and we are just about worn but, and we are
hungry enough to eat anything, at least I am."

As it happened, Jim Bridger was standing near me when the man was
talking. The man turned and said to him, "Mr. Bridger, I hope all the
people of this train will listen to your advice from this night until we
reach the end of our journey. If we four men had done as you told us to
do, we would not have suffered what we have today, and the nineteen, who
I have no doubt have been scalped by the savages, would have been alive
and well tonight. There is no one to blame but ourselves. You warned us,
but we thought we knew more than you did, and the dreadful fate that
overtook the most of the company shows how little we knew what we were
doing in putting our judgment in opposition to men whose lives have been
spent in learning the crafty nature of the Red-men."

Jim answered, "I always know what I am saying when I give advice, and I
knew what would be liable to happen to you if you left the protection of
the train. This is the third case of this kind which has happened since
Will and I have been piloting emigrants across the plains to California,
and I hope it will be the last."

There was but little sleep in camp that night. Out of the nineteen men
that were killed, twelve of them were the heads of families, and the
cries of the widows and orphaned children were very distressing for Jim
and me to hear, although we were blameless. The next morning just after
breakfast the committee of five men came to Jim and me and said they
wanted to have a private talk with us.

Jim said, "All right," and we all went outside the corral. When we were
alone by ourselves, one of them said, "I want to have your opinion with
regard to hunting for the bodies of the men who are lost. Do you think
it possible to find their bodies if they were killed?"

Jim said, "No, I do not. In the first place, we do not know where to
look. In the second place, the Indians may have carried them fifty or
seventy-five miles from where they killed them. In the third place, we
do not know where the Indian village is or in what direction to look for
it, and if we should find the Indian camp, they may be so strong that we
would not dare to attack them, so you will see at once how useless it
would be for us to attempt to do anything in regard to finding their
bodies."

One of the committee said, "Well, so you propose to pull out and go on?"

Jim said, "Yes, that is what I