She answered, “All right, Mr. Bridger, I will get up before day and get to cooking, so I shall be sure and have enough for you at least.”

Jim and I now went to the tent of the people who had invited us first, as had been our custom all through the journey.  These were elderly people who had one son and one daughter, both grown to man and womanhood.  While we were at supper the older woman asked how much bread we could carry with us.  Jim said we would like enough to last us three or four days, and he thought three loaves like the ones on the spread would be enough.

She said, “Why, Mr. Bridger, everybody is making bread, and cooking meat for you to take with you.”

Jim said, “Why, my good woman, we can kill all the meat we want as we need it, and three loaves of bread is all we can carry on our horses with our other stuff.”

The first thing in the morning the girls we had promised to eat breakfast with were after us to come to their tent, and we found a fine meal waiting for us.

Jim said, “Now ladies, you know that in going back, Will and I have to go over a very dangerous road, and we won’t have time to cook in the next three or four days, so we calculate to eat enough to last us till we get to the Sink of the Humboldt, and that will take us three or four days, so in our accepting your invitation to take our last breakfast on this trip with you we may make you twice glad.”

The elder woman smiled and told the girls they had better be frying some more meat.  Jim looked around the spread and told the girls he guessed they had better wait till we had eaten what was before u, before they cooked more, and there certainly was enough food before us for as many more as sat around it, and although it was spread on a cloth laid on the ground, I have never partaken of a breakfast served on the finest table that tasted as good as that one did that morning.

We had almost finished eating when the elder lady said, “Girls, pass that cake around.”

Jim said, “Is there cake too?  I’m not used to eating cake, only on Sunday mornings, and this is Saturday.”

I told the girls that Jim hadn’t seen any cake since we left Fort Kerney, and that if she wanted any left for themselves they had better not pass the plate.  She answered, “There is aplenty, and I have a great big cake for you to take to eat on the road.”

Jim said, “That won’t do at all, for Will will want to stay in camp all the time and eat cake until it is all gone.”

As soon as breakfast was over, we caught our horses and began packing.  We each had two saddle horses, and we had one pack horse between us.  When we were leading up our horses, Jim said, “This is the worst job of all, for all these women have a lot of grub cooked for us to take along, and plagued take it, we have no room on the pack horses to put it.  What shall we do?”

I said, “We will take what we can pack, Jim, and we can thank the ladies for their kindness, and tell them we are sorry we can’t take all they would give us, and then we can mount and be off.”