At Fort Hall we changed our Captain.  We got a man by the name of Wm.           Martin to pilot us and he acted as Captain a piece.  He turned off on the California road with Childs.  Dr. Whitman then volunteered to pilot the emigration through to Walla Walla.  He lived in Walla Walla.  He said he would pilot us there but he could not stay with us.  He would leave notices with us how we should travel and we followed those notices till we came to Grande Rounde he went through and sent an Indian back to pilot us through from Grande Rounde to Walla Walla.  We had no trouble from Fort Hall to Grande Rounde Valley.  It was open country.  Sometimes we had to climb mountains and get on the divides and select the main divide that looked in the direction we were going.  But in the main it was often enough to drive along without making roads.  We came to Snake River.  Dr. Whitman was with us there and he advised us to fasten our teams together, the whole train with the exception of my own team.  I had a strong carriage and I thought I could drive through separately.  I fell in behind and the wagons and teams being angling in the current raised the current on the bank side probably some 2 feet or 18 inches higher than the usual height and it pressed so hard against my team that I was about to go over the shoal where several persons had gone over and drowned before that, the animals they rode over themselves too.  Seeing that there was a danger of going over I sprung out of the carriage and ran to the team and pressed myself against the team and held the lead ox to his place until the train went on and the water lowered.  I remained in that situation till the whole train got across on the land.  Dr. Whitman rode back on a large gray horse and threw a rope to me and told me to put it on the near ox's horns.  I did so and he put it around the horse's saddle and he then led the way across and I got into the carriage and drove across.  The Doctor towed the team across with his rope.  I learned afterwards that one of the oxen which were temporally in the wagon instead of mules was a weak ox.  I consider that Dr. Whitman saved my life, and I remembered it when he was massacred.  I remembered it in the Cayuse war where I endeavored to redress his wrongs.  We all got across safely.  There was a Mr. Ayres (?) an Englishman who had a family in his care who came on his mule.  He was riding a mule and went over that shallows and into the deep water and drowned he and his mule.  This was near the American Falls, the first crossing of the Snake [River].  The second crossing was at Fort Boise.  We then blocked our wagon beds up six inches inside of the standards and forded the river - a thing I have never heard of being done before or since.  It was a very dangerous way because if we had got into deep water the bodies would have floated off.  We succeed in getting across safely, but we considered it very hazardous.