, Nebraska, where is located the largest sugar plant in the United States. I mention this to prove the old saw that "Some men are born great, other acquire greatness, while still others have greatness thrust upon them." The reader can best judge which condition this hardy pioneer was best entitled to. As we traveled along we saw a great many teams going to Pikes Peak. However, we met two teams coming back and their reports were discouraging to those who were intent on "Pikes Peak or Bust"--a very common expression at that time--and fully realized by most of the gold-seekers who went there. Our next place was a house called Wood River Centre where a man had built a house and kept a small store and post office; also a small printing press and kept a record of the emigrants that passed and where they were from. He told us for two shillings apiece he would print our names and the date we arrived there and send it to any address we gave him. I think every man subscribed for the paper and had them sent home. We heard afterwards that they got them all right. He also gave us considerable information about the road and the country around there. He said we might look out for buffaloes and advised us when we left his place to strike for the river bottom which was about five miles away, for there was no good camp on the road that we could get to that night. We did as he advised us and found a good camp near the river.
    Mr. Beamsley and Buckingham did not leave there when the rest of us did as they wanted to visit awhile and said they would overtake us after supper, and just as it was beginning to get dark someone thought he could see a buffalo coming out from the hills. We all looked and thought it appeared like one and immediately organized a party of four to go and capture it. It was considered the best plan would be to surround it. William Brown said he would get on a horse and circle out and get around behind it, Jones and Smith were to circle out on each side. After we thought they had got their position I was to go straight for the buffalo as it was coming straight for our camp. I didn't go far before I found out what it was. It was Beamsley's covered wagon. I met them and went back to the camp. Soon Jones and Smith came in, as they were following the buffalo. William Brown didn't get into camp until about nine o'clock. He said he had not seen the buffalo at all and when we told him what it was, he felt pretty cheap. Next day at noon we got to Fort Kearny but it was on the south side of the river and we were on the north and though we would have liked to have visited the Fort the river was high and we didn't know where the ford was. While we were eating dinner we saw three buffaloes come out from the bluffs. There was no mistake about it this time and as we thought they were about a mile Harry Buckingham and I shouldered our rifles and went after them but found we were greatly mistaken in the distance, for we must have walked three miles before we came to where the buffaloes were. Before we got to them they went back into the hills, but we could see their tracks plainly and followed them about a mile and a half but did not get sight of them again as they were going in a northeasterly direction and were leading us too far from our route. So we gave up the chase and thought we would hunt along in the hills and keep the direction the road went. We had gone about two miles when we saw four buffalo making their way toward the river. We could see them when they were on top of the hill but when they went into the valley we lost sight of them again. After following on a little farther we found a buffalo trail running up into a ravine; then we thought the buffaloes we had seen were on this trail so we sat down to wait for them. It was not long before we saw them coming down the hill right toward us and we decided we would wait until they got within ten yards of us if they did not see us before. There were two bulls and two cows. They came right on without seeing us. We both fired at the first one intending to hit him behind the shoulders. Instead, we struck him in the flank. He kicked up his heels and they all turned and ran away. The one we had shot, after he had gone about fifty yards, turned around and commenced to paw the ground and bellowed. We thought sure he was coming back at us and we reloaded our rifles as quickly as we could but before we were ready he turned and ran off. We followed for about half a mile but found he could run faster than we. He was an ugly-appearing brute and looked like a huge bunch of hair. His little eyes down deep in the hair appeared to blaze and the tips of his horns which just showed through were very sharp. On the way back to camp, Harry said he had seen Gordon Cummings shoot lions and tigers in Africa but they didn't look half so dangerous as that buffalo. We had quite a distance to walk before we came to camp and suffered from want of water, it being a very hot day. On arriving at camp we told our story. Someone asked Harry what the buffalo looked like. He said, "It looked like the devil." I always thought he slandered the gentleman by making the comparison. Next morning we had not gone far when we saw another herd of buffaloes, containing about fifteen head, in a small valley about a mile from the road. The train came to a halt and soon all was bustle and excitement. The rest of the boys thought they would take their turn in hunting the American bison so Harry and I had to stay and look after the wagons. A council of war, so to speak, was hurriedly held, and it was decided that the proper way to hunt buffalo was on horseback. Each man mounted a horse and started off but not without first telling us that we could prepare to fry buffalo steak for dinner. In order to get as near as possible to the herd without being seen they circled off to the left to get behind a low range of hills near which the buffaloes were grazing. We could see them plainly from the road and as they reached the crest of the hill the hunters made a bold dash. The frightened buffaloes stampeded but as they shambled off it was no comparison to the wild and unmanageable horses of the hunters. It was a laughable sight. The horses plunged and ran in every direction except after the game. Of the bold, brave hunters, most of them came into camp on foot. They had to take their share of teasing about their grand hunt but were thankful enough to have their horses come back to camp and fully convinced that buffalo hunting could not be successfully done with green untrained horses.
    That night we camped near Buffalo Creek, which probably derived its name from the fact that the ground for miles was covered with heads and bones of the slaughtered animals. William Brown was standing guard that night and about eleven o'clock saw two men riding toward him. He called out to them and they answered. As soon as he heard them speak he knew one was George Tinker. He roused the camp by hollering, "George is here! George is here!" Every person in the camp got up, dressed, and you can bet there was rejoicing that night, but little sleep for any of us. He said he came on the overland stage as far as Wood River Centre, where he found our names and the date when we passed, which was but two days before, so he hired a man to accompany him until he overtook our train. He paid him $8 for the service. George was brave to get up from his sick bed before he was entirely well and travel about eight hundred miles to overtake us. He certainly looked pale though he felt well. Next forenoon we met a war party of about 150 Sioux Indians going to fight the Pawnees. They were all mounted on ponies and looked gay with their war paints and feathers. They were armed with long spears, bows and arrows and some of them had rifles, and when we met them they turned out of the road about ten rods so as not to frighten our horses. A few of them came to the wagons to trade with us and I got a nice pair of moccasins for five crackers. Soon after that we came to an Indian cemetery; the bodies were wrapped in buffalo skins wound with rawhide. They were laid on scaffolds built of poles about fifteen feet from the ground. I don't know why they put the bodies there unless it was to prevent the wolves and coyotes from eating them. On our journey before this we had passed quite a number of emigrant graves. I shall never forget the first grave I saw. I had got behind the train and it was beginning to get dark. I saw a short board sticking up out of the ground with the letters carved on it which read: "John Young killed by the Indians 15 of April, 1852." I thought it was a lonesome place for a man to be buried but we didn't know how soon it might be our fate. Nearly all the headboards on the graves read "killed by the Indians." The night after we passed the Indian cemetery we camped about half a mile from an Indian village. In the evening I went to the village and found most of the Indians were old men. The old chief came out of his tent and we had a long talk as well as we could make out. I asked him about the war party we had met and asked where they were from. He said they were part of his tribe. I asked him why he did not go with them to fight and he said he was too old to fight now, the young men did the fighting. I then asked him why they wanted to fight with the Pawnees and he said the last time his tribe was hunting near the Pawnees' country they got three of their scalps and the young men wanted to fight and get even with them. The old chief invited me into his tent; I went in and found he had a very comfortable place. He had buffalo robes for a carpet and piles of robes along the sides of the tent which made good seats and good places to lie down. He had many different kinds of fur in his tent and wolf, beaver and deer skin in plenty. I told him he must be rich, and he replied, "Me big chief, me plenty pony, heap buffalo robe." He invited me to stay all night and appeared to be very sociable. I talked with him until it got dark. I told him I must go back to camp now. He said, "No, sleep here." I told him my squaw wouldn't like me to stop. He asked, "White man fraid squaw?" I told him not exactly but I always found it best to do as she told me. He said, "Squaw no heap good." He tried again to make me stop but I said no, I must go to camp so I got up and went outside and he went out with me. It was a very dark night; I couldn't tell which was the right road to camp so he accompanied me until we came to the road and he showed me which way to go. I found it hard to keep in the road but after I had gone a distance I saw the glimmer of the camp fire, then I knew I was all right. It was later than I thought it was and found my wife very uneasy; she thought I was lost on the prairie.

    Since George Tinker was with us it relieved me considerably, as he drove the team half of the time. Next morning he hitched up his team, the one that had been too wild to work, so I thought I would get on one of my horses and see if I could kill a rabbit. I rode away to the bluffs and after I had gone about a mile, saw a jack rabbit within thirty yards from me. He was sitting on his hind legs looking at me. I had nothing with me but a revolver, so I pointed the weapon between the horse's ears, leaning forward taking sight, and when I fired, the horse threw up his head and struck me on the nose and the blood flew all over my face; he commenced to jump and buck and as I was nearly blind with pain, I fell off but kept hold of the bridle. After a while I got him quieted down and saw the rabbit still there watching the performance. I emptied my revolver at him, but did not hit him, then I thought I would throw my revolver at him but seeing a stone near by, I threw it and killed the rabbit. The blood was pouring out of my nose so I got back to the wagon as soon as possible. The boys seeing the blood all over me thought I had been wounded by the Indians. When I told them how it all happened Harry Buckingham said he would like to see the horse that could throw him that way. I told him I thought this one could, if he shot when he was on his back and said in the morning I would let him ride if he promised to shoot when he was on him; so he agreed to do so. He got on him and started toward the bluffs, near which the road ran. He rode the horse until he got on top of the first bluff when he saw a rabbit and fired. Next thing we saw was Harry tumbling down the bluffs head over heels. He couldn't stop himself until he got to the bottom and was bruised pretty bad but picked himself up and climbed up the bluffs to get the horse. Pretty soon he came leading him into camp and said he didn't want to ride him anymore. I asked him why he got off and he replied that he didn't know. I saw he didn't want to talk about it so I said no more.
    Our next camp was about two miles from a large Indian village of about three thousand Indians. Some fifteen or twenty came to our camp and they were the largest Indians we had seen. All were anxious to trade for something to eat. One of them who came to my wagon I noticed wore a very nice pair of moccasins. I went to the hind end of the wagon and took half of a large sweet cake which we had brought from home but was so dry we could not eat it. I told him I would give him the cake for the moccasins if I could get them on. He pulled them off as quickly as he could. I told him if they were too small it was no swap; I knew he understood me very well. I put the cake on the footboard of the wagon and tried to get them on but could not. He said if I would go with him to the village he would get me a larger pair. I told him it was too far. Pointing to my wife who was sitting in the wagon, he said, "Send squaw." I told her what he wanted and she promptly but firmly declined. However, he watched his opportunity, grabbed the cake, rolled it in the blanket and started on the run for the village. I didn't care for the cake but I thought it was too much like stealing so I ran after him. Before he had gone a hundred yards I caught him, threw him down and took the cake. He came back and seemed to be in a terrible rage about it. I told him he might as well go home for he couldn't have that cake. He said, "This Indian country, white man no business here, by and by me shoot." I told him he could shoot all he had a mind to but he wouldn't get the cake. My wife begged me to give it to him but I refused. After he had gone I gave it to a squaw but found soon afterwards it was a foolish thing to quarrel with Indians in their own country for that night they stampeded our horses. The men who were on guard said the horses were feeding quietly in the long grass near the river when the Indians crawled up and shook their buffalo robes at them. Every horse started as if shot from a gun. Luckily three or four were staked out and as soon as we heard the commotion jumped from our wagons and caught these before they broke loose; it was also lucky for us the horses kept the road. We followed them about twelve miles when they came to where a train was camped. The men heard them coming and at first thought it was Indians but when they saw what it was they stopped them. It was long after daybreak before we got back to camp. Afterwards when I was mining in Oregon I had a partner by the name of Peter Bowers who one day told about stopping a stampede of horses on the Platte River. Then we found out it was our horses he helped to stop.
    According to our guidebook, next day we had to cross the Pawnee swamp. It was fully ten miles wide but was not what we would consider a swamp exactly but a piece of low, level prairie which seemed to be lower than the river, consequently the ground was very soft and had a great many muddy places. We passed a large number of wagons stuck fast in the mud. It was impossible in some places for our horses to pull the wagons but fortunately we were pretty well supplied with rope so at these places we would drive as near as possible then unhitch our teams and get them across as best we could. Some of them would get mired and fall down but we would tie a rope around their neck and help them to get out. After we had got the horses across on hard ground, we would tie a long rope to the wagon tongue and haul them across. We got along better than most any other train.
    The next day was Sunday and at an early hour it commenced to rain. Such thunder and lightning I never saw in my life; our horses were nearly scared out of their wits and were so unmanageable we concluded best to start on as we could control them better in harness than otherwise. The storm continued until noon when it cleared up, the sun shone brightly and everything was pleasant. A great many teams were caught in that storm in that swamp and they must have had an awful time. Soon after it cleared off we found a good camping place and stopped for the night. Here we overtook a train of six wagons and becoming acquainted, we found they were from Knoxville, Ill. They were nearly all one family which consisted of an old gentleman, his wife, two sons (both young men), three married daughters and their husbands and the family name was Smith, while that of ours was Brown. Our train and theirs were very much alike in regard to being nearly all one family and we found them to be very nice people. As they were likewise going to Oregon, it reasonably followed that we agreed to join together as one train. Having now a larger company, our turns to stand guard didn't come quite so often. If there was anything I disliked about crossing the plains it was standing guard; the time passed so slow. I often think if a man wanted to live a long life he ought to stand guard all the time on the plains, for before he was fifty he would think he had lived a thousand years.
