In a few days we were on the top of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  We told the emigrants that they were entirely out of danger and did not need our services any longer, so we would not put them to any more expense by going further with them.  As this was Saturday evening the emigrants proposed going into camp until Monday morning and that Jim and I should stay and visit with them.  We accepted the invitation, and Sunday was passed in pleasant converse with these most agreeable people, and I will say here that of all the emigrants I ever piloted across the plains none ever exceeded these men and women in politeness and good nature, not only to Jim and me, but to each other, for through all that long and trying journey there was no unkindness shown by any of them, and if we would have accepted all the provisions they offered us it would have taken a pack train to have carried it through.  Every lady in the train tried to get up some little extra bite for us to eat on the way back.  The reader may imagine our surprise when Monday morning came and we saw the amount of stuff they brought to us.  Jim said, “Why ladies we haven’t any wagon to haul this stuff, and we have only one pack horse and he can just pack our blankets and a little more.  Besides, we won’t have time to eat these goodies on the road.  Supposing the Indians get after us?  We would have to drop them and the red skins would get it all.”

We now packed up and were ready to put out.  We mounted our horses, bid them “good bye” and were off.

Nothing of interest occurred until we got near Green river.  Here we met Jim Beckwith and Bob Simson.  Jim Bridger and I had just gone into camp when they rode up.  After they had shaken hands with us Jim Beckwith said, “Boys, you are just the parties we are looking for.”

Bridger asked Beckwith what he had been doing and where he had been since we parted at Bent’s Fort last spring.  Beckwith replied that he had been with a train of emigrants just now who were on the way to California, and they had camped over on Black’s Fort.  The cholera had broken out among them soon after they crossed the Platte River, and from then up to yesterday they had buried more or less every day.  There had been no new cases since yesterday, and they were laying over to let the people rest and get their strength, and they expected to start out tomorrow morning, and turning to me Beckwith said, “Will, I want you to go with us for there is another train of emigrants over on the Salt Lake route.”

At this time there were two routes between the Green river and the Humboldt; one by the way of Salt Lake and the other by Lander’s Cut off.  Beckwith said, “Those emigrants going by the Salt Lake route have no guide, and I am afraid when they strike the Humboldt they will all be massacred, for they will be right in the heart of the Pi-Ute country, and you know this tribe is on the war path, and I want you to go on and overtake them and see them safely through, or else stay with this train and I will go myself and take care of them.  We want the two trains to meet at the mouth of Lone Canyon, and then we will go up Long Canyon to Honey lake and then cross the Sierra Nevada.”