Howdy, I thought about skipping this trail experience. But continuing to do so would distort life on the overland emigrant trail. After all, not all the diary/journal entries were for our later entertainment. Let's return to 49er Reuben Cole SHAW - in June, 1849: "....[W]e were crossing the beautiful prairie, between the Kansas and Platte rivers, and were making excellent time; but just as we had selected our camp for the night one of the rear guards came in and reported two of our men, Professor NYE and D.W. HINCKLEY, stricken with cholera five miles behind and lay dying by the wayside. "This intelligence struck our camp like a thunderbolt, for we were congratulating ourselves on being done with cholera [several members died of the disease as/before they left Independence]; but here was the prospect of losing two more our our esteemed members.... "The doctor and four men started back at once to the aid and support of our sick brothers, taking along the packs which belonged to them, as their pack-mules had been driven into the main camp.....Medical treatment, sympathy and brotherly care proved of no avail. Both patients passed into a state of collapse before midnight and died early next morning. "Their bodies were laid out in clean clothes, after which they were sewed up in their blankets, and at high twelve buried in one grave, over which (utilizing the rocks in the vacinity) we erected a neat and sustantial cairn[heap of stones]. "The main camp having been notified early in the morning of passing events, and, acting on the advice of the doctor, who wished to keep the men from brooding over the past, it was arranged for the company to travel this day the same as usual, and for those in the rear, after burying the dead, to join the main body at night. "After performing the last sad rites over the grave of our lamented comrades and burning all the clothing in which they had died, we packed up and were on the road by 2 o'clock p. m., intending to reach the main camp without a halt.... " That both should be stricken with cholera at the same time and die within a few minutes of each other was beyond our comprehension."(From "Across the Plains in '49" by Reuben Cole Shaw, ed.Milo Milton Quaife. NY: The Citadel Press 1966). Got some happier trail times a coming :-) Bob Norris in Dallas <BNorris166aol.com>