Samuel Shoemaker, ---- Hardcoop, ---- Spitzer, Joseph Rhinehart, James
Smith, Walter Herron, and Luke Halloran.

While we were preparing to break camp, the last named had begged my
father for a place in our wagon. He was a stranger to our family,
afflicted with consumption, too ill to make the journey on horseback,
and the family with whom he had travelled thus far could no longer
accommodate him. His forlorn condition appealed to my parents and they
granted his request.

All the companies broke camp and left the Little Sandy on the twentieth
of July. The Oregon division with a section for California took the
right-hand trail for Fort Hall; and the Donner Party, the left-hand
trail to Fort Bridger.

After parting from us, Mr. Thornton made the following note in his
journal:

July 20, 1846. The Californians were much elated and in fine
spirits, with the prospect of better and nearer road to the country
of their destination. Mrs. George Donner, however, was an exception.
She was gloomy, sad, and dispirited in view of the fact that her
husband and others could think of leaving the old road, and confide
in the statement of a man of whom they knew nothing, but was
probably some selfish adventurer.

Five days later the Donner Party reached Fort Bridger, and were
informed by Hastings's agent that he had gone forward as pilot to a
large emigrant train, but had left instructions that all later arrivals
should follow his trail. Further, that they would find "an abundant