e had just got our horses staked out
when we heard whips snapping and people's voices shouting.

Jim listened a moment and said, "What in thunder does that mean?"

I answered, "I think it is an emigrant train coming." Jim said, "By
jove if that is so, we will have to move from here and stake our horses
somewhere else, for no doubt they will want to camp right here, and if
there is much of a train, they will take all the room in this little
valley."

In a few minutes they hove in sight. Jim said, "Now, let's get to one
side and see if they have any system about their camping, and then we
will know whether it is worth while for us to apply for a job or not."

They did not seem to know that they were near a river by the way they
acted. Some of them would leave their wagons and run down to the stream
and run back again and talk with the others. Finally they discovered Jim
and me, and about twenty of the men came to where we were sitting. We
had started a fire and were waiting for it to get hot enough to cook our
meat for our supper, and it was certainly very amusing to watch their
faces. They looked at us as if they thought us wild men. We learned
afterwards that they had never seen anyone dressed in Buck Skin before.

After staring at us a while, one of them, an old man, said, "Where in
creation are you two men from?"

Jim answered, "We have just come from Sacramento Valley, California."

And did you come all the way alone?

Jim answered, "Yes sir, we did."

"Did you see any Indians?" he inquired.

Jim said, "Yes, about a thousand, I think."

"Did they try to kill you?"

"Oh, no," Jim said. "They were asleep when we saw them."

"Why, they told us back at Fort Kerney that the Indians never slept day
or night," the old man said.

Jim answered that they slept a little at night sometimes, and that was
the time we took to travel. We had traveled nearly all the way from
California to this place after night, and in some places where we
traveled over, the Indians were as thick as jack rabbits.

One of the men then inquired when we went to California.

Jim answered, "We left Fort Kerney about eight weeks ago and piloted
the biggest train of emigrants across the plains that has ever gone to
California, and we did not lose a person or a head of stock, but we got
a good many Indian scalps on the way."

One of the men then said, "Ain't you Jim Bridger and Will Drannan that
the commander at the Fort told us about?"