I have invariably answered, one train, one wagon, and that we had no captain. What I meant by one train is, that I looked upon the whole emigration, strung out on the plains five hundred miles, as one train. For long distances the throng was so great that the road was literally filled with wagons as far as the eye could reach. At Kanesville where the last purchases were made, or the last letter sent to anxious friends, the congestion became so great that the teams were literally blocked, and stood in line for hours before they could get out of the jam. Then, as to a captain, we didn't think we needed one, and so when we drove out of Eddyville, there was but one wagon in our train, two yoke of four-year-old steers, one yoke of cows, and one extra cow. This cow was the only animal we lost on the whole trip—strayed in the Missouri River bottom before crossing. And now as to the personnel of our little party. William Buck, who became my partner for the trip, was a man six years my senior, had had some experience on the Plains, and knew about the outfit needed, but had no knowledge in regard to a team of cattle. He was an impulsive man, and to some extent excitable; yet withal a man of excellent judgment and as honest as God Almighty makes men. No lazy bones occupied a place in Buck's body. He was so scrupulously neat and cleanly that some might say he was fastidious, but such was not the case. His aptitude for the camp work, and unfitness for handling the team, at once, as we might say by natural selection, divided the cares of the household, sending the married men to the range with the team and the bachelor to the camp. The little wife was in ideal health, and almost as particular as Buck (not quite though) while the young husband would be a little more on the slouchy order, if the reader will pardon the use of that word, more expressive than elegant. Buck selected the outfit to go into the wagon, while I fitted up the wagon and bought the team. We had butter, packed in the center of the flour in double sacks; eggs packed in corn meal or flour, to last us nearly five hundred miles; fruit in abundance, and dried pumpkins; a little jerked beef, not too salt, and last, though not least, a demijohn of brandy for "medicinal purposes only," as Buck said, with a merry twinkle of the eye that exposed the subterfuge which he knew I understood without any sign. The little wife had prepared the home-made yeast cake which she knew so well how to make and dry, and we had light bread all the way, baked in a tin reflector instead of the heavy Dutch ovens so much in use on the Plains.