    We next came to where the rocks had a curious formation. On the south side of the river was Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff. The former was a tall spire about two hundred and fifty feet high, about the same thickness all the way up, and stood by itself out in the prairie. Scotts Bluff looked like a huge building and got its name from a man by the name of Scott who was killed by the Indians near there. On the north side was what was called Castle Rock which from a distance looked like a ruined city and appeared to be about a mile from the road. I thought I would go to them and see what they looked like. I found that the distance added enchantment to the view; they didn't look so much like buildings as they did from the road. I wandered among the piles of rock, springing right out of the level prairie, and when I had examined them as long as I cared for I went back to the train. That night we camped opposite Chimney Rock, which seemed to be about a mile from the south bank of the river. The river was about a mile wide, with a slow current and didn't appear to be very deep so Wm. Brown, George Tinker, Jones and myself thought we would cross it and go to Chimney Rock. Some of us waded in and found the water about ankle deep but so muddy that we could not see the bottom. Jones was busy taking off his clothes which he tied into a bundle and said he was going to have dry clothing when he got across the river. After wading quite a distance in the stream, with the water above our knees, the next step found us up to our middles. Soon we came to shallow water again and on looking around missed Jones. He was not in sight but we saw something floating down the river which looked like his bundle. Pretty soon the object went under water and Jones' head came up. Just then he touched a sand bar, got on his feet and commenced swearing. He said, "D---n it boys, would you let a man drown like a dog?" We asked him why he didn't swim and he said he wanted to keep his clothes dry. He walked back toward shore a little and found shallow water so he came around the deep hole to us. Then we went on until we came within about four rods of the south shore where there was a very swift current and seemed deep. A man who was watching us from the other side hollered to us that it was very dangerous to cross as the current was so swift at this point. He also informed us that it was five miles to Chimney Rock. As it was sundown, we cheerfully accepted his advice to retrace our steps. Poor Jones was obliged to don his wet garments. His buckskin pants clung to his legs like a linen dish rag over a bowl and he was a comical enough looking sight, without having to take the chaffing of the entire party for a long time. In fact, Jones was the butt of all jokes during the entire trip.
    Laramie Peak could be seen from this point, though it was said to be seventy-five miles away. It was snow capped and we could see it all the time for two weeks as we traveled on our journey. About this time we saw an Indian village on the move. First came the men, riding on their ponies, then the squaws with their household goods and tents. They had all kinds of things packed on their horses besides the long tent poles which were hitched on each side with the ends dragging on the ground. They also had a great many dogs of the wolf species which were made to perform the same duty as the ponies only they dragged the small tent poles with bundles attached. Our horses were very much afraid of the strange outfit and seemed to communicate their fears to the ponies and they too got frightened and commenced to kick and jump around which loosened some of the packs. The squaws commenced to jabber and scream and were trying to quiet the horses. Just then a jack rabbit jumped up near the road and every dog started after it. They would run awhile and then fall down yelping and barking as if they were all mad. They scattered their packs all over the prairie. The squaws left the ponies and started after the dogs. We watched them a while and thought it was fun but I didn't believe they did. That evening we camped near an Indian trader's camp. He had piles of buffalo robes and buckskin clothing. Geo. Brown bought a good pair of buckskin pants for three dollars. I asked the price of his buffalo robes and he showed me as good a buffalo robe as I ever saw and said he would take three dollars for it; but he had others he would sell for less. He would get them from the Indians for a few beads or a little sugar. We found that red shirts and blankets were in great demand with the Indians; for an old red blanket nearly worn out you could get the best of buffalo robes. Our loads were getting light by this time as we had fed all our grain but we didn't care to load up with buffalo robes. It was almost impossible to buy anything from the Indians for money. They didn't care for any kind of money but silver dollars and it was no use to offer them two half dollars in place of a silver dollar for they would not take them. When they got a silver dollar they would pound it out thin till it was four inches and a half in diameter then make two holes through it and thread it on a buckskin string. I saw one Indian who had fifteen or twenty on a string and put them over one shoulder, wearing them like a sash. Some of them had only three or four but felt quite proud of them. I tried to buy a saddle of one of the Indians. The saddle tree was made of bones fastened together with deer sinew. It was covered with very nice fur and the horn of the saddle was carved like an eagle's head. I asked him how much money he would take for it and he said two dollars. I offered him the two dollars and he would look at the saddle and then at the money and then he would shake his head and say "no take." I then asked him how much he would take and he said five dollars. I offered him five dollars and he seemed to study a while and then say, "no take." Then I counted out eight dollars but it was "no take." I found he wanted me to admire his saddle so I gave it up.
    A day after this we arrived at Fort Laramie. It was a point in our journey we had been looking forward to for a long time. Nearly all the emigrants stopped from two to three days to rest up and to write letters home. The fort was situated on the south side of the river which seemed to be deep and quite swift. After we had written our letters, I gave an Indian ten cents to take me across in a boat, for I wanted to see the fort as well as post the letters. The fort consisted of a hollow square of one-story buildings. Their abodes were made of gravel and clay. There was a sutler's store in the fort where we could buy almost anything. There seemed to be a great many soldiers besides mountaineers and Indian traders. Some of the traders had a great many Indians around their camp all the time. When I went back to the train I found the womenfolks all washing on the banks of the river, as the water was clear now we had got above the quicksand of the Platte River and only stopped one day here. Our route still followed up the river for about fifteen miles where we camped for the night. We could now get plenty of wood to burn instead of buffalo chips. I took one of my horses, put a lariat around her neck and drawed up quite lot of wood and we had a good camp fire that night.

    Next day we had to cross a spur of the Black Hills which was about ten miles through the hills and said to be pretty rough, so we got an early start as we would have no place to camp before we got through, but we didn't find the road as rough as we expected excepting the crossing of one canyon where the hills were very steep. We had to lock all four wheels and tie ropes to our wagons and hold back as well as we could and when we got to the bottom we traveled up about a quarter of a mile where we had to turn completely around and go up the other side in a slanting direction. Nearly all the train had to double to get up there. After that we found the road very rocky and rough but no steep hills, and about sundown got to a good camp by the river where an Indian trader was camping. He told us we would find the road pretty rough next day but no steep hills. He offered me seventy-five buffalo robes for one of my horses. He said she would make a good buffalo horse. I have thought since if we had traded most all of our horses for buffalo robes and turned back from there it would have been a good speculation. Next morning it being my day off, not having to drive the team, I shouldered my rifle and started for the north, to explore the country back from the road. I went due north for about three miles and found it very rough and rocky, then turned west in the direction the road runs and traveled over rocks and hills. I never saw such a rough country before. After a while I came to a hill where the stones were all broken up into square blocks. I stopped to examine them, thinking what fine building stones they would make. Knowing that I was ahead of the train I thought I would build a monument there and worked about an hour at it. I have no doubt that it stands to this day and sometimes think that at some future time, maybe, a thousand years from now, some old antiquarian will find it and say this monument shows conclusively that the aborigines of this country did not use mortar in building these monuments; no doubt that this monument was built to commemorate the life or death of some great man, and so it was. I got back to the train about noon. In the afternoon we crossed a hill where there were a great many petrified trees, some of them being very large. They all lay on the ground and were so large we had to go around them. It seems strange to find such large petrified trees for there was no vegetation whatever on that hill. That night we camped near the river where there wasn't any wood; the wind was blowing a hurricane which made it bad for us, as we had to bake bread that night. We gathered up plenty of buffalo chips to start the fire but the wind would scatter it all over, so we built a barricade against the wind but it would whirl around and blow the ashes of the buffalo chips into everything and our bread was pretty well peppered with it but it was good for we could not find fault. We were some like the three miners who lived together. They cast lots to see who should take the first turn at cooking and made a rule if either of the others found fault with his cooking he would have to take the job. One day he baked some bread which was very poor, black, heavy and sour. One of them took a piece of the bread, examined it and said, "Well that is the damnedest bread I ever saw" but recollecting himself added, "It's good and I like it." Our general diet consisted of bacon or ham with bread but no vegetables though we had plenty of horseradish which we had brought from home, also a supply of dried apples, currants, raisins and canned fruit, but the best of all was our splendid appetites. It was almost a wonder that we laid in a supply of salt meat, for to hear our hunters talk in the first part of our journey about killing buffalo, antelope and deer, with occasionally a bear thrown in, you would have thought we would have fresh meat to throw to the dogs. I am, however, ashamed to tell it, for I was one of the hunters but we never killed a buffalo, deer or antelope on the whole trip. Occasionally a jack rabbit or two was bagged, but most of our fresh meat was bought from the Indians or traders.
    Our next camp was the last on the Platte River. To leave it seemed like parting from an old friend. As our guidebook told us it would be twenty miles before we could reach another place to camp we got an early start in the morning. The road was good over the alkali plains though sometimes it wound around among rocks and was very crooked. Our next camp at Willow Creek was reached before sundown where we had good grass and water and plenty of wood.
    I was standing guard in the latter part of the night and just at daybreak I could see a large herd of antelope to the south. I lost no time in getting my rifle and started after them. I tried every plan I could devise to get near them but all my attempts failed. In my efforts to get a shot I wandered over three miles from our camping place and on returning found the train had started on its day's journey. I followed the direction of the route but still hoping to bag some kind of game kept about a half mile north of the road, hunting through thick underbrush. Suddenly coming to a small opening near a spring I was astonished and frightened to discover seven Indians camping there. My first thought was to dodge back and seek safety in flight, but I knew they had seen me. Putting on a bold front I walked into camp. They were Arapahoes and at that time their tribe was said to be the worst on the plains. Immediately they formed a circle about me and pretended to be very curious about my rifle, which was indeed a fine weapon. They made signs that they wanted to swap and on my refusing commenced to shoot at a mark on the hillside, giving me to understand that they wanted me to show my skill. The reader can best understand my feelings and situation when I say that in addition to the bullet in my loaded rifle, I had but two others in my pouch. After trying and failing to persuade me to shoot one slipped up behind and jerked my gun away. For a moment I could feel my hair raise, but the Indian to continue the sport tried to fire off the rifle at the mark. Luckily it had a set-lock and he could not succeed. The disgusted Indian said, "Ugh, no good." I stepped up to him and said, "I show you" and seized the rifle. The buck was evidently surprised at my coolness and allowed me to take it. Backing off with the rifle pointing toward them, I commenced asking "Where was antelope." They pointed toward the north, and still keeping them covered I went in that direction but as soon as I was out of sight turned and ran towards the road. Looking through the underbrush I could see them loading their rifles as fast as they could. I was considered a pretty good runner in those days but I broke the record that time, and was mighty thankful when I overtook the train. That night we camped at Greasewood Creek. There was any amount of greasewood and sagebrush and of the latter it was the largest we saw on our journey. Some of it was fifteen feet high and made very good firewood, for it is dry even when growing. Greasewood grows from three to four feet high, every stem as straight as an arrow and as its name suggests is greasy and sappy--in fact, is just the opposite of sagebrush. Indeed it is remarkable that both varieties should be native to the same soil. After supper Mr. Smith and wife got very uneasy about their son Mose who with Wm. Brown had gone off hunting and hadn't got in yet. After I had told my experience with the Indians that day they felt sure the boys were killed. They built large signal fires and kept shouting and calling for them; time passed on and they did not come. We kept the fires up all night and in the morning some of the men started to look for them. The train moved on and when we had gone about three miles saw two men coming toward us on the road. It proved to be the lost hunters. They had mistaken a train ahead for ours and followed it to the camping place and it being so late they stayed all night. The rescuing party soon overtook us, which made everyone feel relieved that another scare had gone by. Independence Rock was one of the curiosities of our trip. It looks like a huge boulder standing by itself out on the prairie. It is of granite, about two hundred feet high, two hundred feet wide and four hundred feet long. There was only one place where we could climb and get on top and that was on the south end where the rock was pretty well broken up. About halfway up was a small cave called the post office. I have no doubt there was over a thousand letters stowed away in the crevices of this rock. From the top was a splendid view of the surrounding country. To the north we could see the great alkali lakes where the Mormons used to come to get their saleratus. The alkali laid all over the ground from four to six inches thick. After we had seen all we could some of us went to the pony express station which was nearby. We found a wild-looking set of men there consisting of mountaineers and express riders. As it was about time for a rider to come we waited to see him exchange horses. The horse he had to take was saddled and bridled, waiting, some men were watching down the road for him to come. We could see a speck in the distance; it kept getting larger and the men knew it was the express coming. Then a man led out the horse that was saddled, it seemed impatient to be off. Almost directly the rider dashed up full speed. He threw his saddlebags on the fresh horse, jumped down, mounted it and was off in less than a minute. Each rider rode sixty miles every other day and changed horses every ten miles. The pony express was started in April, 1860, for the purpose of carrying the most important news from St. Joe, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, a distance of two thousand miles, as expeditiously as possible. They established stations about ten miles apart and at each station there were kept a number of ponies, or broncos as they are called, for the use of the riders. The road lay through a wild country and often very dangerous on account of the hostility of the Indians. It took a man of nerve and endurance to be a rider. Bill Cody, or Buffalo Bill, as he was called afterwards, was one of them. He was a tall, slim young fellow but had the reputation of being the best rough rider in the West. At one time when the Cheyenne Indians had burnt a station and killed the men, he changed his horse and rode on for another night and part of the next day, a distance of two hundred and eighty-four miles without stopping to rest longer than the time it took to change horses. He averaged 16 miles an hour. He showed wonderful endurance. In the fall of '61 when the Piute Indians of Nevada were on the war path and scalping every white man they could find, a great many of the riders quit work. The company raised their wages to $160 per month and even then they found it difficult to get men to take the chances. Once when a rider had quit work it was absolutely necessary for the express to go. The manager spoke to Bob Ellison, a young man 21 years old, saying, "The express must go, Indians or no Indians, and would give him 50 dollars extra if he would take it through to Camp Fuller, 218 miles east." Bob armed himself, jumped on his horse and started. The second station he found burned and a boy scalped. He pushed on till he got to the next station, where he found the boy's father, who had gone there to get help. In that ride Bob Ellison had rode 218 miles with six changes of horses, one of which carried him over 70 miles.
