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Show Page 205 with the duties of editing The Seer ar-rancH™ f^v u~. „ • , . & me aeer, arranging tor housing accommodations, agents, tons of meat and flour, steamboats for the Mississippi passage, and mechanics to work the wagons in far-off Missouri. He himself joined the emigrants at St. Louis in May 1854, where he examined the readiness of the companies, and, finding them in the usual state of disarray, warned them sternly not to attempt the passage to the valley after June 25. He accompanied the Kesler Group, with his new wife, making a smooth nineteen miles per day all through mid-summer. It was too smooth. On August 5, for some unknown reason, their hundreds of oxen and cattle broke away with a terrific rush and roar and stampeded into the desert southward. For days, the frantic company combed sandhills and poked through buffalo herds, scaring out their cattle and horses. Those that were brought back had been terribly broken down, and the loss required many of the wagons to "double team," making it difficult to pull ahead more than six or eight miles a day for fear of exhausting the stock. This was worse than tedious, for the pioneers depended on the stock as much for food as for transportation. With meat and meal running out, and his carriage horses enfeebled, Orson decided to leave Erastus Snow and Ezra T. Benson in charge of the company while he rode ahead for help. He and Horace Eldredge kicked out and rolled as fast they could for Salt Lake, which they achieved in nineteen days. The assistance they sent - horses and mules - saved the company from a potentially disastrous stranding 38 in the Wyoming desert. One by one, he visited six households. Distant from his wives for nearly two years, he was glad to find Sarah and the oldest children in good health, and to each of the wives he introduced Sarah Louise Lewis Pratt. At length, turning toward a small adobe where Third North Street met Third West, he embraced his Scottish Marian, undoubtedly with tears, |