d there are said to be yet 20 behind.
To-morrow we cross the river, and, by reckoning, will be over 200
miles from Fort Laramie, where we intend to stop and repair our
wagon wheels. They are nearly all loose, and I am afraid we will
have to stop sooner, if there can be found wood suitable to heat the
tires. There is no wood here, and our women and children are out now
gathering "buffalo chips" to burn, in order to do the cooking. These
chips burn well.

MRS. GEORGE DONNER.

On the eighteenth of June, Captain Russell, who had been stricken with
bilious fever, resigned his office of leader. My father and other
subordinate officers also resigned their positions. The assembly
tendered the retiring officials a vote of thanks for faithful service;
and by common consent, ex-Governor Boggs moved at the head of the train
and gave it his name.

[Illustration: FORT LARAMIE AS IT APPEARED WHEN VISITED BY THE DONNER
PARTY]

[Illustration: CHIMNEY ROCK]

We had expected to push on to Fort Laramie without stopping elsewhere,
but when we reached Fort Bernard, a small fur-trading post ten miles
east of Fort Laramie, we learned that the Sioux Indians were gathering
on Laramie Plain, preparing for war with the Crows, and their allies,
the Snakes; also that the emigrants already encamped there found
pasturage very short. Consequently, our train halted at this more
advantageous point, where our cattle could be sent in charge of herders
to browse along the Platte River, and where the necessary materials
could be obtained to repair the great damage which had been done to our
wagon wheels by the intense heat of the preceding weeks.

Meanwhile, Messrs. Russell and Bryant, with six young bachelor friends,
found an opportunity to finish their journey with pack animals. They
exchanged with traders from New Mexico their wagons and teams for the
requisite number of saddle-horses, mules, pack-saddles, and other
equipment, which would enable them to reach California a month earlier
than by wagon route.

Both parties broke camp at the same hour on the last day of June, they
taking the bridle trail to the right, and we turning to the left across
the ridge to Fort Laramie.

Not an emigrant tent was to be seen as we approached the fort, but
bands of horses were grazing on the plain, and Indians smeared with
war-paint, and armed with hunting knives, tomahawks, bows and arrows,
were moving about excitedly. They did