there except with a pretty good train.  I sat down in camp and turned the matter over in my mind, and talked with Chas. Dallas of Lynn, Iowa, who owned the train.  Bennett had my outfit and gun, while I had his light gun, a small, light tent, a frying pan, a tin cup, one woolen shirt and the clothes on my back.  Having no money to get another outfit, I about concluded to turn back when Dallas said that if I would drive one of his teams through, he would board me, and I could turn my pony in with his loose horses; I thought it over, and finally put my things in the wagon and took the ox whip to go on.  Dallas intended to get provision here, but could not, so we went down to St. Jo, following the river near the bluff.  We camped near town and walked in, finding a small train on the main emigrant road to the west.  My team was one yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows.  I knew how to drive, but had a little trouble with the strange animals till they found I was kind to them, and then they were all right.

This was in a slave state, and here I saw the first negro auction.  One side of the street had a platform such as we build for a political speaker.  The auctioneer mounted this with a black boy about 18 years old, and after he had told all his good qualities and had the boy stand up bold and straight, he called for bids, and they started him at $500.  He rattled away as if he were selling a steer, and when Mr. Rubideaux, the founder of St. Jo bid $800, he went no higher and the boy was sold.  With my New England notions it made quite an impression on me.

Here Dallas got his supplies, and when the flour and bacon was loaded up the ferryman wanted $50 to take the train across.  This Dallas thought too high and went back up the river a day’s drive, where he got across for $30.  From this crossing we went across the country without much of a road till we struck the road from St. Jo, and were soon on the Platte bottom.

We found some fine strawberries at one of the camps across the country.  We found some hills, but now the country was all one vast prairie, not a tree in sight till we reached the Platte, there some cottonwood and willow.  At the first camp on the Platte I rolled up in my blanket under the wagon and thought more than I slept, but I was in for it and no other way but to go on.  I had heard that there were two forts, new Ft.  Kearny and Ft.  Laramie, on the south side of the river, which we must pass before we reached the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, and beyond there there would be no place to buy medicine or food.  Our little train of five wagons, ten men, one woman and three children would not be a formidable force against the Indians if they were disposed to molest us, and it looked to me very hazardous, and that a larger train would be more safe, for Government troops were seldom molested on their marches.