    Another interesting sight of that section was Devil's Gate, which is a curious freak of nature. The river runs through an open plain on both sides of it, but here it runs between two perpendicular rocks for about a quarter of a mile. The gap is about fifty feet wide and I should think the walls on each side is three hundred feet high, for a man at the top looked like a child. How the river cut its way through there I cannot imagine. It seems to be a spur of the Rattlesnake Mountains, which are close by.
    Next day being the 4th of July and there being no regular celebration anywhere near, Harry Buckingham and I agreed to have a big hunt. We were going to make a grand effort to kill an antelope. It was my turn to stand guard the latter part of the night, and as soon as the day broke I woke up Harry and the rest of the boys and started off before sunrise, going directly south from the road about seven or eight miles where we found plenty of antelope. We could see them in all directions but do what we would could not get near them, so we turned and went in the direction the road ran to the west and saw five antelope lying down in a hollow. On our hands and knees for about a quarter of a mile, not daring to speak or hardly breathe, we crawled until we got to the top of a small hill when we saw the antelope about a mile off going like the wind. This was discouraging so we traveled on, keeping the direction of the road, and at about three o'clock came to a large open prairie. I think without exaggerating we could see ten thousand antelope. From here we could see the wagons about three miles north of us, and they seemed to be driving right toward the mountains. All at once we lost sight of them and stood and looked for a long time but could not see them. So we started northeast toward where we had seen them last.

    Arriving at a pony express station near the river, we stopped and had a talk with a man telling him what hard luck we had hunting antelope. He told us the right time to hunt antelope was in the night, when we could ride right in among them. Thanking him for the information, we inquired where our train had gone and he said the road ran through a canyon about two miles and that we would have to wade the river six times going through that canyon. The camp was about a mile from where we had lost sight of the wagons and we walked nearly five miles to gain one besides wading through that canyon. We told the rest of the boys what the man told us about hunting antelope in the night, so six of us mounted our horses about dusk and went south eight or ten miles. It was very dark but we could hear the antelope jump up and run but could not see them, so our hunt was a failure again. Arriving in camp about twelve o'clock, I said, "Well, boys, this is my last hunt for antelope," and I kept my word.
    In the morning before we started I took a walk up the river to see if I could catch a fish. I came to a place where the sand sparkled in the sunlight, and it appeared to be half gold. I filled my hat with it and hurried back to camp to show what a bonanza I had struck. The boys all gathered around to see what I had and they all thought it was gold until I showed it to Henry Brown who said it was emigrant gold or mica and worthless. Soon after the train started we met the overland stage. There were six passengers in the coach to which there was attached six horses. The driver sat on the footboard holding his lines with a bag of stones beside him. Instead of using a whip he would throw stones at the horses and was so expert that he could hit the right horse every time. He kept hollering all the time, yep! yep! yep! yep! and the horses would go on a run. The company charged each person $250 for the trip.
    We passed through a large prairie dog village which seemed about one-half a mile across. The dogs would sit near their holes on their haunches and bark at us. They were very pretty and not quite as large as a woodchuck of which their habits resembled. We fired at them a good many times but we couldn't get one, for as soon as shot they would tumble down their holes. In the afternoon we came to a place where the ground was covered with cactus or prickly pear. There were different kinds; some from three to four feet high, while most of it seemed to run along close to the ground. They had spikes on them about an inch and a half long and as sharp as needles and could pierce through a calfskin shoe. We could not walk among them at all with moccasins on. Along toward evening we came to a small creek which was pretty hard to ford. We were always anxious when we had to cross such a place for fear we should break our wagons or harnesses. It took us quite a long time to get across but finally did so without breaking anything. Jones said we ought to return thanks for our safe deliverance so he put his hands together and said "Oh Lord!" He dropped on his knees right on a cactus bush and the next word was Hell! Rolling over on his side he fell into another one and said G-d! Whichever way he rolled he got into a cactus all the time swearing terribly. Finally we pulled him out, pierced all over with spikes and found it necessary to take off his clothes in order to remove them. He was sore for many days after. That night Geo. Tinker was taken sick and we were afraid he was going to have a relapse of his old disease. We sat up with him all night, as he had a very high fever. Old Mrs. Brown had some medicine with her and she doctored him. She also made herb tea which seemed to make him worse for quite a while and was delirious part of the time. In the morning we thought he was a little better but still very sick so decided to lay over that day for he was not well enough to travel. Towards night he began to feel a little better and in the morning was so much improved that he thought he could stand to travel. Afterwards we learned that he had an attack of what they called mountain fever and after his recovery was stronger than ever. Next day we came to a trader's cabin who also kept the stage station. He said if we wanted to send any letters home he would send them for us. Accordingly we wrote some but they never got to their destination. Soon after leaving this place Harry Brown had the misfortune to break a wagon spring while crossing a deep gully. It delayed us considerably, but we fixed it so that it lasted all the way through by winding a small rope around the spring its whole length.
    We camped by the river at the foot of a long hill. In the morning we started up the hill; it wasn't very steep but kept going up and up and it seemed as if we would never get to the top. When we got to the top of this hill I suppose we were as high as any part of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, as we had been rising gradually from the time we left Omaha till we got here. After noon we saw an old man prospecting for gold. I went with him to see him prospect and saw him pan out some gold. He told me he was the man who first discovered gold in Colorado and also had prospected the mountains all the way for four hundred miles north. He said the best indications of gold he ever saw was in the north. No doubt it was part of Montana he had reference to. I would have liked to have stayed with him all day, but the train was going along all the time. I got on my horse and started after. First as I got to the road the overland stage came along going west. The road was now downhill for quite a distance. They had six good ponies on the stage and they went at full run all the way, the driver constantly yelling. It was about all I could do to keep up with it on horseback. Our next camp was what was called the last crossing of the Sweetwater. There was plenty of snow here where it was shaded from the sun. There was another Indian trader who offered to send letters to the States at two shillings each. He proved to be no more honest than the other fellow who had taken our quarters. My wife had the misfortune to lose her diary book at this place in which she had kept an account of all the incidents that transpired on our trip. I felt very sorry that she lost it and if she had not there would be no necessity for my writing these recollections. The grass was rather scarce here and we had to drive our horses across the river where it was a little better and watch them to keep them from rambling. George Brown had one of his horses tied to the wagon to put some shoes on him, and when it came my turn to watch the horses he wanted me to take this horse across to the others. He was a big, awkward animal and had not been ridden much. I got on his back and thought he would go straight to the others, but when we came to the ford he wouldn't go into the river. I tried quite a while to get him to go but he wouldn't and I got impatient and struck him over the head with the rope. He started on the run up the bank of the river and jumped right off where the water was twenty feet deep. I threw myself on my back when he jumped but I suppose he went to the bottom. It was some time before he came to the top, but as soon as he saw me he came right toward me and tried to jump on me; I was afraid he would strike me with his feet. I got hold of his head and ducked him under and pushed him down three times before he would give up. Then I got on his back and rode him out, the boys having great sport watching me. From this place there were two roads--one called the old emigrant road which went by soda springs and the other a new road called Lander's cutoff. Colonel Lander had surveyed this road and recommended it as better on account of water and grass. Being undecided which way to take, we put it to a vote and there was one majority for the new road so we took the Lander cutoff. We had not gone far before we crossed the Sweetwater once more. About half a mile from here we found a spring which ran to the west so we concluded we had crossed the divide of the Rocky Mountains. About noon we met two men with about two hundred ponies which they said they had brought all the way from Oregon. Harry Brown bought one but we found after we got through these men stole every one of them. We were now traveling almost north near a very high range of mountains and we could see Fremont Peak all the tine. It was very high, I think the highest in the United States and a grand sight. The roads were still good and very few hills, the country being open clear to the foot of the mountains. The first river we crossed west of the mountains was called Big Sandy, but it was a small river at this time of the year. Our guidebook told us we would not find any grass for fifteen miles after we left the river and the next day we drove over a barren stretch of country and camped on an island in Green River where we had good grass. That night fifteen Snake River Indians came to our camp riding the finest lot of ponies I ever saw. They were well built, sleek and fat. I traded a hickory shirt for the best lariat I ever saw, it being made of buckskin braided of four strands and about forty feet long. Jones was always trying to trade with the Indians; the only thing he had he could spare was a shirt and the only thing he would trade for was a pony. As soon as the Indians came he ran to the wagon and got out his shirt, made quite a long speech to them showing them what a good shirt it was and he would swap for a pony. All the Indians would do was grunt, and he thought they didn't understand him. Then he would commence to talk Dutch to them, and when they didn't answer him he got disgusted and said the cussed fools didn't understand their own language. The next morning we had to cross two more branches of the Green River, the last one being deep and rapid with big boulders in the bottom which would almost upset the wagons. As it was a warm day we thought we would try and catch some fish. Mr. Smith had brought a seine with him and oftentimes we could get more fish at one haul than we wanted. One of Smith's son-in-laws named White was helping to drag the seine when he stepped back into a deep hole over his head and when he came up he called, "Alice! Oh Alice!" This was his wife's name. He went down again and when he came up the second time he said feebly, "Alice! Alice!" so we thought it was about time to pull him out. The boys plagued him a good deal about calling for his wife. This man White had a habit of telling big stories. As an example I asked him what he used to do before he left Illinois. He said he worked in a wooden pail factory and in explaining the kind of a machine they had for making pails he stated that they sawed pine logs of the right length to make staves, threw them into a big hopper at the top of the building and they worked down through a great many machines and came out at the bottom all hooped and baled ready for use. The Smith boys said he was the biggest liar they ever knew and after that whenever he told one of his big stories they would say Alice! Oh Alice! and that would shut him up.
    We were now in the alkali country, and our first real knowledge of it was when two of our horses had drunk alkali water and were taken very sick. One of them was mine and the other Smith's but his seemed to be worse. We gave them tartaric acid and did everything we knew to help them but his horse wasn't able to travel for a day. Both horses lost flesh; mine was the fattest one on the train before this but soon got as thin as the thinnest. He kept up his courage, however, and worked right along but Smith's horse wasn't able to pull the wagon. Our road continued west and we appeared to be driving right toward a high range of mountains called the Bear River Mountains. We couldn't see any way through them until we got close up, then the road went into a deep canyon for about eight miles when we came to a place called Pina Fort. There was plenty of grass and good spring water. Colonel Lander had built what they call an open faced camp with logs on three sides. This is where they stopped while removing the obstructions in the canyon. Mr. Smith found his wagons were too heavily loaded, as he had been picking up log chains, ox yokes and other things as he came along, but he unloaded all this trash and left them on a pile. We stayed all day at this place and along toward evening proposed trading wagons with me as my wagon was lighter than his. George and I thought it would be just as well to trade as we had four horses and would get a much better wagon than ours, so we made the swap. After we fixed up our wagons we found that it was Sunday. I knew Mr. Smith wouldn't have traded on that day if he had known it. Next day our route lay through heavy pine timber, and was the first good timber we had seen on our trip. In the afternoon we had to go down a very steep hill into the canyon of Smith's fork of Bear River. We had to lock all our wheels going down and held back with ropes but still our horses had to slide. It took some time to get down as we could only lower one wagon at a time and then go back and lower the others. Our route then turned down the canyon where Colonel Lander had built about a quarter of a mile of corduroy road but a great many of the logs had got out of place and some of us had to go ahead to put them in their places. It was very rough and we were glad when we got over it. After we had traveled down the canyon about three miles we found a good place to camp so we stopped for the night. Next morning we started up the mountain and most of the teams had to double to get up to the first bench; then the road would run along the ridge for about a quarter of a mile where we had to climb another hill as steep as the first, then we would travel along a little farther and go up again. We began to think we would never get to the top but we finally did so and could see snow on the peaks as low down as where we had been traveling. The road was tolerable good along the tops of the mountains and on discovering a fine spring of water and pretty good grass we camped for the night. That night water in our pails froze half an inch thick.

