On hearing this remark Jim said, “You are the most lucky outfit I ever saw.  Any other tribe of Indians this side of the Rocky Mountains would not have left one of you to have told the tale, and it is just such darned fools as that man that stir up the Indians, to do so much deviltry.”

Until this time there had been but a few of the emigrants near us.  We were both dressed in buck-skin, and they did not know what to make of us.  The young girls and some of the young men were very shy.  They had never seen anyone dressed in buck-skin before.  An elderly woman came to us and said, “Ain’t you two men what they call mountaineers?” Jim answered, “Yes, marm, I reckon, we are.”

She replied, “Well, if you are, my old man wants you to come and eat supper with we’ns.”

Jim turned to me and laughed.  “Shall we go and eat with them, Willie?” he asked.  I answered, “Yes, let’s get acquainted with everybody.”

We went with the old lady to their tent, which was but a few steps from where we stood.  When she had presented us to her old man as she called him, she said to him, “Jim, I know these men can tell you what to do.”  He shook hands with us, saying, “I don’t know what in the world we are going to do.  I believe the Indians will kill us all if we try to go any further, and I know they will if we go back.”

By this time there was quite a crowd around us.

I said to Jim, “Why don’t you tell the people, what we can do for them?” Jim then said, “why, dog gorn it, this boy and I can take you all through to California and not be troubled with the Indians if there is no more durned fools among you to be a-shooting squaws.  But you will have to do just as we tell you to do.”  And looking over the ground he asked, “Who is your captain?  I want to see him.”

The old man said, “Want to see our Capt’n?  We hain’t got any capt’n, got no use for one.”  Jim then asked, “Who puts out your guards around the camp at night?”

“Guards?  Didn’t know we had to have any.”

Jim looked the astonishment he felt as he said, “Why, dad-blame-it man, you won’t get a hundred miles from here before all of you will be killed.”

At that moment one of the men said, “Who is this coming?”

We all looked in the direction he was, and we saw it was Gen. Kerney.  When he rode up to us Bridger said, “Gen., what do you think?  These people have no captain and have no one to guard the camp at night.”

The Gen. answered, “Is that possible?  How in the name of god have they got here without being massacred?” And then, addressing the men that stood near he said, “Gentlemen, you had better make some arrangement with my friends here to pilot you across to California; for I assure you that if these men go with you and you follow their directions, you will reach your journey’s end in safety.”

Just then the Gen. looked down the road, and he said, “Look there!”