EARLY DAY STORIES. 19 



ly built, and with much poorer buildings than Neligh now 

 has. It was a lively place — there were hundreds of people 

 camped near the town, some in tents and some in covered 

 wagons, all preparing for their western journey. We knew 

 that we could not pack supplies enough on our pony to last 

 us more than half way to Oregon, and our intention was 

 to hire out to drive teams for others. While I was sick 

 with the measles my cousin found a man who wanted two 

 men to drive his team, so that he might have time to hunt 

 and fish and look out for camping places, or do anything 

 else that suited him. He offered that if we would drive 

 his team, and give him our pony, he would haul our stuff, 

 put our provisions in with his, he and his wife doing the 

 cooking, and that we should all eat together and work to- 

 gether as one family during the entire journey to Oregon. 

 We accepted his offer, found them nice intelligent people 

 and we got along well together. His name was Knapp, 

 but his first name has been forgotten. I have heard that 

 Knappton in Washington was named for him. His family 

 consisted of his wife and a little girl about two years of age. 



Mr. Knapp bought for the journey a yoke of oxen well 

 broken and handy, and a yoke of three year old, and another 

 of two year old steers and a yoke of cows. The steers and 

 cows were tame but had never been yoked up and our first 

 work was to break them in. This was not difficult for we 

 both had been used to oxen all our lives but had never used 

 horses to any extent. 



Mr. Knapp decided to take the trail on the north side 

 of the Platte river, believing there would be less travel on 

 that side and therefore better grass for the stock. We there- 

 fore struck out to drive up along the east side of the Mis- 

 souri river through northwestern Missouri and southwest- 

 ern Iowa to Traders' Point opposite to where Bellevue, 

 Neb., now stands, where we would cross the river to Sarpy's 

 Trading post, and begin our western journey. We found 