    From here our road ran down the mountains to Salt River along which we traveled about seven miles when we got to a place where a trader had established himself, so we camped about noon and stayed all night. This trader's business was dealing with Indians and emigrants. There were a great many emigrants' oxen that came along would be so footsore that they could not travel; the emigrants would gladly give him a big price for a sound ox and leave this footsore one behind, he would turn it out with his herd and in two or three weeks it would be well and ready to sell to some other emigrants. I asked him where he went in winter and he said after the emigration was over for the season he would drive his herd north about three hundred miles to Deer Lodge Valley where the snow never lies on the ground. About eight years after this when I was in Montana I knew this man, he had made Deer Lodge his permanent home and was one of the richest men in the territory. His name is Robert Anderson. I told him my partner and I would like to buy a pony if we could get a good one cheap, so he sent an Indian boy after his herd of ponies. He showed us a young pony which was a very nice animal but had a scar on his fetlock but it appeared to be healed. He said he would take thirty dollars for it so we bought it. After we had got the pony I thought I would like to try him. I had left my lariat at our last camp and thought I would go back and get it. I asked Anderson how far it was, he said it was seven miles to the foot of the mountain and five miles up the mountain to the camp and thought, no doubt the wolves would have eaten the lariat by this time. It was one of the most foolish things I ever did, but I got on the pony and started. The pony traveled along in good shape until we got to the foot of the mountain; by this time the sun was down and I could hear the wolves howling in all directions. I started up the mountain but the pony stopped and wouldn't go any farther; he seemed to be afraid. I got off and tried to make him go but he wouldn't so I tied him to a tree and thought I would go on foot, but before I got out of his sight looked back and saw he was trying to break loose, so I had to give it up and go back. As soon as I turned his head toward the camp he went like the wind and we were soon there but I lost my fine lariat. In the morning we crossed Salt River and followed up a small creek toward the mountains and on our way met thirty Indians on horseback. We had some trouble in passing them as our horses were always afraid of Indians. Soon we came to a salt spring where the salt was lying on the ground all around from two to four inches thick. It looked like snow and we gathered a lot of it for our horses. There is now large salt works established at this place called the Union Salt Works. Our road was very hilly, but not many were steep hills. The mountains were pretty well timbered, and that night we had the prettiest camping spot I ever saw. Plenty of good grass and a nice stream of rippling water running through a small valley around which were a great many fine tall trees of pitch pine. We started a camp fire at the foot of one of them and it ran up the tree like a flash and burned all night; so we lit quite a number. I tell you it looked fine after dark.
    Next morning we left the mountains again and crossed a low, level prairie for about 8 miles, passing several small lakes called mud lakes. This was the worst place I ever saw for mosquitoes, blow flies and other insects. We couldn't open our mouths on account of the mosquitoes, and we had to build smudge fires in our wagons so we could breathe. The flies made the horses crazy, and it was all we could do to hold them. We passed oxen still living with their eyes eaten out by insects, and the boys took their rifles and shot them to put them out of their misery. If the plagues of Egypt were half as bad as they were in this place I pity the Egyptians. As soon as we got across and into the hills again there wasn't a mosquito or fly of any kind. Our chief amusement at that time was pitching horseshoes and got so interested in it that the horseshoes would be got out and the pegs driven before we unhitched our horses. Sometimes the womenfolks couldn't get us to go to supper. Our next camp was near Black Foot River where the Indians tried to stampede our horses. They cut the lariats of the horses we had staked out and started them but they ran towards the wagons and we caught them. Then we tied them to the wagons and put out an extra guard. In the morning we had to ford the river and while doing so I got my horses pretty badly tangled up. It was very steep going down into the river, and as soon as the leaders got to the water they stopped to drink; my wheelers couldn't hold the wagon back, consequently got their front feet over the whiffletrees. We had to jump into the water and unhitch the leaders and drive across with one pair. That day we came to another trader's camp where I swapped a red and black woolen shirt for a pair of buckskin pants which had fringe all down the outside seams eight inches long. When I started from home I had four pair of good pants but they were all worn out. My next recollection was our road joined the old emigrant road by Soda Springs. The country now was open prairie; we could see old Fort Hall on the north side of Snake River. Arriving at another trader's camp we also found a Mormon with butter, cheese and potatoes to sell. We had not seen a potato since we left Council Bluffs and I told my wife I was going to buy some of those potatoes whatever they cost. I asked him how he sold his potatoes, and he said fifteen cents. I asked him what he meant, fifteen cents a peck or fifteen cents a bushel. He said, "No, fifteen cents a pound." You could have knocked me down with a straw but I told him I would take three pounds anyway and also bought one pound of butter. I was bound to live high no matter what it cost. I took my purchases back to camp and we cooked the three pounds of potatoes for our supper. After supper I went back to the trader's camp and had a long talk with him. He appeared to be a nice sociable man and during our conversation told me he had lived in the mountains about twenty-five years. I asked him if he ever saw Kit Carson. He said, "I should think I did, Kit Carson's daughter is my wife." I then told him about buying a pony at Salt River of a man by the name of Anderson. "Why" said he, "Anderson and I are partners." He asked me what kind of a pony it was, and I told him it was a very nice bay pony that had been hurt near the fetlock; the old wound had broke out afresh which made the pony very lame. He said he knew the pony very well and he would trade another one for it. I told him I would like to trade because I was afraid the pony was going to get too lame to travel, so he sent an Indian to drive in the ponies; the Indian brought in about a hundred. He told him to catch that calico pony and bring it to camp. I looked the pony over, it seemed to be a good strong one, he said it had a good gait, that his wife nearly always rode it. I asked him how he would trade, he said he would trade for five dollars to boot. I was very anxious to trade and gave him the five dollars for fear he would back out when he saw my pony, as it was getting dark we could not change that night. I told him I would bring my pony early in the morning. As soon as I got up I caught the pony and started for the trader's camp. He was so lame I could hardly get him along but just before I got there I thrashed him with the lariat until I got him on the gallop. The trader was fast asleep in his tent with the front open and when I got close to the tent the pony shied off, turned a complete somersault over a sage bush. I struck the ground first and the pony fell on top. The trader jumped up, grabbed his rifle and said, "What in h--l is that?" I said, "Here is your pony, come and roll him off of me." He helped me to get from under him and the pony got up. He looked at the beast a while and said, "Well, I am beaten; this is the worst trade I ever made but it is all right." It was a fair trade and I could take the other pony. This man's name was Reed and I saw him afterwards at Deer Lodge, Montana. We heard from the mountaineers and traders that there was a regiment of soldiers stationed at a place called Portneuf on the river by the same name. The mountaineers didn't like to have the soldiers in their country and told a great many stories about them. One was that the Indians had stolen most of the soldiers' horses and they were of no use in the Indian country. They said ten mountaineers could whip more Indians than all the soldiers put together. When the train started on I rode along ahead. The pony traveled splendid; he would lope along for miles without wanting to stop and was very easy to ride. I soon got to the soldiers' camp, a distance of nine miles, the road running down a very long hill to the river. When I started down the hill I saw one of the soldiers mount his horse and ride toward me and stopped at the foot of the hill. As I drew up to him he asked me if I belonged to an emigrant train and I replied that I did and had twelve wagons in the train. He wanted to know if we had had any trouble with the Indians. I said no. He then told me his name, Colonel Howe, and was there with his regiment to protect the emigrants. I told him what the mountaineer had told about the Indians stealing the soldiers' horses, which made him very mad. He said they hadn't lost one and wanted me to go to the ranch three miles away and see for myself. I told him there was no use in my going, for I couldn't tell whether all the horses were there or not. He said, "Well! well! you are right." He stopped and talked with me until the wagons came along and then showed where there was a good camp. He invited us to come to his camp and enjoy ourselves and assured us that he had the best band in the United States service and would have them play for us. So we went, they played some very fine music. They told us that the Indians were very bad to the west of us, and the colonel had just sent an escort of one hundred men with a large train of sixteen wagons. We asked him for an escort but he said he could not send one with such a small train, and advised us to try and overtake the train or wait until some other train came along, so we concluded to start along and try to overtake the other train. Here we had to part with the Smith family; as they were going to go to northern Oregon and we to the southern, they would take what was called the Oregon route down Snake River while we went the California route down the Humboldt. It was almost like starting from home again, everybody very sorry to part. They were very nice people and we corresponded with them after we got to Oregon. They wrote that the Indians stole some of their horses while on their way down Snake River.
    About sundown we passed a place where an emigrant train had been massacred. The Indians killed them all except one man and the ground was strewn with wagon irons, crockery and everything that wouldn't burn. We traveled for some time after dark and camped near a spring on the bluffs. Having to take our horses down to the river bottom to get grass, and it being very dark we thought we would hold some of them by their lariats. While we were holding the horses Jones started from camp to take one of our places. Of course he couldn't see us down on the low ground but we could see him plainly on the bluffs. He was wandering back and forth in all directions and we wondered what he could be doing. After a while he stopped and commenced to holler as loud as he could "I'm lost! I'm lost! Where's camp?" We burst out laughing, and he was so near that he could hear. He wanted to know why we didn't speak. He said he had traveled three or four miles looking for us. Just then something frightened our horses; they started off and ran dragging us along on the ground as if we were nothing, obliging us to let them go. It being so dark it was no use to look for them that night but we were up before daybreak in the morning. As soon as it was light enough to see we went in search and soon found them about a mile away. I tried to catch the pony but he wouldn't let me so we had to let them run loose. Next morning I tried it again and got the other boys to help me but we couldn't get near him anyway. I was mad and took off my hat and threw it at him. He put his head down and stood still and let me walk right up to him. I found he had been used to being caught with a lariat, and after that I could always catch him by taking a piece of rope and swinging it around my head. About eight o'clock we overtook the train with the soldiers' escort. The bluecoats rode first and we followed after. They would ride about ten miles and find a good camping place and stop until we came up and we would camp together. That night we camped close by the American Falls of Snake River. It is a big river and the falls are about thirty feet high, I should judge.

    When we started from Portneuf Harry Buckingham said he would stop a little while and overtake us that night. About an hour after we had started he followed but took the wrong road, going to Salt Lake. He traveled until nearly dark when he met a Mormon coming with a load of provisions for the soldiers. Harry asked him if he had met our train and he told him he was on the wrong road; that he was not on the emigrant road but thought if he would strike across the country to the northwest he would find it sooner than he would to turn back. So he left the road and struck out across the country. It soon got dark and he couldn't tell very well which way he was going but traveled until about midnight when he saw a light in the distance. When he got there he found they were Indians who received him kindly, gave him food and pointed out the way to go. He traveled all that night and part of next day before he found the road and then rode all that day and the next night before he overtook us; I was on guard that morning and at about daybreak saw him coming. He was about as nearly used up as he could be.
    Regular each morning while the soldiers accompanied us when it came time to start the bugler would sound a few notes as a signal to saddle horses and get ready, another to mount and then with a long blast away they would go and we wouldn't see them again until night. On Raft River, a tributary of the Snake, the Oregon trail turned to the right and the California to the left, our route following Raft River Valley. It was through a very nice country consisting mostly of level prairie with plenty of good grass. Our train was now composed of four small trains, some twenty-two wagons altogether. One we called Captain Black's train, another Colonel Williams' train, the third we called the Greasers, who were a pretty tough lot, and their teams were made up of cows and oxen, and a poor outfit all the way through. The hind wheel of one of their wagons had a log chain wound round it to keep the tire on and I would have been afraid to go to mill on such a rickety affair. Colonel Williams was the leader of the party that drove the Mormons out of Missouri in 1846 and was very much afraid the Mormons would find out that he was traveling through their country and take their revenge. One Sunday night about this time one of the men who was guarding the cattle came rushing into camp and said he had seen Indians. The bugle sounded, the soldiers mounted and galloped away in the direction he said he had seen them, but about dark returned without having seen an Indian. Journeying up Raft River for several days more, our road turned to the right towards a high mountain which as we got close to found there was a gap leading into it just about wide enough for our wagons. We couldn't see more than twenty rods ahead of us at any time, the road being so crooked. After we had gone about two miles through this gap we came to the prettiest little prairie I ever saw. This spot was called the City of Rocks, and the prairie was enclosed by big white granite boulders piled one on the other. There were also very large rocks which stood out by themselves on the prairie. I remember Castle Rock, Chapel Rock, Post Office and Court House Rock. We could climb all over these rocks and thought it was the grandest place we had ever seen. On one side of Post Office Rock was a smooth surface for a hundred feet up which was covered with names of emigrants as high as they could reach by standing on their wagons. Whenever we found any place where the emigrants had written their names we always found one name above the rest, Tom King, and supposed they must have let him down from the top with a rope. Here the soldiers left us and went back. They had escorted us a hundred miles from Portneuf.
