alked the matter
over after they left us the night before, and they chose five men to
make arrangements with us. "But as we did not go to bed until nearly
morning, I don't think they are all up yet," he said, smiling.

We went with him and found breakfast waiting for us. After we had
finished, two of the men came to us and said they were two of the five
who had been appointed to do business with us, and that the other three
would meet us at our camp in a few minutes. So Jim and I went back to
our camp, and in a very short time the five men were with us. One of
them asked us how much we would charge to pilot them to California. Jim
said, "How many wagons have you?"

He said, "We have ninety here now, and there will be twenty more here by
noon."

Jim asked, "How many men are there in the company?" They said they did
not know for certain but thought there would be about a hundred and
ninety. Jim said that we would take them across to California for five
dollars a day, which would be two dollars and a half for each of us.
"Providing you will promise to obey our orders in all things pertaining
to the protection of the train and also give us two days to drill the
teamsters and the scouts, but we will have to move on one day from here,
as there is no ground here that is fit to drill on."

One of the committee said, "We will give you an answer in twenty
minutes," and they went back to their camp, which was a hundred yards or
more from ours. Jim and I caught our horses and were saddling them when
the committee came back to us and told us we could consider ourselves
engaged.

I now spoke for the first time, Jim having done all the talking before.
I said, "I want you men to select ten good men who own their horses. I
prefer young men who are good horsemen, for I want them to assist me in
doing scout work."

This seemed to surprise the men. One of them asked, what the young men
would have to do. Jim now spoke up in his joking way and said, "They
will find enough to do before we get to California. For example I will
show you what Will and his scouts have done on our last trip across." At
the same time he was untying the sack that held the Indian scalps we had
taken on our last trip to California. When he emptied the sack it
was amusing to us to see their faces. Their first expression was of
surprise, and the next was of horror. Jim took up one of the scalps and
shook it out and said, "Taking these is one of the things you you