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 258 WILLIAM BARLOW and wife. His wagon beds were built close out to the wheels, so it took about a half-acre of ground to turn on. The object was to make the bed large enough to hold all the worthless rubbish that he could not sell or give away before he started. He said the things might come in mighty good play when he got through. But he never would have gotten through if it had not been for my old mother. He did not belong to our company. We found him camped by himself, his company had gone off and left him several days before. Mother said, "We must not leave him there to be butchered by the Indians." But father did not think the Indians would molest him, as he had nothing that they would have. But if everybody went off and left him, he would starve or freeze to death when winter came on. So the old gent went to see him and told him he could join us, if he would let us overhaul his wagon and throw out every worthless article. His wife began to cry and said they would need everything when they got through. But the old gent said, "You will never get through with that load and old team." So they finally consented to be overhauled. The old gent called two or three of the best men of the company to come and overhaul the wagon; they took everything out that was in it, and a more worthless lot of trash was never seen. They put back what few necessaries they had, such as bed clothes, wearing apparel and all the provisions they had, but that was very light. It lightened up his wagon more than half, so his old cows and mares could waddle along and keep up for awhile. But we could not stop the whole company to wait on him. We had got him across the Big Platte River and up to Fort Laramie, where he could get all the jerked buffalo meat he wanted for almost nothing. There were thousands of Indians coming in then from their big buffalo hunt with tons of jerked meat and hundreds of buffalo robes to trade for Indian goods at the Fort. So mother fitted Noey and his family out with quite a supply of provisions, such as bacon, flour, coffee, sugar and so forth. She told them they must take their time and try and get through. I don't know whether she told them she would pray for them, but I do know