    The next morning we had to pass through another gap in the mountains but wider than the one we came in on. About three miles from here we camped where the Salt Lake route joined ours. Here we found a Mormon camping with a load of provisions to sell to the emigrants. Towards night we came to a very steep hill that we had to descend. Going down this hill is like going down a winding stairs; we would go down about thirty feet when we would come to a bench where we turned in a different direction and went down another steep place, then would turn and go down another and so on until we got to the bottom of the canyon. We traveled down the canyon about two miles where we came to Goose Creek, the roads were good and soon found a good place and camped for the night. After we had camped the Mormon came with his truck wagon and camped near us. That night we saw something extraordinary going on in Colonel Williams' division of the train. They had held a meeting and Colonel Williams had persuaded them that the Mormon was a spy and they concluded to hang him. They had set a wagon tongue straight up and got the rope ready, but when we found it out we called all the emigrants together and told them we would not allow it. I never liked this man Colonel Williams; he was a big overbearing coward. I concluded it didn't make a man brave to be called Colonel. We knew that the Indians were bad on Goose Creek for they had stolen seventy-five horses from the train ahead of us, which was every animal they had except one blind mare, so we put out an extra guard every night and put out all the fires at dark. After traveling up Goose Creek for three days without seeing an Indian we camped with our six wagons about one-fourth of a mile from the rest of the train and were getting breakfast ready and some of the boys were bringing in the horses when we saw six Indians standing by our wagons. We never knew how they got there for none of us had seen them come. Harry Brown told us to hitch up as soon as possible and not wait for breakfast until we got to the other train. The train started on with orders to keep close together. About an hour after six or seven Indians came to the train riding American horses, some of which had shoes on and were some of the horses they had stolen from the other train. Harry Brown and James Beamsley traded for two of these horses and found the owners when we got to Oregon. That day we could see Indians all the time about two miles from the road riding in the same direction we were going. Towards night the captain sent two young men on horseback to look for a camp about two miles ahead of us where the road ran through a gap in the mountains. The men rode through the gap and in about five minutes we saw them coming back on a full gallop and could hear them holler. The train was ordered to halt and as soon as the men got back they said there were 1500 Indians on the other side of the mountains and we could see some of them on the ridge of the mountains watching us. The captain gave orders for every man to shoot off all his firearms so that they would be sure to go off when we wanted them. We held a meeting to find out what was best to be done. There was one man in Captain Black's train, a Pennsylvania Dutchman, who had been an old Santa Fe trader and knew more about Indians than all the rest put together. He proposed that some of us should go to the foot of the mountain and talk with them, and said he would go for one, but no one volunteered to go with him. He started and got about forty rods when two young men followed him. They rode to the foot of the mountain and motioned the Indians to come down. Five of them came and he asked them what they wanted. They told him they wanted to swap. He said five of them could come to camp but no more, if any more than five came we would shoot them. When he got back he said we had better start along until we found a good camp but keep close together and if the Indians showed themselves we were to form a corral with our wagons and put all of the stock inside. So we drove through the gap, found a good place to camp and formed a corral by running one wagon close to the other until we had formed a circle. Soon after five Indians came but they didn't have anything to trade. No other Indians were in sight but we know they were not far off. We put out a strong guard that night and kept them moving around the wagons. I suppose the savages concluded we were too well prepared to risk a battle. We couldn't see any Indians in the morning so we moved on and traveled about five days up Goose Creek. After this two Indians would come to our train every day whom we thought were spies. They would go away every night and come back in the morning but we kept a strong guard all the time and corralled our stock at night. Then we turned more to the west and crossed a low divide to the headwaters of the Humboldt.
    One day when we stopped for dinner a rather laughable incident occurred. Mrs. Iler and another lady wanted to do some dress cutting and fitting so they had their husbands put up a tent. They didn't stake it very fast as there was no wind blowing. After they had been in the tent some time there came a strong whirlwind and lifted the tent clear from the ground and left the two ladies standing by themselves on the prairie. Of course we had a great laugh at their expense but they were sensible women and laughed as heartily as we and took it as a good joke. That night we camped on the headwaters of the Humboldt near a very large spring. Captain Black had crossed the plains once before and said he knew a better route than to go down the river. He said there was a road along the foot of the mountains and advised us to take it, but most of the train thought it would be better to follow the river road as the other didn't appear to be traveled much. So he called for volunteers to go the mountain road and I was one foolish enough to go with him. The rest of the wagons started down the river while six of us took to the mountain and found the road very rough but he kept saying it would be better by and by. Instead it kept getting worse; we were all the time crossing deep gullies and in some places had to lift the wagons down steps two feet high and consequently traveled very slow. We could see the other part of the train from where we were moving without any trouble so we called a halt and told Captain Black we had had enough of the mountain road and proposed to cut across to the river. Our route was downhill and not very rough, only we had to cut down sagebrush sometimes in order to get through. We soon reached the river bottom but we were on the wrong side of the river. I had taken my rifle and was walking quite a distance behind the train when I saw a large eagle standing on the ground by a spring. I walked up to it and caught it but found it had a string around its leg; then I knew it was a tame one. I thought I would take it along to the wagons but just then I saw there was something the matter with the train. I threw the eagle down, increased my speed to overtake them and met four of the men with rifles who seemed to be watching something behind me. I turned around and saw twenty Indians in war paint and feathers who were going through some kind of performance which I supposed was a war dance in order to raise their courage. I couldn't liken them to anything better than a lot of turkey gobblers strutting around. The Captain gave orders for us to stay behind the train and guard the rear while they found a place to cross the river. A good ford was found and we got across without any trouble though we had to wade the river after them. There was a good road now and we traveled along fast but it was ten o'clock that night before we overtook the train. After that we always spoke of that as being Captain Black's cutoff which plagued him a good deal. Plenty of Indians were seen as we went down the Humboldt, but were a poor lot, having no clothing to speak of, most of them wore nothing but a breech-clout. The best of them wore nothing but a rabbit skin blanket. Some were adorned by old hats emigrants had given them or maybe a pair of old pants but we never seen one with a full suit. They would follow our wagons for miles begging for something to eat. The Greasers had made a particular friend of one young Indian. Having fitted him with a plug hat and a vest, it was lots of fun to see him drive their oxen. They called him Captain Jack and he seemed to be very proud of his clothes. These were the Shoshone Indians and inhabited the country all down the Humboldt. Plenty of good grass was to be had in the river bottom and was the heaviest growth I ever saw, but our horses didn't like it as well as the hill grass. The short bunchgrass on the hills was full of seeds and grew in tufts about a good mouthful in a bunch, and our horses liked it better and picked up considerable.

    Next we came to where the river runs through a canyon and our road took to the hills. We had a long drive of twenty miles across these hills to what is called Gravelly Ford. Here we found a large Indian standing by himself near the river attired in full dress which consisted of a buckskin string around his waist. About dark we discovered another Indian skulking under the bank of the river close by our wagons presumably waiting to steal something. He was brought into camp and two men appointed to hold him while we held a consultation to see what was best to do with him. He wore a rabbit skin blanket by which the men were holding him and suddenly he slipped it off and ran, thus solving the problem. Early in the morning we heard loud talk in the Greasers camp and the most swearing I ever heard. It was learned that Captain Jack was missing and a very fine race horse they were taking through was gone too. They could track him down to the river and see where he went in and also where he came out on the other side but from there they couldn't see further signs, so that was what they got for having fun with an Indian. The next night just before camping we passed the Greasers train and saw that they had an Indian tied hand and foot under their wagon. They swore they would have no more loose Indians hanging around their camp. Some of these Missourians seemed very ignorant of matters and things in general and chronic movers, always emigrating from one to another. Tom Dean, a Missourian whom I knew, said that his father moved so many times that whenever a covered wagon would come along the road all the chickens would lay down on their backs and cross their legs ready to be tied. I remember standing guard one night with one of them and in order to pass the time away I tried to carry on a conversation. I asked him many questions about different things which he appeared to know nothing about and at last losing patience I testily inquired where he came from anyway. He said he came from wild-cat, Pike County. I said, "That was in Missouri, wasn't it?" He replied he didn't know exactly whereabout in Pike County Missouri was but it was somewhere around there. I asked him if it was a good place to make money. He said they didn't have any money there, that they traded deer skins, coon skins and squirrel skins for everything they wanted and always took along a few hoop poles for small change. Whenever they bought a pound of coffee they would give one coon skin and three hoop poles for it and all other things in the same way. He further told me they all went barefoot and the first shoes that he ever saw a Yankee peddler brought around and the women all asked him what they were and how he cooked them. I asked him if there was much game in that country. He said there were a power of deer and a right smart sprinkle of turkey. He had often heard his folks tell about the first steamboat that came up the Missouri River and how they all thought it was some monster that was alive and they chased it with their axes and pitchforks and tried to kill it. Thus he kept on talking for some time until I got tired of listening and relapsed into silence. After we camped three or four Indians came to us and one had rings on every finger. I asked him where he got them and he pointed to the northeast, saying he made them himself and wanted to trade them for something to eat. One of the women gave him five crackers for one. We supposed they were old brass rings that he had found in some emigrant camp, but after arriving in Oregon this woman had the ring tested by the jeweler and found it was pure gold. We could have gotten the whole lot for fifty cents worth of something to eat. I think this journey of ours gave the best opportunity to study human nature that anyone could have. We were brought in contact with a great many different kinds of people from different parts of the country and found it was notable for people acting out their natural dispositions. Of course, there were a great many whole-souled, good-natured and agreeable persons, then there were others that were disagreeable and quarrelsome and some few despondent and always predicting disasters, saying we would never get through without getting killed by the Indians. Still on the whole we got along very well together and enjoyed ourselves. To see us sitting around our camp fires singing songs and telling stories you would have thought we were enjoying ourselves very well. Many of the songs were characteristic of our journey such as "Joe Bowers" and "Sweet Betsy from Pike." Even Jones would make an attempt to sing but he had no idea what a tune was and his song consisted of two lines.
    He would sing in a doleful, dismal tone sounding more like the wail of a lost spirit than anything I can imagine. Those of us who had an ear for music would have to stand it for he seemed to derive considerable comfort from it. There was also another young man about like Jones who every time he went after the cattle would sing in the same tune. "The buffalo, the antelope, the black-tailed deer and the mountain goat." That was the extent of his song but he kept it up all the way across the plains.
    The Indians would bring fish to our camp every day and swap them for crackers. About this time we met a man on foot who was on his way to Salt Lake. He said that the Indians had stolen his horses and blankets and everything he had and was dependent on the emigrants for something to eat. He told us where the Indians had robbed him which was at the foot of a big hill, the dividing line of the Shoshone and Piute Indian tribes. A curious thing about this country is the mirages which we could see most every day. The first one I ever saw represented a man riding on a mule about three miles off and coming toward us. Both man and mule seemed larger than common and I watched them a long time before I knew it was a mirage. There were lakes and other things and sometimes we would see a man on horseback hanging in the sky head downwards and again mountains where there was none.
    One morning we started ahead of the train as usual and had got about three miles in advance when we came to the big hill where the man told us he had been robbed. Twelve Indians came out from the willows along the river and formed a line across the road about half way up the hill. George Brown was on the lead but halted his team and asked me what I thought it meant. I told him it looked as if they wanted to stop us and while we were standing six of them came down and grabbed George's horses by the bit. I told him to get out his whip and make the horses jump on them and then start back to the train. He did so and we got away, turning to the left on a fast trot and my team galloped. Instead, however, of going back to the train he crossed the road and drove toward the river. Here the Indians headed us off again and commenced to take things out of George's wagon. Six of them came to my wagon and tried to do the same. I gave the lines to my wife, jumped out and told them to keep back. I had my hand on my rifle inside the wagon but didn't show it. They kept coming up to the wagon and I would push them back till one of them saw a watch chain hanging out of my pocket and grabbed it. He got the watch but didn't appear to know what it was for some time. Then he would hold it up to his ear and say "tick, tick, tick," and laugh. Then all came to my wagon to see what was going on; every one of them had to take it in his hand and hear it tick. It amused them for a long while and then they began to act sassy again. I told them to give me the watch and I would show them something. I opened it up and showed them the works and this amused them a long time but just as they were getting tired of it I saw the train coming over the hill about a mile off. I pointed to it told them big train, plenty wagons, "hiyu" men. I could see a change in them right off and got my watch without any trouble. Before the train arrived there was not an Indian in sight. These Indians were wearing the blankets they had stolen from the man we met. A consultation was held to see if it was best to follow them but the majority thought it better to let them go as they had got nothing from us. I always thought it was a wise decision though I voted the other way. After dinner we climbed the hill and got out of the Shoshone country and soon after met a Piute Indian. He wore a cap made of feathers and had on a blanket and looked smarter than any of the Shoshones we had seen. That afternoon we crossed a good deal of quartz rock which Harry Brown said indicated gold. Right here is where the town of Humboldt stands but there were no signs of it at that time. The Humboldt, unlike other rivers, was getting smaller as we went down; a short distance from here it sank from sight entirely. We took the northern route to California and were obliged to cross a desert of about eighty-five miles. A day was spent in preparation for it by cutting all the grass we could with butcher knives and filling everything we had that would hold water. We had plenty of dried apples and I told my wife I thought it would be a plan to cook a large camp kettle full, so that when we got thirsty we could eat a few of these apples and thus allay our thirst. It proved as I expected and I would advise anyone crossing the desert to do the same. When we made all the preparations we could we started about four o'clock in the afternoon as we intended to travel in the night and lay over during the heat of the day. Our route was uphill from the start towards a low range of mountains, and ten miles from the river there was a spring of good water, the last we would find for fifty miles. We arrived at the spring about dark and replenished our water cans.
