Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/510

382 place that a great many in the train wanted to go there instead of going to Bannock, while others wanted to go to Bannock, that being where they had started.

That night they took a vote to decide as to which place they should go, which resulted in favor of Alder Gulch, so we pulled for Alder Gulch instead of Bannock.

We were now in the Bannock country. I did not hear of any depredations being committed by the Indians, but I used all precautions possible in order to prevent a surprise by the redskins.

Every few days we would meet a little squad of miners, all telling exciting stories about the richness of Alder Gulch. They were going home to their families with the expectation of moving them out there the following spring; most of their families being in Denver, Colorado. This all helped to create an anxiety among the people to push on and get through as quick as possible.

They moved somewhat faster now than before, reaching Virginia City, Montana, about the last of September, this being the trading point for Alder Gulch. Here we stopped and the train paid me off.

I stayed around there about three weeks. One day while I was at Virginia City two men, Boon and Bivian, who owned the only store of any note in Virginia City at that time, came to me and said that they had a train of twenty-two wagons some where on the road, but just where they did not know, and they wished to employ me to go and pilot it in, as their men with the train were all inexperienced in that line of business, and not acquainted with the road, not having been over any part of it before,