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.
The driver was the only one that escaped, he claiming to have jumped off from the stage. I saw the stage when it came into Salt Lake City, and it was riddled with bullets and blood spattered all over the inside of the coach.
There was a man by the name of Brown driving the stage at that time, and many people believed, in fact it was the general impression at the time, that the driver was in with the robbers. This robbery and massacre occurred in what is known as Beaver canyon.
During my stay at Salt Lake there came in from Virginia City a young man by the name of Richard Hyde, to buy cattle. Mr. Boone recommended him to me as being a fine young man and very shrewd for his age. After having some little acquaintance with him and he had told me his business, also what profit there was in it, he and I formed a co-partnership for the purpose of buying cattle and driving them to Virginia City. We bought one hundred and ninety- two head of all sizes, and by the help of two other men, we drove them through, losing only five head, which was considered excellent luck.
We stopped about ten miles below town, and after setting a price on our cattle, I remained with them while Mr. Hyde went to look for buyers. He was gone nearly a week, and when he returned he had sold nearly all the cattle. We were well pleased with the result of our venture, and I am told Mr. Hyde kept the business up for several years until he made an independent fortune, and I am told, at this writing—1899—that he is somewhere in Iowa doing a large banking business.
As soon as the cattle were all delivered and we had settled up, Mr. Hyde and I struck back for Salt Lake City, he to buy more cattle, and I on my way to California.
Near Ogden I fell in with an emigrant train of twenty-two wagons bound for California. As soon as they learned who I was, having heard of me back at Fort Kearney, they insisted on my traveling in company with them, and there being some fine looking young ladies in the train, I accepted the invitation and joined them.
These families were from Illinois and Ohio, and I can truthfully say that I never traveled with or saw a finer crowd of people than these were, and I never was in a company that I regretted leaving as I did those people, for they all seemed more like brothers and sisters to me than strangers.