    About nine o'clock in the morning we arrived at what they called Rabbithole Springs. This was nothing but a place where a little water oozed out of the side of the mire and we could get but a cup full every five minutes. So we got nothing for our horses but did give them from our supply a small quantity of water and a little grass. Here we found a good pony running around which Colonel Lander had left. The boys tried to catch it but it was pretty wild. It was agreed that the one who caught the animal should have it. I went to my wagon got out a lariat and thought I would try my hand at lassoing and was lucky enough to catch it the first throw. I had no use for the pony but Harry Buckingham wanted it the worst kind, and as I had been out of tobacco for some time and could not buy any at any price I told Harry I would give him the pony for half of his tobacco, which consisted of one small plug. He got the pony and I the tobacco and both were well satisfied. About four o'clock we hitched up and started, our road being level and good and seemed to be the bed of a dry lake. It was a very dark night and about eleven o'clock we came to what is called Steamboat Springs where we could see steam rising in all directions around us from boiling springs and there was a horrible smell of sulfur. We stopped a little while to rest our horses and then started on. Daybreak found us on an alkali plain, the ground being white with alkali. Here we saw dead oxen lying all along the roadside. My horses got frightened at one of these skeletons and ran away and I found it quite difficult to control them. I was surprised at this for my leaders were mere skeletons. At eight o'clock in the morning we came to a spring of nice water, clear as crystal with a small stream running from the spring but which sank into the sand before it had gone two rods. Our disappointment was great to find the water boiling hot. By noon some of the boys were suffering terribly for want of water. Captain Black came to my wagon and tried to speak but couldn't say a word, even whisper. I told my wife to give him some of the apples but he shook his head and wouldn't take any and we thought he was going crazy. He told me afterward the reason he did not take any was because he thought we would need them all ourselves. The juice from these stewed apples saved us from suffering.
    Those who had horses got to the springs about eleven o'clock but the ox teams were far behind. These springs were like big wells, the water coming up just to the surface and seemed to sink away again but they irrigated about forty acres of very good grass. About two o'clock the ox teams began to arrive and when they got within two or three miles they seemed to smell the water and came in on the run. The first team of oxen that came ran right into the spring in spite of all we could do. We had to get ropes and tie to their heads to keep them above water while we cut the bow pegs and got them loose from the wagons, then hauled them out with ropes one at a time. We all turned out to help the others unhitch their oxen before they got the water. We had to drive them away for fear they would drink too much. We stayed all night at this place.

    Here Colonel Lander had left papers for us to read which he tied to stakes driven in the ground stating that he had had a talk with old Winnemucca, the head chief of the Piute tribe, and other Indians, and had made a treaty with them not to molest the emigrants, but we had better not trust them and advised us to keep a good lookout, especially in Smoke Creek Canyon. We had still thirty-five miles of desert to cross besides seven miles up Smoke Creek Canyon before we would find any more grass or water. We started early next morning and drove twenty miles before we stopped for dinner. We passed a wagon on the desert where the Indians had robbed a party of prospectors. They had broken the wagon all to pieces, but the men got away with their lives. We made a late start after dinner and arrived at the mouth of the canyon about dark and made a halt undecided whether to camp here without grass or water, or continue on up Smoke Creek and finally concluded to keep on as our stock was suffering for want of water. When it got fairly dark George Brown and I started on ahead. We had to go down some very steep hills but they were short ones. We found it very dark in the canyon and the road very rough. The canyon seemed to be walled in with the perpendicular walls on both sides and was so dark it seemed as if we could feel it but couldn't see a thing, but we were very sure the Indians couldn't see us. We had to trust entirely on our horses and how they found their way is more than I can tell. About half past ten o'clock we got through the canyon where we found good grass and water. After unhitching our horses and staking them out George wanted to know what we were going to do about guarding? I told him I was going to to sleep whatever happened; so we both turned in and had as good a night's rest as I ever had in my life. About two o'clock the other teams began to arrive. I partly awoke and knew they were coming in, then I fell asleep again and slept until about eight o'clock in the morning. We found the train was all there and the stock doing well and were up to their knees in good grass. We stopped at this place all day to give them a chance to fill up. During the day I took a walk down the canyon to see what kind of a place it was. I found it very rough and rocky and wondered how we had got through in the dark.
    Next morning we started on and found the roads good and had no difficulty after this in finding grass and water. We knew we were getting near the Honey Lake Valley where we expected to find some settlements. I began to wish for the first time that our journey was over and would come to civilization once more. Soon after this we were crossing a low divide when we saw the men that were on the head throwing up their hats and dancing around as if they were crazy. We could hear them shout a house! a house! and sure enough when we got to the top of the hill we could see a house about four miles away. You bet it made us feel good to see a house once more, even the horses and oxen seemed to know for they traveled along without any urging. We got to the house about sundown and found it was a stock ranch. The owner had a large herd of cattle and a great many ponies. As we were all anxious to get fresh meat we asked the man if he would kill a yearling steer and we would pay him well; so he got one and killed it and we had fresh beef for supper. We thought it was the best beef we had ever tasted.
    The next morning we moved on up Susan River. From here we traveled alone with our six wagons as the ox teams had to stop and recruit their oxen. After traveling about fifteen miles that day we camped on a ranch which belonged to a man by the name of Johnson. This man is mentioned in Mark Twain's book called "Roughing It," and went by the name of Honey Lake Johnson. He told us he had just returned from Washoe where they had discovered rich silver mines. He had taken a load of hay there and sold it for $250 per ton; he also sold his oxen and wagon for a big price and had walked back from there, a distance of 150 miles. He said he was going again as soon as possible and advised us to go in the hay business. I think it would have been a good business at that time as there was thousands of acres of good mowing grass along the Susan River. At this ranch we bought milk, butter and potatoes which made quite a change in our living. We would have liked to stop longer here but we were in a hurry to get to our journey's end.
    Next morning our road kept on up the river for about three miles when we passed through a small village called Susanville, which was situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Here we found Colonel Lander camped with his soldiers. From Susanville our road went up a long steep hill to the summit of the mountain and got to the top by noon without any difficulty, so we stopped for dinner and to rest our horses after climbing the hill. Here we saw a silver gray fox which was very valuable if we could have killed it but it got away from us like nearly all the other game we had seen. From here our road was downhill all the time, very good, and found excellent places to camp all the way down. One night we camped on a meadow where there was good grass and water but no wood close by so some of the boys went about half a mile to get some. Here they found a skeleton, part of a man's clothing, a flour sack with flour in and other things. We supposed there had been a murder committed there and when we told of it after getting into the settlement they seemed sure they knew who it was and told of two men starting out together and only one came back and said he had lost the other man in the mountains. They thought he had surely killed him.
    Next morning about nine o'clock we came to the Red Bluff and Yreka road and found a great many freight teams traveling this road in summer. At noon we camped at a place called Well Springs. After dinner we went down a very long, steep hill and could see something at the foot but couldn't tell what it could be. Some of us thought it was a threshing machine while others said it was a circus wagon, but when we met it we found it was a California freight wagon. At that time they used very strong wagons, capable of carrying ten thousand pounds on a rough road. The teams on these wagons were usually ten mules or eight yoke of oxen; the wagon box was about five feet deep. Early next morning we got to Pit River, a tributary of the Sacramento, and crossed it on a toll bridge called Lockhart's bridge. We were told this man Lockhart had killed a Mexican who was working for him and thrown his body into the river, which happened the day before we got there. After we got across the river we climbed a steep hill where we found the roads good. Soon after noon we passed through Fort Creek on Fall River. The houses were low, one-story buildings all around a hollow square, the same as Fort Laramie. We traveled two and a half miles farther and stopped at a place called the New York ranch and had to pay for pasturing our horses, as the man who owned the ranch had fenced in all the grass there was. He had a pasture of three hundred acres of fine meadow land and the fence ran around in the edge of the timber and was made by cutting down trees so that the top of one would fall on the butt of the other. The trees were large enough to make a fence that no stock would go over. There was the finest timber all around here that I had ever seen. As this was the last grass before crossing the Shasta mountains nearly all freight teams stopped overnight. I thought he had used good judgment in taking up this ranch. Next morning when we had hitched up our teams I tied the pony to a fence and thought I would have a talk with the proprietor. I told him I would like to have my horses in his pasture two or three weeks. He said, "Why not put them in?" I told him I couldn't afford to stop there and pay for pasture. "Well," he said, "if you want to work I'll hire you and won't charge anything for pasture." I asked him how much he would give me and he replied he would give me two dollars a day. He asked me if I had a wife? I told him I had and he said he would give me two dollars a day, and my wife twenty dollars a month. I asked him what he wanted her to do? He said all she would have to do would be to cook for him and Tim, the hired man, and myself, and said he didn't expect her to do any washing or taking care of milk, as he did that work himself. So I told him I would stop. I got on my pony and overtook the train about a mile away. I told the boys I had hired out and was going to stop. George Tinker took his things out of the wagon and put them into George Brown's and took his horses and the pony while my wife and I turned our team around and went back. The old man seemed well pleased that we had come back and we spent that day in fixing things around the house. During the day the old man asked me if I had ever done any carpenter work? I told him not very much. He showed me a room he was lining and ceiling with matched boards and said the carpenter had gone away before finishing the job and would like me to try and finish it. He had all kinds of carpenter tools so I told him I thought I could do it, and had no difficulty in finishing the ceiling. I put a mantle over the fireplace and fixed it up as well as I could. I knew I did a rough job but the old man was easily satisfied and thought it was first rate. He next asked me if I thought I could put a picket fence around the house. He said he had had the pickets for some time but no one to build it, so I went at it and finished the job to his satisfaction. This man's name was Rider and he came from Illinois to California in '49 and had mined for a number of years without much success. About three years before this he took up the ranch that he was on; he was making plenty of money at this time. A great many freight teams stopped here every night and would put their oxen in his pasture for which he charged a bit a head besides selling a great deal of barley and baled hay to the mule teams. He also kept twenty-six cows on the ranch and made butter which he sold to the freighters for fifty cents a pound. He had a good spring house for his milk with cool water running among the pans all the time and made excellent butter. He also had a sawmill on the ranch which made considerable money for him. He had a large government contract for lumber for the fort at fifty dollars per thousand. Before I had finished the fence the man who was running the sawmill took sick which made the old man very anxious for he had to get out the contract by a certain time or forfeit considerable money, consequently was very anxious to keep the mill running. The man didn't appear to be very sick I thought but was playing off to keep the mill from running for some reason or other. In the morning he asked me if I had ever run a sawmill? I told him no, but could try, so he told me to go to the mill and run it if I could. I first looked all around the mill to find out how to start it and stop it when I wanted to. I raised the gate and started it and then stopped it again. I wanted to make sure of that in the first place. There was a log standing on the carriage. I was very particular about setting for inch lumber, then started the mill. I sawed through the log and found that the board was four inches thick on the other end, so I backed the log up and set it again for one inch. I thought it must be right this time, so I started the saw, but when it came out about halfway through the log it made a thin wedge of it. I knew then that there must be something wrong but what it was I could not tell. I looked all over and studied to find out what was the matter, then concluded to give it up and started for the house to tell the old man I couldn't run it, but when I got to the bridge that crossed the river below the mill, sat down trying to think what was the matter with it. I did not like to lose my job so went back to the mill and while walking around I happened to take hold of the saw and found it was loose. I knew then what the trouble was, so I got an old ax helve and made some good wedges and drove them on each side of the saw and wedged it as tight as possible, then set the log again and started the saw and it went all right and had no more trouble in running the mill. When I went to dinner the old man asked me if I could make it go. I told him I had sawed some but didn't say anything about the trouble I had. He seemed pleased to have the mill running and told me to keep it going as well as possible. The mill was a poor one; it was made almost entirely of wood, even the crankshaft that ran the saw was made of wood. He had a splendid water power which came from one big spring about five rods from the mill. There was about five feet head of water but the water wheels were small flutter wheels about three and a half feet in diameter, consequently didn't have much power. Whenever I would go to the house the old man asked me how I was getting along. He didn't come down for two days. One morning I saw him coming to the mill and I felt anxious to know what he would think about my work. He first went to the lumber pile and looked it over, then came into the mill and said, "Well, you are getting along first-rate." He said that was the best lumber he had ever had sawed and the most for the time I had been to work. He told me to stop the mill as he wanted to talk with me. We went down under the mill where he showed me some things he wanted to have repaired. After I had fixed these things he wanted to run the mill night and day, and said Tim could run it half the time and I the other half. He wanted me to oversee the business and said he would give me four dollars a day from now on, so I ran the mill from 12 o'clock at noon until 12 at night and Tim the rest of the time.

    This mill was situated at the head of Fall River which was formed by three large springs on the lower end of the ranch. Where the water of the springs came together it made quite a large river. Fall River is a very remarkable stream, being only about ten miles tong and is composed of springs, rapids and falls. The banks are fringed with rose, plum, cherry, honeysuckle, hawthorne and elder, beautiful grasses, mosses and ferns, and all in the midst of a rich forest landscape. Nowhere in the limits of California are the forests of yellow pine so extensive. They cover the mountains and all the lower slopes that border the wide open valleys. There were a great many trout in this river. All around the mill the water was black with them. There were three men catching trout with a seine and shipping them to Sacramento who told me they averaged $4.00 a day. We had plenty of company here with so many teamsters stopping overnight and I got acquainted with some of them. There was one man that came from Milwaukee, Wisconsin whom I had considerable talk with. One night he asked the old man if he thought the woman of the house would fix a three-cornered tear in a pair of new pants he had just got. He said he thought she would and took the pants to the house and asked her. She darned them up nicely so you could hardly see where they had been torn, which took her about ten minutes. The old man asked her how much she charged. She said nothing, she could not think of charging anything for such a small job. He took the pants back and directly brought her a two and a half dollar gold piece. She said she could not think of taking it, but he insisted on it and said the man was well satisfied with the job and she had to take it. I don't know how it was but the old man could not have used us better if we had been his own children. One night an old gentleman by the name of Davis stopped at the ranch and when he found we were from Rochester, asked me if I knew his daughter and told me she was the wife of Peter Campbell, the man that built the Union House in Rochester. I told him I knew her very well, whereupon he said he had not heard from her since he came to California. He would have sat up all night talking about Rochester and the people in that vicinity. He said he would send for her for he thought she would be better off in California. I heard afterwards that she sold the hotel and went there.
