"As I led the van with my ten, being captain of the first ten, it fell to my lot to make the first trial. Prof. O. Pratt, having a pair of strong horses, went forward and I followed him. I had two yoke of cattle and my horses on my carriage with about ten hundred on it. As soon as I started, I immediately saw that the cattle did but little good, being slow and in the way, we would begin to sink. I jumped out of my carriage into the water up to my waist. About ten men came to my assistance with a rope and hitched it to the oxen and helped me in getting across the first stream, though with great difficulty. We stopped on a sand-bar out in the water, but my horses and wagon began to sink. By treading the ground a little, it would become a perfect quagmire, and though we were sinking in it, the men had to leave the wagon where it was and go to the assistance of Orson Pratt, who, in trying to cross the second stream, had sunk into a bed of quicksand, and all the men had to go to his relief to get his horses and wagon out. The horses were unhitched from the wagon, and the load taken out and carried to shore; the wagon was drawn out by the men. "I took off most of my load in a boat and went through the second stream. I got two other wagons in the same way, but it was so difficult an undertaking that the rest of the camp would not follow us, so here we found ourselves on the opposite side of the river, six men of us, to spend the night, together with our horses and wagons to guard against the whole Pawnee band, who were then camped below us on the same side of the river, and it was supposed that they numbered six hundred warriors. We divided our company, putting three on guard at a time. Brother Pack, Orson Pratt, and myself went on guard the fore part of the {270} night. Although I had been in the water the whole afternoon, I stood guard in my wet clothing one-half of the night and slept in them the other half. "When we had guarded our part of the night we were joined by five men from the camp who crossed in a boat. They were sent by President Young to assist us, making eleven of us in all, and we divided our force accordingly. The night, however, passed off in peace, with no disturbance from the hostile Indians.