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 of eleven wagons was met returning to the states in charge of women, all the men having been stricken down by the cholera. 41 After the higher altitudes beyond Fort Laramie were reached the disease became less prevalent and after reaching the Sweetwater comparatively little trace of it remained.

Something must be said of the buffaloes. Great herds of them ranged the plains from Fort Kearney to South Pass. The emigrants on the south side of the Platte usually met their first herd a short distance beyond Fort Kearney! Those on the north bank often met them before passing the fort. By the early fifties the buffaloes beyond the pass were very few. 42 The first attempt of the un- initiated to bring some buffalo steak to camp usually resulted in a waste of bullets. If the hunter did manage to get within range the chances were that upon being shot the animal destined to serve as provender for the hunter and his hungry comrades would go lumbering off across the prairie, for a buffalo must not only be shot, but be shot in the right place before he will fall. The great crowds of emigrants served to make the buffaloes shy and they kept away from the banks of the river except to come for water. The first trains of the year often were detained by great herds crossing their path. 48

Another trial of the traveler was the rain. The jour- ney across the plains was made in the rainy season. The spring of 1849 was a particularly wet one. In the thirty- three days occupied on the journey from Fort Leaven- worth to Fort Laramie in May and June, Major Cross re- ports fourteen days in which it rained at least part of the time. 44 This made the road bad, especially between the Missouri outfitting towns and Fort Kearney. In the early days of the trip the emigrants cursed the rain and mud,

41 Meeker, op. cit., p. 68.

42 Delano, op. cit., p. 114.

43 Stansbury, Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, pp. 34-35.

44 Report of Major Cross, op. cit., pp. 127-157, passim.