combine into larger bands for mutual aid and protection.
Such recognized meeting-points were therefore generally in a state of
congestion. Thousands of people with their equipment and animals were
crowded together in some river-bottom awaiting the propitious moment for
setting forth.

The journey ordinarily required about five months, provided nothing
untoward happened in the way of delay. A start in the spring therefore
allowed the traveler to surmount the Sierra Nevada mountains before the
first heavy snowfalls. One of the inevitable anxieties was whether or
not this crossing could be safely accomplished. At first the migration
was thoroughly orderly and successful. As the stories from California
became more glowing, and as the fever for gold mounted higher, the pace
accelerated.

A book by a man named Harlan, written in the County Farm to which his
old age had brought him, gives a most interesting picture of the times.
His party consisted of fourteen persons, one of whom, Harlan's
grandmother, was then ninety years old and blind! There were also two
very small children. At Indian Creek in Kansas they caught up with the
main body of immigrants and soon made up their train. He says: "We
proceeded very happily until we reached the South Platte. Every night we
young folks had a dance on the green prairie." Game abounded, the party
was in good spirits and underwent no especial hardships, and the Indian
troubles furnished only sufficient excitement to keep the men
interested and alert. After leaving Salt Lake, however, the passage
across the desert suddenly loomed up as a terrifying thing. "We started
on our passage over this desert in the early morning, trailed all next
day and all night, and on the morning of the third day our guide told us
that water was still twenty-five miles away. William Harlan here lost
his seven yoke of oxen. The man who was in charge of them went to sleep,
and the cattle turned back and recrossed the desert or perhaps died
there.... Next day I started early and drove till dusk, as I wished to
tire the cattle so that they would lie down and give me a chance to
sleep. They would rest for two or three hours and then try to go back
home to their former range." The party won through, however, and
descended into the smiling valleys of California, ninety-year-old lady
and all.

These parties which were hastily got together for the mere purpose of
progress soon found that they must have some sort of g