y 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."

Jim said, "That sounds easy."

When we were packing, sure enough, every one of the elder women and some
of the girls brought something for us to take with us to eat. Jim told
them that we were a thousand times obliged to them all, but we could not
take anything but a few loaves of bread, and then, as was usual, in his
joking way he said with a glance at me, "I know, Will feels bad to leave
that cake, and he will dream of seeing cakes for a week, but I can't
indulge him this time."

When Jim had done speaking, one of the girls, that we had taken
breakfast with handed him a small sack, and told him not to open it
until we camped that night. At this moment Mr. Tullock, came to us and
said, "Here, my friends, is a recommendation, and I think every grown
person in the train has signed their name to both of them, and all the
company have asked me to say a few words for them. If either or both of
you ever come to California, we want you to find some of us and make
your home with us as long as you wish, for you will always find a warm
welcome with any of this company."

I had been acquainted with Jim Bridger several years and this was the
first time I had ever seen him overcome with feeling. His voice shook so
he could hardly thank the people for their kind words and when it came
to shaking hands and biding them good bye, he almost lost his speech.

But it was over at last and we mounted our horses and left them. For
the first ten miles I don't think Jim spoke ten words. Finally he said,
"Well they were a good crowd of people, weren't they Will? If I ever go
to California and can find any of them, I mean to stay all night with
them, for it would be like visiting brother or sister."

We now began to calculate where we should camp that night. I said,
"Let's make a dry camp tonight, we can fill our canteen,