(1843)
     From Fort Hall to this point there was no road.  Doctor Whitman used to put up notices directing us from one notice to another.  We traveled by these notices from place to place.  We found no tracks.  In some places we found an Indian trail and in other places not.  The Indians would take a straight course up and down where wagons could not go.  We had to go around to get on to divides which we could travel from one place to another.  We seldom followed the trail.  It was better traveling out of it than in it, it confused our teams.  We travelled over a great deal of sage brush which was very hard to get over.  We could not stop to chop it out.  The wagons would bend it down but the ground was sandy and the wagons would sink deep into the sand and then rise high on the sage brush.  The foremost wagons would mash it down.  It tired the foremost teams very much.  We had to change the foremost teams back every day, and use the strongest teams and the strongest wagons to mash the sage brush down.  We could do it however so that the next wagon could follow more easily.  Frequently there would be a horseman ahead who rode where the wagons ought to go.  If they found any obstacle in the way they would turn back and notify the train and turn them in [the] right direction where they should go.