Our own party, although over the Rockies, had yet the Plains to cross.

I was glad enough when we staggered into old Fort Laramie in the midst of a blinding snow-storm.

Winter had caught us fair and full.

I had lost the race! Here, then, I must winter.

Yet I learned that Joe Meek had outfitted at Laramie almost a month earlier, with new animals; had bought a little grain, and, under escort of a cavalry troop which had come west with the wagon train, had started east in time, perhaps, to make it through to the Missouri.