On September 12, we loaded our belongings in what consisted of
two wagons and a buggy, or a light spring wagon. We had two
saddle horses which made eight altogether. So on we went.

The second day out, we were driving through Coffeeville, Kansas,
when two of the Elders saw us and waved us down. It was Shade
Boyce and Albert Kirby. They got into the buggy with Dad and
Mother and stayed with us until we camped and then stayed
overnight with us. Elder Boyce had told us many times before
that if we were to go anywhere near Manassa, Colorado, his home,
to be sure and stop and see his family. At this time he made dad
promise that he would.

Dad and Mother and the three girls, Sally, Louella, and Etta,
occupied the team and buggy. Ulys was the driver of one team and
I was the driver of Ben and Zike, which was the feed wagon.
Elwood and Henry, I think, were riding the saddle ponies most of
the time. Elwood was keeping the mileage as we were marching
along. Of course, Grover and Carr, (Tacky, as Dad would call
Carr) had their places, too. They were either up by the side of
Ulys or on the seat with me. So that is the way we rocked along
in Kansas.

Then we went through part of Oklahoma, then back into Kansas
again. That was a long stretch. Through Westermn Kansas there
was no end to space. For miles and miles and sometimes days, we
would see nothing but cattle and windmills. The wells along the
way were so deep we boys would throw a rock down and then wait
for the sound to come back and it would be a long time.

When we started on this trip, we pledged ourselves that we
wouldn't travel on Sunday. We kept that promise. And up to this
time we had enjoyed out trip very much. The weather had been
good. Our teams were in the best of condition and we weren't too
heavily loaded. So we really moved along at a pretty good speed.
We wouldn't drive very late at night, especially when we would
find a good camping place. Our motto was "start early and camp
early. Feed good and eat good." Hay and grain were cheap. Corn
was about 25 cents per bushel; hay was about 20 or 25 cents per
hundred.

One afternoon, I think it was in Western Kansas or the Eastern
part of Colorado, we were passing a big ranch house that set
back off the road quite a ways. We saw a lot of beef hanging in
a big tree in front of the house. We were a little hungry for
beef, so we stopped. Dad and we boys walked over to the house
and asked if we could buy some of the beef. There was an extra
big hindquarter hanging off to one side. The man said if we
would take the whole quarter as it hung, we could have it for 3
cents per pound. We took it, and it was the best meat we had
ever eaten. We could cut steak off of that as big as your hat.

At this point, we could begin to see the mountains, as I
remember it. The first big mountain that came into view was a
welcome sight. We thought we could make it to there by camping
time, but we were two or three days getting there. We found out
that it took experience to measure distance from a flat country
to the mountains.

I believe it was on a Saturday and we were on a road going due
West when we learned that the road to the right would take us to
Manassa, Colorado. That was Elder Boyce's hometown and it was 20
miles. We took that road. We made it there in good time and made
our camp on the outskirts of town. We camped by a farm house
which belonged to a Chandler family. They had a bunch of boys,
five or six of them , about our own ages. It wasn't long before
all them came out to talk to us, and their father, also. They
soon learned we were converts to the Mormon church.

We found out where Elder Boyce's family lived. It was no
surprise to them, as Elder Boyce had written them that we would
be there. He had that much faith in the pormise Dad had made to
him, that if we went anywhere near his hometown we would go and
see his folks. So Dad, Mother and the girls put us up with the
Boyce family and we boys stayed with the camp. Chandlers had us
turn our horses into their fields and said we could leave them
there as long as we wanted to.

The father of the boys had told Dad and Mother that the next
day, Sunday, was conference and that Apostle Heber J. Grant was
there. Brother Chandler, the Boyce's, Dad and Mother, and the
Girls went to conference. We boys figured we weren't fixed up
good enough for such an occaision. Dad and Mother had plenty to
tell us about it when they came home. They had met Apostle Grant
and liked him very much, and they liked everyone else they met.

Manassa was a small town and we had gotten acquainted with quite
a few people. By Monday morning they were making plans for us to
stay there. They said we could get a farm and they would help us
get work. They said we could do all right there, and so on.
Their crops were mostly hay, grain and potatoes. And it was too
cold there in the winter. (This was in the latter part of
October.) Soon we got our outfits together and again we headed
for the West. I don't think we knew exactly where we were going.
It was either Thatcher, Arizona, or Fruitland, New Mexico. So on
we went.

Our next town was Antineta. This was a pretty good sized town.
We loaded up the mule wagon with feed and food. I think from
here the road took us Southwest. We finally came to a Mexican, or
Spanish, town. This was the first time we had ever seen so many
Spanish people in one big body.

In going out of town we got on the wrong road. We were part way
up the mountain side when we saw about three wagons coming down
loaded with wood. We pulled off to one side of the road. The
Mexicans showed us that we were on the wrong road, so we took
our teams off and turned the wagons around by hand, because that
was the safest way. We could do almost anything when we had to.
By the time we got back to the town, it was almost camping time
(that is to camp early). The Spanish people wanted us to stop
and we did. Their houses were white-washed inside and everything
was so clean and nice.

Once again we started on our way. Everyone was feeling gay and
happy. As I remember it, we were still going Southwest with the
mountains to the North and West of us. Within the course of time
we came to a little place called Goodhope. Here we stopped and
inquired. We found out that there were two roads. One that I
would call North, going over the mountains, which would take us
to the San Juan River in New Mexico, and the other to Arizona.
Here we all went into a council. as we had done many times. We
decided we would go over the mountains. We had been told that
the road had not been used very much and at times it would look
like a sheep trail. But we thought we were used to such roads.
There weren't any highways anywhere that we had been in those
days. We had come across a good part of Kansas on roads that
hadn't been traveled on for weeks or months. So we were willing
to tackle most anything.

