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On coming to a camping ground this evening we met with a friend with whom we had traveled on the early part of our journey, one of his horses also died and he had purchased a yoke of oxen and was well pleased with the exchange he very generoulsly offered us the use of his remaining horse for the balance of the journey. We were now again on the borders of civilization there was a few farms on the banks of the streams, we eagerly purchased some vegatables butter eggs and bread we had none of these things for five months and you cannot imagine how good they tasted. We were a pretty hard looking set, sun burned as brown as Indians our hair and beard of five months growth and our cloths all torn into rags. our boots and shoes gave out more than a month since. Still we lived well we had an abundance of game, prairie chickens and quails they were so numerous that we could kill them with sticks, living so well we now took things quite leisuarly and was in no hurry together to the end of our journey. Plums and grapes grew in profusion in the forests the weather was beautiful and only for the great drouth we might have prolonged our journey a week more It was near seven weeks since we left Denver City and there had not been a drop of rain in that time farmers were greatly alarmed for their crops. their ? was dying in great numbers. We suffered great inconvenience from a scarcity of water we always had to carry a supply in a ten gallon keg and when that supply ran out we suffered very severely, only for that we would have probably have prolonged our journey another week. About fifty miles from St Joe we came into the bluffs of the Missouri River which was probably ten miles from us in a straight line, the whole country through which we now traveled was covered with enermos large cottonwood trees.