Before leaving Bennett’s I had my gun altered over to a pill lock and secured ammunition to last for two years.  I had tanned some nice buckskin and had a good outfit of clothes made of it, or rather cut and made it myself.  Where I crossed the Bad Axe was a the battle ground where Gen. Dodge fought the Winnebago Indians.  At Prairie du Chien I found a letter from Mr. Bennett, saying that the grass was so backward he would not start up for two or three weeks, and I had better come back and start with them; but as the letter bore no date I could only guess at the exact time.  I had intended to strike directly west from here to Council Bluffs and meet them there, but now thought perhaps I had better go back to Mineral Point and start out with them there, or follow on rapidly after them if by any chance they had already started.

On my way back I found the Kickapoo river too high to ford, so I pulled some basswood bark and made a raft of a couple of logs, on which to carry my gun and blanket; starting the pony across I followed after.  He swam across quickly, but did not seem to like it on the other side, so before I got across, back he came again, not paying the least attention to my scolding.  I went back with the raft, which drifted a good way down stream, and caught the rascal and started him over again, but when I got half way across he jumped and played the same joke on me again.  I began to think of the old puzzle of the story of the man with the fox, the goose and a peck of corn, but I solved it by making a basswood rope to which I tied a stone and threw across, then sending the pony over with the other end.  He staid this time, and after three days of swimming streams and pretty hard travel reached Mineral Point, to find Bennett had been gone two weeks and had taken my outfit with him as we first planned.

I was a little troubled, but set out light loaded for Dubuque, crossed the river there and then alone across Iowa, over wet and muddy roads, till I fell in with some wagons west of the Desmoines River.  They were from Milwaukee, owned by a Mr. Blodgett, and I camped with them a few nights, till we got to the Missouri River.

I rushed ahead the last day or two and got there before them.  There were a few California wagons here, and some campers, so I put my pony out to grass and looked around.  I waded across the low bottom to a strip of dry land next to the river, where there was a post office, store, and a few cabins.  I looked first for a letter, but there was none.  Then I began to look over the cards in the trading places and saloons, and read the names written on the logs of the houses, and everywhere I thought there might be a trace of the friends I sought.  No one had seen or knew them.  After looking half a day I waded back again to the pony—­pretty blue.  I thought first I would go back and wait another year, but there was a small train near where I left the pony, and it was not considered very safe to go beyond