I don't quite remember just how long it took us getting to what
we thought was the top of the mountain. This night we pulled off
the trail about 100 yards in a nice clump of pine trees to camp.
It was getting quite cloudy, and I think Dad began to think and
realize the predicament that we might be in. About 2 o'clock in
the morning it looked very much like snow. We had heard and read
stories about getting snowed-in in the mountains. Dad wanted all
of us to get up and hitch up our horses to the wagons and get
over and down the mountain. The older boys and I think the
younger ones, too, said, "We can't do that." They said , "The
road will be dim and bad and if it does snow, we would lose the
trail." So we didn't move that night. But we started out early
after sun-up, if there had been a sun. It was still pretty
stormy, but we found out pretty soon it was hard enough to
travel in the daytime. We were three or four days getting over
and through and down that mountain. It did snow and it was the
first we had had. We went down hillsides that were so steep and
sideling that we would put ropes on the wagons and four or five
of us would hold the guy ropes to keep the wagon from turning
over. This was really our first experience in such rugged
mountain country. But we were going down and it was worth quite
a bit.

This night where we camped there was quite a lot of snow. We
spotted a big pine tree about 100 ft. long and three ft. thick
laying in the snow. We drove our wagon right along side of it so
everyone could step out onto the log. We made a big fire close
by. We were right at home in a little while, with everybody well
and feeling fine. The next morning we were on our way again.

During the day we came to another town, the first since we left
Goodhope. This was a Mexican town, also. Termirea was its name.
We loaded up with feed and food, which we thought would be
enough to see us through, as it was 100 or more miles to the San
Juan River from this town. There were two roads. One was much
nearer and we thought we could make it through. So we got along
down this trail about 30 miles and camped for the night. It was
already beginning to look bad. There had been no travel over
this road for a long time. The next morning we started out
again. All at once like a thunder cloud from a clear sky, we saw
a bunch of Apache Indians (there were about 20) bounding over
the hill to our left. They were on their ponies and all painted
up with feathers on their heads. Boy, we had never seen a group
of Indians like that, but we had read about them. I don't know
what the rest of the boys thought, but I would guess they were
like me, a little bit scared.

Dad was behind with his outfit and I think we figured this was a
job for him to handle. He drove up and quietly walked around to
where we were and without any indications of fear. All who ever
knew Dad knew him as a fine man. He could make friends with any
race or kind of people. And right here and now he started to
talk and make signs as to where we were going and where we were
from. The leader of the band got down off his pony and started
making signs on the ground. Dad did the same thing. The Indian's
markings told him, "This is the Largo Canyon and it is something
like 100 miles to the San Jaun River. The road is no good. You
can't make it. Heap rain all washed out. Sand washes heap deep.
Nobody travel for a long time." Well, we felt like we were up a
stump. They said we could go back to the town of Termirea, which
was 30 miles back. We well remembered that piece of road or
trail and we didn't like the idea of going over it again. Then
the Indians told us we could go across the country to the East
and get onto that other road; that it would also get us to the
San Juan River but much higher up.

We decided to cut across. We traveled until a little late in the
afternoon and it was pretty rough going, so we stopped and began
to size things up. We had no road. We could see the roughs up
ahead and as the hills closed in, we knew we could not get
through. We turned around and went back and camped at the same
place we had stayed the night before. It was right here that we
decided to go down the Largo Canyon, even if we had to cut our
way through.

Up to now we had enjoyed our trip very much; not many hardships
as travelling goes. Our health had been good and we boys would
often sing the songs of Zion, such as "O Ye Mountains High" and
"Do What Is Right". Here's one that would ring out through the
night around the campfire: "Come, come ye saints, no toil nor
labor fear, but with joy, wend your way. And if you should die
before your journey's through, all is well, all is well." (How
the frogs and hoot owls must have enjoyed it.) So with this in
mind and the faith we had, we could easily get through this
undertaking.

On we went, cutting our way across the sandwashes, many of them
eight ft. deep and straight up and down. We ran out of
everything to eat and feed for the horses. But we always
believed that where there was a will, there is a way. I well
remember one evening just about dark, when we saw a light up on
the side of the mountain to the Southwest of our camp. We were
right down to the bottom of everything in the way of food. And,
by the way, we boys were very hungry. We had been rationing
ourselves on foot for sometime so that Mother and the girls
could have something to eat if it came to the showdown.

Now back to that light. Henry and I made a run for it. We took
with us an empty flour sack. By the time we reached it, it was
good and dark. There three Mexican sheepherders were getting
their supper. We quickly made friends with them and told them
the fix we were in and that we wanted to buy some flour from
them. They gave us a dishpan full of it and, of course, that made
us very happy. They had a plate of flapjacks or pancakes a foot
high sitting right by us. Boy did they look good! I guess those
Mexicans didn't realize how hungry we were, but we were thankful
to get the flour. So back to camp we went, wending our way
through the brush.

Now this is just part of our experiences going down the Largo
Canyon to the San Juan River. It took us two weeks to go less
than 100 miles. I'll never forget our first view of it. It was
early in the morning about 10 o'clock. It was a big river and
full of mushy ice. It was getting cold as it was along in Nov.

Ross Mcgee