There are four hundred and twenty wagons, as far as we have heard, on the road between here and Oregon and California.
"Give our love to all inquiring friends.

God bless them.
"Yours truly, Mrs.George Donner." By the Fourth of July the Donner Party had reached Fort Laramie.

They pushed on west over the old trail up the Sweetwater River and across the South Pass, the easiest of all the mountain passes known to the early travelers.

Without much adventure they reached Fort Bridger, then only a trading-post.

Here occurred the fatal mistake of the Donner Party.
Some one at the fort strongly advised them to take a new route, a cut-off said to shorten the distance by about three hundred miles.