    There was a great deal of talk among the settlers about an Indian fight they had about two weeks before we arrived. The Modocs and Pit River Indians every little while would make a raid and kill two or three of the settlers, burn their houses and drive off their stock. They would do this within five miles of the fort. There was one train of emigrants had their stock stolen while I was there. The soldiers would march out to chastise the Indians but it took too long to get ready, for everything had to be done by rule. They would take along a four-mule team to carry their tents and provisions, so before they were ready to start the savages were back in their mountain stronghold where they could not drive a four-mule team. The settlers in consequence decided to do the Indian fighting themselves. They found where the Indians had their rancheria and surprised them in the night and killed a great many of them, and burned their wigwams and I think they never had any more trouble with them. The soldiers did not like this; they said it was not done according to law. Tim would talk about this fight nearly all the time and tell how they killed the "nagers."
    There were plenty of bear in the woods around here and we could see their tracks in the dust of the road every morning. One night a small party of emigrants camped at the upper end of the pasture about a mile from the house and about eleven o'clock they came running to the place, the women and children screaming, and said a bear had walked into their tent when they were in bed. They stayed at the house all night as they were afraid to go back but found in the morning that the bear had not done any damage. I suppose it was as much frightened as they were. We had now been at this place nearly six weeks; it was about the middle of October, and as we intended to go to Oregon where the rest of the train had gone, we thought it was nearly time to be going for we could see the snow on Shasta Butte was getting lower all the time, for every time it rained in the valley it snowed on the mountains and realized if we delayed too long there was danger of getting snowed in on the mountains. I spoke to the old man about it and told him my wife was anxious to go to where her mother was. He said he would like us to stop with him and asked me if we were dissatisfied. I told him we were not but my wife was determined to go. He said he didn't know how he was going to get along without us and offered to rent me the ranch and all that was on it or he would sell me half of it and take his pay when I made it off the place. He also said he would buy new machinery and hire a millwright to put up a new sawmill and would furnish all the money and I could pay him when I made it. I told him I was perfectly satisfied the way I was doing and would not leave him until he got another man to run the mill. He said he didn't want another man if we would stop. He then went down to the fort and got the Captain and his wife to come up to try and persuade my wife to stop. They stayed and visited all the afternoon and used every argument they could think of to induce us to stop but she said she must go to her mother. I found the old man wasn't making any effort to hire another man so I found one for him in an emigrant train that was passing. I found a man who understood running a sawmill much better than I did and told him if he wanted a good job that the old man would hire him to take my place. He went to him and asked him about it. The old man said he wouldn't say anything until he had seen me again. He asked me if I was determined to go? I told him I was but I would come back again in the spring if he wanted me to. He replied that he hoped I would but he was afraid I wouldn't if I got to mining, but if we were determined to go we were welcome to anything that was on the ranch. He filled our wagon with all kinds of provisions and hay and barley for our horses until I told him I couldn't draw any more. We were sorry to leave him and he seemed to feel bad too and said he had been in California since '49 and never had a home till we came. In the morning I hitched up my team, bade goodbye and started. We had to climb a mountain almost from the start and overtook a ten-mule team that was stuck on the hill. One of his mules wouldn't pull, and as we could not get by we had to wait for him. I thought he abused his team unmercifully, for he took a big stone in his hand and knocked the balky mule down three times and thought he would surely kill it but he said that was the only way he could make him pull and he did pull with a vengeance, so he got to the top of the hill without any more trouble. Soon after this our road ran up a canyon where we found a wagon stuck with twenty-four yoke of oxen hitched to it. The reason they couldn't pull it was a turn in the road and every time they tried to go the head teams would pull the wheelers against the rock on one side and they would have to back down and try again. After they had tried three times to get around the point they drove the cattle to one side to let me pass. How they ever got around this point I never knew. After this we found the road better and traveled briskly, as my horses felt good after their long rest. About sundown we got to McCloud River, where we found two ox teams camped so we stayed there. From here we had a splendid view of Shasta Butte, although we were fifteen miles from the base of it. Its peak is over 14,000 feet high, or about three miles, and we had to look nearly straight upward to see the top of it. Next day we traveled about twenty miles, the road rising gradually all the way. The following day our road still continued upward and we reached the summit of the mountain and stopped for dinner at a place called Sisson's ranch. Here we seemed to be on a level with the snow line on the peak which seemed to be close by. In the afternoon we commenced to descend and had to go down for ten miles all the way very steep. We had our wheels locked and at the foot of the mountain the road turned abruptly to the right along its base. Here were some of the largest trees I ever saw and were of the redwood variety. About sundown we got to what was called Hurd's ranch and camped for the night. Here I saw the first Kanaka or Sandwich Islander. He could talk good English, and when I told him I was going to Jacksonville he said that was where he lived and was going there in about two weeks when his time was out. I saw this man afterwards at Jacksonville. Next morning we started along but took the wrong road and got within four miles of Yreka before we found it out. Two men whom we met told us we were on the wrong road for Oregon and showed us where the road ran and said they thought we could drive straight across the prairie until we got to it, and so we did. That evening we crossed Klamath River on a bridge and soon came to a mining camp, the first one we ever saw. We camped for the night near a house in order to get water. After building a fire I went to the house to get some water. The woman of the house asked me if we had crossed the plains that season and replying in the affirmative she told me to tell my wife to come right into the house and stay all night, for she knew what it was to cross the plains. Next day we crossed the summit of the Siskiyou Mountains, finding it quite steep and hard to climb. The summit of this mountain is the state line between California and Oregon. The descent was a very steep grade for ten miles, the mountains being nearly perpendicular with a canyon on one side of it so deep we could not see the bottom. When we had gone down about a mile I looked back and saw the stage coach coming. There were places in the road made wider so that teams could pass one another and I stopped at one of these and held my horses by the head while the stage coach went by. It was lucky I did so, as we had used stay chains on our wagon. I had to make a neck yoke when we left the ranch and used rope in place of iron. I had made the main ring of about eight strands of small rope and found every strand but one broken. It almost made my hair stand on end when I saw it for to think if our wagon tongue had dropped down we would surely have gone over the precipice and I would not now be writing these recollections. We finally got to the bottom and traveled about two miles when we came to a farm house on Bear Creek. I saw the owner and asked him if we could camp there. He said, "Certainly, but you must put your horses in the stable and come into the house and stay." We did so and they used us well. In the morning I wanted to pay for our accommodations but he seemed to take it as an insult. We had plenty of money to pay our way but we didn't appear to be very successful in finding anyone who would take it. While stopping with the old gentleman where we had been working we had cleared about $100 besides buying clothing and other necessaries so we felt quite rich and independent.
    Next day we traveled down Bear Creek, passing through a small village called Ashland. About noon we stopped near another small village called Gasburg, and camped right opposite a house on the outskirts of the village. We did not start a fire but my wife thought she would like some tea so I told her I would go to the house and get some hot water, as she could see through the open door the woman was cooking dinner. I went to the house and asked her if she would let me have a little hot water? She asked me where we had come from. I told her we had crossed the plains. "Well," she said, "you have got to come right into the house and take dinner with us." I told her we could get along very well outdoors, but she insisted upon us eating dinner with them. Here we found we were only seven miles from Jacksonville, which was our destination. After dinner we started on and soon came to where the road branched but we took the wrong road. After we had gone about four miles we met a man with a four-horse team loaded with grain and I asked him if we were on the right road to Jacksonville? He said no, you ought to have taken the left-hand road. I asked him which would be the best way to go from here. He told us to strike across the prairie to a point of timber that he showed us where we would find the road. This man's name was Chambers, being well acquainted with him afterwards. When we were crossing the prairie we met two men and stopped to talk with them. I could not imagine what nationality they were. They had a long braid of hair down their back and seemed to be dressed queerly. I asked them which was the way to Jacksonville? They said, "Heap sabe Glacksonville, Glacksonville, tlee miles, no more." I told my wife they were queerest Dutchmen I ever saw. She said she did believe they were Dutch but did not know what they were.

    We soon found the road and arrived at Jacksonville and learned that Mrs. Brown was living with her brother, Mr. Thompson, about a mile up the creek, but they did not think we could get there with our wagon. I started up the creek and found a good road for about one-half a mile where it came to an end. I thought to myself we had traveled a long way to end our journey in such a place as this for I think there is not anything that looks worse than one of these mining creeks with the ground all torn up and full of prospect holes. I walked ahead a little ways to see if there was any chance of getting further and came to the conclusion that by careful driving I could get to the house, which we reached all right. They were very glad to see us and I found that Geo. Brown had built a small house near his uncle's and was working in a butcher shop in town. I staked my horses on the hill back of their house but the grass was very poor so I told my wife that I would have to take them to Henry Brown's ranch on Butte Creek which was twenty-four miles away, as there was no chance for them to live on these hills. Next day about noon I started for Butte Creek and arrived there sometime after dark. I was given a glad welcome. Henry said that I had better turn my horses out and he thought they would find his. He wanted to know all about my stop in California and was pleased to hear that we had done so well. In the morning I went to look for my horses; I found Henry's and one of mine, but could not see the other anywhere so I went back to the house. Henry caught two horses and we rode all around but could not find him so he said he would keep a lookout for him. I thought the animal would turn up in a day or two but he never found him. I supposed he had died somewhere, but the next summer in July a man came to me when I was mining and asked me what I would take for the chance of finding the horse that I had lost. I told him $100. He said here's your money and gave me five twenty-dollar gold pieces. He had found the horse along in the mountains and it was as fat as a seal. I was anxious to get back to Jacksonville that day and as Richard Brown, a brother to Henry, was going on horseback he proposed we should ride and tie and told me how it was done. He said I was to start and walk as fast as I could and he would follow with the horse and after he overtook me rode about two miles ahead then tied the horse to a tree and started on foot as fast as he could walk; when I got to the horse I got on him and rode till I got about two miles beyond where he was. It is surprising how fast two men can travel in this way with one horse, for we arrived in Jacksonville long before sundown.
    I learned that George Tinker had done some business, for he had traded one of his horses for a very nice little mare and $100 to boot. The horse he traded was just a mere skeleton but had speed. The animal was taken to California and put on the race track. He had also traded our pony for a quartz lode; I thought he had been beat out of the pony but it was all right for we had no use for it now.
    When on our way back from Butte Creek we saw George Tinker and Abe Jones who were on the ranch of Mr. Chambers, the man we had met when on our way to Jacksonville. They said it was a very good place. Their work was to haul one load of rails per day from the mountains to the ranch. When we got back to Mr. Thompson I asked him if he knew of any house that we could move into. He said he would like to hire me, as he had taken up a ranch about nine miles away on Kanes Creek and would like to have me split rails for him. He agreed to board my wife and I and give me $40 per month. I said I would like to look around one day and then I would go to work for him. Next day I took a walk up the creek to see how the miners dug their gold. I talked with a good many of them and no doubt asked a great many questions. I asked one old man who was working by himself if he knew of any good place to dig for gold. "Well," he said, "I have been looking for that ever since '49 and I haven't found it yet." Then I returned to the house and in the afternoon went to see the town. Next morning we packed our blankets, provisions and cooking utensils on a pony and started for the ranch. I led the pony while Mr. Thompson walked behind and drove. We hadn't gone a quarter of a mile from the house when going down a hill the tinware began to rattle and the pony commenced to buck and kick until he shook everything loose; he bit the coffee pot and knocked the bottom out so we had to turn back and load him again. We got another coffee pot and managed to tie the tinware so it would not rattle so we had no more trouble. We got to Kanes Creek before night and found a good cabin on the ranch which was occupied by three prospectors but it was large enough for us all so we unloaded our pony and turned him out with a trail rope. After supper we went to see if we could find any good timber and found a nice grove of young trees which we thought would do very well so we went back to the house as it was nearly night. On getting up in the morning found it was raining. Mr. Thompson said he would go and look for the pony and if it stopped raining I could go to work but it continued to rain hard all day. As Mr. Thompson did not come back I felt a little anxious and thought he must have got lost. It continued to rain all night and the next day. In the afternoon I went back to see what had become of him and found him to work on his mining ditches. He said he had not found the pony but the following spring he was found dead, the trail rope having caught in the bushes and he no doubt starved.
    Mr. Thompson said we had better give up our rail-splitting for the present as he wanted me to help him repair the ditches. The water in these ditches was taken from the head of the creek and ran along the side of the mountain with just grade enough for the water to run good. They got higher on the mountainside as they went down. There were two of these ditches, one above the other, owned by Mr. Thompson and Henry Brown. They were good property, as they sold the water to the miners. Our hardest work in fixing these ditches was to carry sluice-boxes up the side of the steep mountain to the ditch. These boxes were made of three twelve-foot boards, ten inches wide, and it was very hard work to shoulder one and climb the mountain with it. After we had got the ditches repaired and the weather fair again he had no more use for me so we settled up and I quit. Our next thing was to get a house and move into it. One of the miners I had got acquainted with said I could have his cabin if it would suit and he would not charge any rent. I went to see the cabin and I thought it would do very well for a while. It was in a good location, very picturesque, quite comfortable and just across the creek from Thompson's. When we had got settled in our new home Richard Brown wanted me to work for him. He was a plasterer by trade and was at work on a large building in town. I told him I didn't know anything about the business, but he said it was easy and I could soon learn. Next day I went to work. He showed me the mortar and said, all I had to do was to stir up the mortar  and take it upstairs in a hod and he would do the work, so I commenced. I carried mortar as fast as I could up a stairway but before I got back down the stairs he would holler "More mort." I stood it quite a while. I got to the bottom of the stairs when he shouted "More mort." I turned back and said, "See here, you holler that just once more and you will have to carry this hod yourself." He kept still for quite a while, then he hollered "More mort" again. I threw down the hod and went home.
