All this time we were expecting a Mormon train on the other side would cross over and break the road as they were not loaded, but not seeing any sign of them, the wagon-boss got tired of waiting, and hitching up, pulled about twenty miles to the edge of the snow.

We were two days making this twenty miles.  Here we stopped, but the wagon-master and I started next morning on foot for the summit.  While we were on the mountain we could hear the other train coming so we walked on to meet it and see if we could assist them in any way.  They were taking a very wise plan for it; two men riding ahead on horseback, others were driving about forty head of loose stock behind them, all followed by the wagons.

They got to our camp that night about dark.  This tram broke the road in good shape for us, and the following morning the boss put all of the oxen to half the wagons and pulled across.  It took us nearly all day to get out of the snow on the other side, thereby taking us three days to cross the mountains.

I traveled with the train three days after crossing the mountains, and then I left and rode on to Virginia City, knowing that Boone and Bivian would be anxious for information.

This was the first train of the season, and when it arrived flour was worth one dollar per pound, bacon fifty cents, and everything else in proportion.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Twenty-two thousand dollars in gold dust.—­A stage robbery.—­ Another trip to California.—­Meeting with gen.  Crook.—­Chief of scouts again.

After the goods were unloaded and the stock rested up for a few days, the train was started back to Salt Lake City to load with flour and bacon.  After it had been gone five days Mr. Boone and I started to follow it, expecting to get to the Mormon city ahead of the train and have the cargo purchased by the time it would arrive.

Mr. Boone took with him on this trip twenty-two thousand dollars in gold dust, on pack-horses.  But in order to get away from Virginia City with it and not be suspected, we packed up three horses one night, behind the store, and I started that night with a pick and shovel tied to each pack, as if I were going prospecting.  I went to where I thought would make a good day’s ride for Boone, and camped.  He overtook me the next night, and he said he would not have had it known how much dust he had with him for three times that amount.

We made the trip to Salt Lake all right, however, but in a few days after we learned that the stage-coach that left Virginia City at the same time we did was robbed and every passenger killed.  These passengers were seven successful miners that had made all the money they wanted, or rather what they considered a handsome little stake, there being eighty thousand dollars in the crowd, and they were on their way home somewhere in the East.