"Under the guidance of Mr. Sublette we struck across the country from the last mentioned camp to the North Platte. In the course of the day we descried a large band of buffaloes under full headway, making directly for the train. We hastily gathered our guns and put ourselves in position, and as soon as the head of the herd came in shooting distance we commenced firing on them and succeeded as we thought, luckily, in turning them around the rear of the train. I think I may safely say that while we were in the buffalo country we were hardly ever out of sight of the animals.
"We struck the North Platte the next day and traveled up the stream most of the way to Fort Laramie, where we laid by a day. We met Mr. Joseph Walker here, who was a noted mountaineer and also an old friend of my father's. He happened to be going our way as far as Fort Bridger and made a very acceptable guide for us.
"The day we laid by I was taken with a very violent fever and remember but little that happened till we got to Sweet Water, where I became convalescent. I remember seeing Independence Rock, covered with names innumerable, and the Devil's Gate, where the river had cut its way through a hill, leaving perpendicular banks perhaps a hundred feet high and a gorge not any wider than the stream.
"We followed up Sweet Water several days to a point where we left it to our right and took into the South Pass across the Rocky Mountains. After a moderate day's travel we camped at the Pacific Springs, the first water that we had encountered that flowed westward. I remember that we felt quite jubilant over the affair and thought that this was quite a circumstance in our journey. In passing over the country from here to Fort Bridger we crossed the two Sandies, Green River, and Ham's Fork. We stopped a day at the fort and next day, it being the first day of September, we started a northerly course across the country to Bear River. We followed down this stream to the Soda Springs, which was a great wonder to us. On an area of perhaps one hundred acres hundreds of springs boiled up, many in the bed of the river."
Following this is an estimate of Captain Grant, the Hudson's Bay commandant at Fort Hall. As the character of Captain Grant has been the subject of controversy, the views of Mr. Gilliam have much interest:
"We camped here and next morning when we started we left the river, and after traveling some sixty or seventy miles we reached Fort Hall, then a Hudson's Bay Company trading post, where Mr. Grant was chief factor. Here a circumstance occurred that has caused me through life to regard Grant as a bad hearted man. Peter H. Burnett, a noted man of the previous emigration, had written a letter of instruction and encouragement and sent it to Grant with instructions that he should read it to the emigrants when they reached Fort Hall. When we arrived there the letter was called for and Grant read it to us. It was a very welcome note, giving us useful instructions about the route and strong encouragement about the country we were going to. But you can hardly conceive of the barrels of cold water he poured onto Mr. Burnett's words of encouragement. The circumstances were such that such a proceeding was of no profit or benefit to him or the company he was serving, for it was next to impossible for us to turn back. We were from the very nature of our situation compelled to go ahead, and he well knew that his discouragement could avail nothing towards stopping us. I have never been able to regard him as a good man."
A retrospect by Mr. Gilliam, and an account of settlement in the Willamette Valley contains matter of interest:
"It may be well enough to take a retrospect of things as they were then and compare them with things as they are now. We traveled through the territory that now constitutes the states of Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and well through Oregon, and in all this vast region we did not find one single home, unless you, by a strained construction, call a mission or trading post a home. There were a thousand miles of this journey, which required six months to perform it. We stood guard to protect our lives and property from hostile Indians. This being the year that Polk was elected president, the earliest news that we got of it was in July following, and we considered ourselves rather fortunate in getting it thus early; it having come by ship, when in fact we did not expect to get it until the arrival of the emigrants in the fall. When a presidential election occurs now if we do not get the news the next day we feel that we are unfortunate in being deprived of the news so long.
"I took my first trip back three years ago. I was three days in making it, and on the route found two large cities, Salt Lake and Denver, and seemingly happy homes everywhere, and made the trip in a comfortable manner that was undreamed of in those early days.
"Well, to return. We wintered where the town of Cornelius now stands, about eighty rods south of the depot, with Messrs. Waters and Emerick, who were keeping batch at that time. The winter was very mild, which impressed us very favorably with the climate.