The emigrant party as it started from Pittsburgh consisted of about forty men and ten wagons. They shipped their wagons down the Mississippi and up the Missouri to St. Joseph where they bought forty oxen. In Father's wagon was Captain Speers, a river pilot with whom Father had worked while steamboating. He was a farmer's son who knew about cattle. There was also a business man named Logan from Allegheny City. He was a strong Christian man, the only one in the party who carried a Bible and his life and death (for it was he whose death is mentioned in the diary) made a profound impression on Father. One evening as they sat at supper, Logan put down his cup saying, "I don't feel well," and went into his tent to lie down. There was a doctor in the party who did what he could, but the next morning at four Logan was dead—of cholera. They buried him there on the prairie, wrapped in a buffalo robe with a mound of stones over the grave and sent the little Bible back to his wife. On this whole trip Father was the cook for his mess and he has always claimed that he made a splendid one. The men of each wagon seem to have camped together and had their own mess. When night came the ten wagons were arranged in a circle—the tongue of one against the back of the next—and after the cattle had been allowed to graze till midnight, they were corralled within this circle. Father's mates while mining were Captain Speers, McElrey, and Evans. Their camp was back in the mountains quite close to the border of Nevada, with Sacramento as their nearest city, where they went for supplies. Their claim was located several hundred feet above the level of the creek, so in order to get water they had to go back into the mountains fifteen miles. They had a surveyor survey the line and then these four men, not one of whom was a mechanic and all but one town bred, went to work to bring down water. In the first place they built a dam. Then they brought the water down hill and in one place bridged a valley two hundred feet wide. Their form of mining was called gulch mining. They built flumes or long boxes with enough fall for the water to run slowly and into these they dumped the pay dirt. The water would wash away the earth while they stood and tossed out stones, etc. Finally, after running through several boxes, the earth was all washed away, leaving only the heavy gold, which was collected by quicksilver.