    I think there is no doubt that Jacksonville at this time was the liveliest town on the Pacific Coast, the chief cause being the finding a very rich quartz lode by a young Irish emigrant by the name of Jimmy. He was working for a farmer near Rogue River and found it while looking for the cows. He was crossing the top of a hill when he saw something shine in the grass but didn't know what it was. Picking up some of it he brought it to the farmer who pronounced it gold. The news soon reached town and the gamblers hearing of it first all rushed there as soon as possible and taking out claims. They formed a company and by their laws allowed Jimmy only one share as discoverer, the farmer one share, and a teamster by the name of Jack Long one share, while the rest was retained by the gamblers who named it the Ish lode. They took out $170,000 on the surface with very little digging. I don't know how many there were in the company but theirs amounted to about $15,000 apiece. The news of this find attracted a great many gamblers from California, consequently the town was full of them and games were run at full blast night and day without intermission. I remember going into the El Dorado saloon one night. There were thousands of dollars of gold coin stacked up on the tables and all kinds of games were in progress including a faro bank, two Spanish monte games and four poker games all running at high pressure. At one four-handed poker game they had nothing smaller than twenty-dollar gold pieces on the table and at every deal of the cards from forty up to a thousand dollars would change hands and so it went on. They would often bet a thousand dollars on the turn of a card. The saloons and restaurants were wide open all the time and we could hear the clink of the coins as we walked along the street. The teamster, Jack Long, acted as if he thought he had more money than he could spend, no matter how reckless he spent it. The first thing he did was to get a gold watch chain made, five feet long with links as large as those of a log chain and was said to be worth over a thousand dollars by weight. He would also manage to gamble away a thousand dollars nearly every night and it didn't take long to lose all his money and the watch chain too. The last time I saw him I happened to go into a saloon where he was betting at Spanish monte dealt by a gambler named King. He was very lucky that night and won nearly every bet. As he won the money he put it into his hat without counting. I stood and watched him until he had won his hat full of all kinds of coin. He asked the gambler what was the limit and was told he could bet all he wanted to. "Well, if the layout suits me I will bet all of it and if I lose it, will not have a dollar in the world, and if I win, shall quit gambling forever and leave the country." The gambler put out a king and a queen for the layout. Long said he would bet the whole hatful on the king. The gambler commenced to pull the cards one at a time until the king came first, so he won the bet and I think he left the country for I never saw him again. I think the only one of the company that did not gamble was Jimmy, for he took care of his money and was well off.
    The day I quit my job carrying hod thought I would go prospecting so I borrowed an old pick and shovel of a miner and took a milk pan and went over the hills back of the cabin. I soon found a place where some miners had worked out a small gulch. I dug out a panful of dirt under the side of the bank and carried it some distance to where there was water and panned it out. I got a very small quantity of gold but thought it wasn't worth saving and threw it away and went back and got another panful. I got about the same and threw it away again but when I had had more experience found I had got a very good prospect for I had got about a bit to the pan. I left the place thinking it was no good, prospected around in several other places but had no success. Some time afterwards three old miners were prospecting and saw the place where I had been and in digging about three feet from where I was they found a piece of gold worth $300. They followed the lead and found good pay all the time. I felt anxious to get to mining. Richard Brown had been trying for some time to sell me half interest in a claim on the Shively Gulch which he had traded an old rifle for and asked me thirty dollars for a half interest. I went to see it and thought it was no good as I thought it had been worked out. I told him that I didn't think the claim was worth a dollar; then he offered to take ten dollars for it. "Well," I said, "I didn't think the claim is worth anything but will give you ten dollars to stop bothering me about it." When George Tinker found that I had bought half of a claim he paid him thirty dollars for the other half and it proved to be a good investment for both of us. So we bought a pick and shovel and borrowed a rocker from one of the miners and went up to our claim to prospect. We would dig up the dirt and put it in the rocker and wash it out, getting gold out of every pan of dirt, so we worked on for three hours. When we went back to the house we found we had six dollars so we went every day and would work out between five and six dollars. This was a slow way of mining and we knew we could do much better when we could get plenty of water after the winter rains set in.

    I now came to the greatest sorrow of my life, being the sudden death of my wife. Up to this time she had been remarkably healthy; I had never heard her complain of being sick in any manner and nearly everyone who saw her said she was the healthiest-looking girl they had ever seen. I had got up as usual one morning at daybreak and lit the fire and at the time she usually got up to get breakfast she said she did not feel just right and told me what to do, then I was to call her when I had done what she told me. I went to do so but found her in convulsions and thought she was surely dying. I spoke to her but she did not notice me and after a while seemed to be exhausted and breathed very heavy. I then ran to tell her mother to come as quickly as possible for I thought Annie was dying. I ran back and found her in convulsions again and as soon as her mother and George Brown's wife came we sent for a doctor. The doctor came but I could see he thought there was no hope for her; then we sent for another but all they could do did not seem to help for she continued in convulsions until she got too weak and finally death came as a relief at about eleven o'clock in the night without her ever once regaining consciousness. This was a terrible blow for me. I could not seem to realize at first that she was dead. It seemed hard that she should die so young when everything appeared so bright and prosperous and after having braved the dangers and privations of our journey across the plains without a murmur. All the consolation we had was knowing we had done all we could for her. I sometimes think she must have had some kind of a presentiment of this when we left our place in Pit River Valley but she never said anything about it. It is said that time heals all things and I think it is good that it does or we should have a very sorrowful world.
    George Tinker and I now decided to build a log cabin on our claim in the gulch and do our own cooking as we thought it would be cheaper than boarding, but if ever two men undertook to do their own cooking and knew as little about it as we did I have never heard of them. When we had built the cabin we bought a supply of provisions and moved in. For a while we bought our bread of the baker but found it rather inconvenient so we got a sack of flour, intending to make our own bread. One afternoon as George had gone to town I thought I would surprise him by having some nice homemade bread for supper so I filled a milk pan half full of flour and poured in water until it was the proper consistency of dough but when I got it mixed I couldn't get the dough off my hands. I would pull it off one hand and it would all stick to the other and I thought I had never seen anything like it; I worked and pulled on that dough till it made me sweat but I could not get rid of it. In my desperation I happened to think there was an old miner working in the next claim and I thought he ought to know how to get it off so I went to him with the dough sticking on my hands and asked him if he knew how I could get it off. He told me to take a little dry flour and rub it on my hands and it would come off, so I went back and did as he said and got rid of it without any trouble. I baked my loaf in the bake kettle, and when George got back and we had got supper ready I brought out my loaf of bread and laid it on the table. George took a knife and cut off a slice and said, "Why, what kind of bread is this? It is as heavy as lead." He didn't think I had baked it enough and sure it was the worst bread I had ever seen. He said he knew he could make better bread than that so I told him he had better try. He mixed up the flour the same as I did but had the advantage of me for I told him how to get the dough off his hands. He baked the loaf more than I did and said he knew that would be good bread, so we had it for breakfast the next morning. When we tried to cut it we found we could not make an impression with our knives so we laid it on the door sill and took the ax to it but we couldn't eat it for it was as hard as granite. I told him I would go to town and buy some baker's bread that we could eat. On my way to town I called at Mrs. Brown's. She asked me how we were getting along with our cooking? I told her very well with the exception of making bread; somehow or other we couldn't make bread fit to eat. She asked me how we made it? I told her we mixed flour and water together and baked it like other people. "Why," said she, "didn't you put yeast in it?" A light dawned on my mind immediately and I recollected I had heard my mother talk about yeast. I asked her where we could get it? She gave me a small pail and told me to call at the brewery and buy a quart of yeast, so I went to town and bought some bread and did not forget the yeast. When I got back I told George I had found out why our bread was no good. I thought I would try again and poured my yeast into the pan and mixed it with flour until it was about right for dough; then I baked it. It rose beautifully but when we came to eat it found it very bitter and smelt horribly. Then I went right down to Mrs. Brown's and told her that our bread baking was still a failure for I thought the yeast I got was rotten. She asked me how much of it I used for one loaf? "Why, a quart, of course." She said it was no wonder it was bitter, that three or four tablespoonfuls was enough for one loaf. So we tried once be more and got good bread at last. I tell this to show how helpless the lords of creation are sometimes when left to their own resources.
    We had now got our claim all ready for work and it had commenced to rain but for the first week we had to work nights as we could not take the water from the creek in the daytime as the miners in the main creek had the first right to it. Our manner of working was called ground sluicing. We would dig under the bank until it caved off; then we turned the water over it and washed it down the gulch through our sluices. As we had plenty of fall we could wash down large quantities of dirt during the night.
    Mr. Thompson was working the next claim above ours and had three men besides himself, one of whom was John Smith who crossed the plains with us. As he was a green hand he was put to work in the tail race at the lower end of the claim. He had to break up the lumps of clay as they were washed down by the water and was stationed near a high bank. About eleven o'clock we heard the bank fall and saw his light had gone out and ran up to see where he was. Mr. Thompson's men got there the same time and we found he was covered up so we started to dig to find him. We didn't dare to use our picks for fear we would hurt him. It took some time to dig down to him. He appeared to be dead, his face being very white and we could not see that he breathed. We then started to carry him to the cabin in front of which we had to climb a stairway cut in the bank and found it pretty hard to get him up. We had got him nearly to the top when I gave an extra push on his leg. He said, "Oh, William, you are hurting my leg." We came very near letting him fall for we all thought he was dead. A doctor was sent for and as soon as he examined him said his hip was strained and he would soon get well again, but he never got over being lame. About a year afterwards we found his hip was out of joint. This proved a good lesson to the rest of us and made us careful.
    It rained nearly all the time and when it rains in Oregon it makes a business of it. Commencing to rain apparently from a clear sky it will pour down for three or four days and nights at a time. We did not stop work for the rain as this was the miners' harvest time. We could now get water in the day time which made it much better working. Occasionally we could see gold as we washed the dirt down and generally picked up from twelve to fourteen dollars every day. After we had ground sluiced our claim as wide as we thought it would pay we had to clean up the bedrock. Our sluice boxes were set at the lower end of the claim and we dug up the bedrock from four to six inches deep and shoveled it into the sluices. We found the gold mostly in the crevices of the rock. Some days while cleaning up the rock we would get as much as two hundred dollars. It took us until spring to work out our claim. After we thought we had worked all that would pay I sold my share of the claim for ten dollars to my friend Thomas White of Honey Creek. George Tinker sold his to a man by the name of Buzzell and they took out two hundred dollars the first week. After figuring up we found our claim had averaged us twenty dollars per day each. The weather now was splendid and the mountains and valleys looked beautiful in their covering of green. But it is useless for me to try to describe the climate or the country as my friend Joshua Spriggs has done it much better than I could if I tried. I might speak of my successes and failures in my mining experience or I might tell of the manners or customs of the miners or about the Indians and Chinamen but no doubt it would be tedious to my readers so I think I will bring my rambling reminiscences to a close now by telling what I know of the members of our party who crossed the plains together.
    Mrs. Brown died in '68. I think she was as good a woman if not the best that I ever knew. When Harry Buckingham got to Jacksonville he wrote to his parents in London, England, and after a while he got a letter from them which he showed to me. It stated that they had bought him off from the army so he need not fear being arrested for deserting. They also sent him a check for $500 to pay his way home, so he returned to his native country and I have not heard of him since. James Beamsley died in '64. He seemed to have had the most misfortunes of anyone in the party. After having his gun broken, himself knocked senseless and nearly scalped by a grizzly bear he was about to be married, but was seized by an attack of diphtheria, from the effects of which he died. Harry Brown died a few years ago worth about $40,000. His wife and family still live on the ranch on Butte Creek. John Smith was working in a livery stable the last time I saw him. Abe Jones enlisted as a soldier and was stationed at Fort Walla Walla, and after his time was out he went to Idaho. The last time I heard of him he was a professional gambler. George Brown and wife are still living in Jackson County, keeping a store at a place called Eagle Point. I hear they are doing very well and have an interesting family of ten children. It seems strange to me when I think our little baby is now a woman thirty-seven years old. She always seems to me to be a little girl five years old. James Cocroft died some time ago and I understand Elizabeth is living with George Brown. George Tinker and William Brown are living in British Columbia near the head of the north fork of the Columbia River. Mr. Brown was three times elected a member of the British Columbia parliament and is one of the leading and most wealthy citizens of that country. Of George's circumstances I am not so conversant but I think is doing well. I will now bid goodbye to my readers. If they have been interested ever so little in these recollections I am satisfied.
William Earnshaw, Across the Plains, clippings from the Waterford Post, Wisconsin, June 5 through September 14, 1897



Last revised March 4, 2026