tion, I find the following entries:

June 14. Passed seven new-made graves.
June 16. Passed eleven new graves.
June 17. Passed six new graves.
June 18. We have passed twenty-one new graves today.
June 19. Passed thirteen graves today.
June 20. Passed ten graves.
June 21. No report.
June 22. Passed seven graves. If we should go by the camping grounds,
we should see five times as many graves as we do.

This report of Mrs. Adams's, coupled with the facts that a parallel
column from which we have no report was traveling up the south side of
the river, and that the outbreak of cholera had taken place originally
in this column coming from the southeast, fully confirms the estimate of
five thousand deaths on the Plains in 1852. It is probably under rather
than over the actual number.

To the emigrants the fact that all the graves were new-made brought an
added touch of sadness. The graves of previous years had disappeared,
leveled by the storms of wind or rain, by the hoofs of the stock, or
possibly by ravages of the hungry wolf. Many believed that the Indians
had robbed the graves for the clothing on the bodies. Whatever the
cause, all, or nearly all, graves of previous years were lost, and we
knew that the last resting places of those that we might leave behind
would also be lost by the next year.

One of the incidents that made a profound impression upon the minds of
all was the meeting with eleven wagons returning, and not a man left in
the entire train. All the men had died and had been buried on the way,
and the women and children were returning to their homes alone from a
point well up on the Platte, below Fort Laramie. The difficulties of the
return trip were multiplied on account of the throng moving westward.
How those women succeeded in their attempt, or what became of them, we
never knew.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: In an instant each Indian had dropped to the side of his
horse.]

CHAPTER SEVEN

INDIANS AND BUFFALOES ON THE PLAINS

OUR trail led straight across the Indian lands most of the way. The
redmen naturally resented this intrusion into their territory; but they
did not at this time fight against it. Their attitude was rather one of
expecting pay for the privilege of using their land, their grass, and
their game.

As soon as a part of our outfits were landed on the right bank of the
Missouri River, our trouble with the Indians began, not in open
h