† June 16, 1846

By the time I was waiting at Fort Bridger, all was running smoothly for the Donner-Reed party. I received some of the earliest emigrants and gave the best guidance I could.

Meanwhile, when the party reached Fort Laramie at the eastern edge of what was designated Wyoming Territory not two years ago. At the time, it was simply the Western edge of the known world. At that point, the party's captain, neither a Donner nor a Reed, but a man named William Russell, declined re-election so that he and Edwin Bryant (of future fame as a memoirist and politician) could sell their wagons and ride ahead to make even better time than they already had.

What a novel idea! What fine thinking! Bravo, Russell! Bravo, Bryant! Anyone could have seen he would go far in life!

As planned, while I remained at Fort Bridger, at the other end of present-day Wyoming Territory, my traveling companion James Clyman had ridden ahead—and chanced to meet his old acquaintance from the Illinois militia, James Frazier Reed.

The two Jameses supped together by the fire that night and, as Clyman tells it, he "strongly urged" his old friend Reed not to take a certain cutoff he had lately tried on his journey East.

As Clyman tells it...When he tells it...That's what he tells! Clyman: mountain man and soothsayer! Fancy that breed of creature!

Reed somewhat famously—and somewhat apocryphally—replied, perhaps in a fine, heroic tenor, "Another route is nigher!"

Well, now Clyman may have served with Reed; Clyman may have known Reed; Reed may have been a friend of his; but, Clyman, you are no grammarian! For, if, indeed, Clyman, you are quoting directly or even quoting at all, I can assure you, wherever the hell you are, that James Frazier Reed would never have uttered a word such as "nigher" in his delusional attempt to convince himself he was Anglican Polish nobility, conveniently dispossessed of an Irish brogue!

In any event, Reed did not take Clyman's advice—perhaps he, too, knew Clyman to be a liar.

[He takes a drink to calm his nerves.]

† July 4, 1846

I would like to quote once more from my magnum opus:

the country through which the route lies, is, generally, very hilly and mountainous. The former part of this portion, includes that sections of country, denominated the Black hills, which present a very extraordinary appearance. When viewed from an elevated position, they present one interminous succession of treeless, shrubless, rolling swells and hills, which much resemble