The plan of organization for traveling was to divide the people into companies of one hundred wagons, subdivided into companies of fifty wagons, and ten wagons, with captains over each division, the captains of fifties being subordinate to captains of hundreds, and captains of tens being subordinate to captains of fifties--all being subject to the direction of the Apostles. Each fifty had a blacksmith with tools for repairing wagons and shoeing animals. Three hundred pounds of breadstuff were required for each person. Every man had to have a gun with one hundred rounds of ammunition; and each family was expected to take along its proportion of seed grain and agricultural implements. As fast as individuals and families were found who had the required outfit, or could obtain it, they rendezvoused at a point on the Elk Horn River, where the organization for the journey to the mountains was perfected. The families who had traveled with Elder Taylor from Nauvoo to Council Bluffs, desired to be again enrolled in the company in which he traveled. That request was granted, and they were chiefly enrolled in the first fifty of the hundred of which Edward Hunter, afterwards Presiding Bishop of the Church, was the captain, and Joseph Horne was captain of the fifty. In preparing for this journey Elder Taylor was kept extremely busy. Wagons had to be overhauled, tires re-set, horses and oxen to be collected and shod, supplies obtained, and only a limited number of hands with which to accomplish it all; for five hundred able-bodied men, it will be remembered, had been taken into the service of the United States, and about one hundred and forty more had gone as pioneers, and those who from their circumstances had to remain at Winter Quarters were busily engaged in putting in crops for supplies for another season. During the early part of June, however, some six hundred wagons gathered on the Elk Horn ready to start. There were 1553 souls in the company, 2213 oxen, 124 horses, 887 cows, many of which had to do service under the yoke, 358 sheep, 716 chickens and a number of pigs. On the 21st and 22nd of June this large company began its journey. It was late in the season for starting on such an expedition. It was too late for them to put in crops that season, even if they stopped far short of the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. They barely had provisions to last them a year and a half, and if their first crop failed, starvation must follow, for they would be from ten to fifteen hundred miles from the nearest point where food could be obtained, and no swifter means of transportation than horse or ox teams!