No other humans had been seen for days, and then the pioneers saw an old Jew sitting beneath a tree.

"Is there some place ahead where we can get food?" the leader of the wagon train asked.

"Vell, I tink so," the old man said, "but I wouldn't go up dat hill und  down de udder side. Some vun tole me you'd run into a big bacon tree."

"A bacon tree?" asked the wagon train leader.

"Yah, a bacon tree. Vould I lie? Trust me. I vouldn't go dere."

The leader returned to the wagon train and told his people what the old Jew said.

"So why did he say not to go there?" a  person asked.

Other pioneers said, "Oh, you know those Jews — they have a thing about pork."

So the wagon train traveled up the hill and down the other side.

Suddenly, Indians attacked them from everywhere and massacred all except the leader, who managed to escape and get back to the old Jew.

Near dead, the man shouted, "You fool! You sent us to our deaths! We followed your route, but there was no bacon tree, just hundreds of  Indians who killed everyone but me."

The old man held up his hand and said, "Vait a minute." He quickly picked up an English-Yiddish dictionary and began thumbing through  it.

"Oy, I made such ah big mishtake! It vuzn't a bacon tree! "It vuz a ham bush."