We lived in St. Louis three years, then in 1853 my mother, sister Elizabeth; two brothers, Peter and Archibald and myself left for our journey across the plains in the company of Captain Clawson. (My father and sister Margaret having gone on before us.) (7) I was accorded the arduous experience of walking most of the way across the plains wading the streams and gathering buffalo chips for fuel; seeing herds of buffalo that looked almost like moving mountains, and on some occasions impeding our travel and stampeding our animals. My only chance for a ride now and then was to take a spell driving my brothers outfit of two yoke of oxen, riding on the tongue of the wagon. At night my sister and I would lay under the wagon, an old carpet serving as a curtain and the howl of the wolves would verily make our hair stand on end, as we could look out and see their glaring eyes like balls of fire. We were assigned that place as our bedroom to afford better accommodations for a young couple, the wife soon to become a mother. When her child was born my mother took care of her. However, we had but little difficulty in traveling, nor in sickness, only the death of one child and two births, and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in September of 1853 before the October conference. We found my father and my sister Margaret well, she having married and had a babe three days old when we arrived. We stopped with my sister until father could get a place for us.(8)