We were to meet the advance party at Independence, Mo., but when we were ready to start, heavy rains had set in and we were much delayed by swollen streams. At many places we had to swim our horses as there were but few bridges. We had to go out of the way ten miles at Danville, in order to get across the Vermillion River. When we got to Peoria, we learned that the roads were so bad that we took passage on a steam boat down the Illinois River to St. Louis. There we took passage up the Missouri River to Independence, Mo., where we expected to find the men with the stock. After reaching Independence and waiting several days, we were not able to hear anything of uncle or of the drove which he was driving through from Wisconsin. We learned that there were other places from which the overland trains started for the West. One was St. Joe, about eighty miles up the river, and two of my party went to St. Joe, while I remained at Independence. By watching at St. Joe and Independence, we expected to meet the train as we knew that we must be ahead of them. The men at St. Joe happened to run across uncle, who had been in St. Louis to buy supplies for the trip. They wrote me and I left for St. Joe. We told uncle that he had instructed the men who were driving stock through from Illinois, to go to Independence, but he did not understand it that way. He had instructed his family and the men who were bringing the stock from Wisconsin, to go to Cainsville, Iowa, which was twenty-five miles above Council Bluffs on the Missouri River, and about 150 miles from St. Joe. Uncle bought a yoke of oxen and a wagon at St. Joe and he and I started for Cainsville. After we were in Cainsville for several days, the family and party, with the horses, wagons and cattle, came from Wisconsin. In the party, were Peter House, his brother-in-law and family, William Nailer, Thomas Roberts, John Feril, Allen Gilber, Horace Failling, Thomas Brooks, John Brooks and James Creek. We remained there for two or three weeks, hoping to hear from the drove from Illinois. Uncle finally came to the conclusion that he had told them to go to Independence, Mo., and he sent Jobe Spray to St. Joe to see if he could find trace of them. He was given money to buy a horse and saddle, and in case they had crossed the river at St. Joe, he was to follow and overtake them, in order to get the two parties together. When he reached St. Joe, he found that they had crossed there and later learned that when crossing the Missouri, that they had stopped to shear the sheep, and on finding that Independence was south of the direct line, they had made directly for St. Joe and had crossed the river before Jobe had arrived. On account of the misunderstanding, uncle, with his party, was above Council Bluff on the east side of the Missouri, and the Illinois party was somewhere on the west side of the river in what is now Kansas.