WE LISTENED TO EACH OTHER'S REHEARSALS AND BECAME MUTUAL SYMPATHIZERS
AND ENCOURAGERS.
We travelled up Goose Creek for several days till we got to its head, on
the great divide that separates the Snake River from the Humboldt. The
second or third day up the creek we had a genuine surprise that put us
all in the best of humor again. It was no less than the overtaking of
the three wagons that left us in the South Pass, where we commenced
packing. Captain Wadsworth's wagon was mired down and part of the team.
We all turned in and soon had him out. We were all glad to meet again,
and all our men were delighted to meet and shake hands with Mrs.
Wadsworth, who was equally as joyful as ourselves. We camped together
that night and had a good visit. It was a genuine family reunion. How
thoroughly we listened to each other's rehearsals and became mutual
sympathizers and encouragers! This was the last time the original
company ever met together.
Some of our boys, whose stock was nearly worn out, concluded that they
would join the three wagons and take more time to get through. This move
reduced our little company of packers to six men and ten animals. In the
morning we bade them all goodby (some of them for the last time), swung
into our saddles, and moved on.
After crossing the divide we entered Pleasant Valley, which, with its
level floor, abundant grass, and willow-fringed stream of cool water,
was very appropriately named. As our provisions were now getting short,
I was on the lookout for game of any sort that would furnish food. After
dinner, taking my rifle, I went along down the stream as it led off the
road, when a pair of ducks flew up and alighted a short distance below.
These were the first ducks I had seen since leaving the Platte, and,
being out for something to eat, I was particularly glad to see them. I
watched them settle, and then creeping up through tall wild rice I got a
shot and killed one of them. I quickly reloaded. As I was out there
alone I was necessarily on my guard. The duck was about twenty-five
feet from the bank, and as the water was deep and cold and no one with
me I concluded not to go in after it. So I took out the ramrod, screwed
the wormer to it, lengthened it out with willow cuttings fastened one to
another, and then shoved it out on the water until the wormer touched
the duck, which I managed to twist into the game and draw it ashore. We
had an elegant supper that night.
The next day or two I came to a pond where were sitting five snipe. I
killed the whole bunch, and they helped to make another square meal. We
were now near the border of the Great Desert proper, where, out of the
midst of a level plain, stood a lone mountain known as the "Old Crater,"
which, together with its surroundings, had all the appearance of an
extinct volcano. The plain round about this mountain had been rent in
narrow cracks or crevices leading in various directions from the
mountain off on to the plain, some of them crossing the trail, where we
had to push and jump the stock across them. In dropping a rock into them
there seemed to be no bottom. All about them the ground was covered with
pieces of broken lava, largely composed of gravel stones that had been
welded together by intense heat. A half mile or so from the mountain
stood a block of the same material, which was nearly square in shape and
larger than a thirty-by-forty-foot barn.
We made good time here after coming off the mountain, although we
suffered intensely for want of water, the sun being very hot. However,
we soon found ourselves in the "Thousand Spring Valley," and, being
influenced by its name, expected to have, for that day at least, all the
water we could drink. But, as is sometimes the case, there was
"Water, water everywhere,
But not a drop to drink."
Near the entrance of the valley, which is about thirty miles long, is
the Great Rock Spring, deriving its name, I presume, from its flowing
out from under an immense rock, forming a pool or basin of the brightest
and clearest of water, but so warm that neither man nor beast could
drink it. We all waded around through the basin, the water being about
two feet deep. After a few more miles, we could see ahead of us clouds
of steam vapor rising from the earth in various places. We came to the
first group of boiling springs at noon, nearly famished for water that
one could drink. We turned out for a resting-while. Some went to look
for cool water, and found none, while others made some coffee with
boiling water from a spring, of which there were hundreds on a very few
acres of ground. Some of the springs were six to ten feet across and
three or four inches deep. We set our coffee-pots right in a spring and
made coffee in a very short time. The hot sun pouring down on us, and
boiling springs all about us, and no cold water to drink, made the place
desirable for only one thing--to get away from.
Toward night we turned off into the hills and looked for water, where,
tramping over the rocks and brush, supperless, until nearly midnight, we
found a most delicious spring. We all drank together, men and animals,
and together laid down and slept.
A little farther along, one day at noon, while we were drinking our
coffee, two wild geese flew over and down the river. Watching them sail
along as if to light at a certain point, I took my rifle and followed.
The trail led to the right and over a range of hills, coming into the
valley again several miles ahead, and the direction in which I was
pursuing the geese being a tangent, I soon lost sight of the company. I
went hurriedly on down the river bottom, much of which was covered with
wild rice, very thick and almost as high as my head. The course and
windings of the river here were, as elsewhere, marked by the willows
along the banks. I was now a mile or so from the trail, and coming quite
near where I expected to find the game. Passing cautiously by a clump of
willows I noticed something white on the dead grass, which, upon
investigation, proved to be a human skeleton in a perfect state of
preservation. I picked up the skull, looked it over, and picked off the
under jaw which was filled with beautiful teeth. Putting these in my
pocket and replacing the skull, I moved carefully forward, expecting to
soon see the geese. Picking my way through the stiff mud, I saw several
moccasin tracks. I was just on the point of turning back when I saw the
head of an Indian to my left, within easy range of my rifle. Looking
hurriedly about me, I saw another at my right and quite a distance to
the rear. In a moment they drew their heads down into the grass. I
immediately realized the danger of retreating back into open ground, so
I plunged forward into the wild rice, gripping my rifle with one hand
and making a path through the rice with the other. I ran along in this
way until my strength was nearly gone and the hand I worked the rice
with was lacerated and bleeding. I faced about, dropped to my knees,
and, with rifle cocked, awaited developments. After resting a few
minutes and getting over my scare I started in the direction of the
trail, hoping to get out of the rice and the willows into the open.
Again I had to rest. My hands and arms were now both so lame and sore I
could scarcely use them. When I finally got out of the rice, I
straightened up and ran like a deer, expecting at every jump I made to
be pursued and shot. I made straight for a bend in the slough which was
partly filled with water. The opposite bank being lined with willows,
some of them began to move a little and I concluded some one was coming
through them. Levelling my rifle and with finger on the trigger, I heard
some one shout to me not to shoot. It was a white man, who wanted to
cross the slough. He ran into the water and mud far enough so that I
could reach him and pull him on to the bank. He, too, had encountered
the Indians in the rice and willows, and for a time was unable to stand,
being completely exhausted with fear and his efforts to escape. As soon
as he could walk, we started away from that locality with what strength
and energy we had left. He was there alone and unarmed, looking for
strayed cattle, and had been skulking and hiding from Indians for more
than an hour before I came along. I, being well armed, might have
discouraged them in their hunt for either one of us. At least they never
got in my way after our first sight of each other.
My hands were now swollen and very painful. The stranger carried my gun,
and in a couple of hours we overtook my comrades. As I got on to my mule
I thought what a fool I had been to go alone so far on a wild-goose
chase. That day's experience ended my hunting at any considerable
distance from camp.
While we were still trailing close beside the Humboldt River a most
remarkable and pathetic incident occurred, the vicinity being that now
known as Elko, in Elko County, Nevada.
We had been camping over night in the Humboldt Mountains, and on our
way out in the morning I chanced to be some distance ahead. Riding down
a steep, narrow place, walled in on either side, I could catch only a
glimpse of the Humboldt River as it spun along just ahead of me. Just
before emerging from this narrow place I heard loud screaming for help,
although as yet I could see no one. Coming out into the open, I saw a
man in the river struggling with a span of horses to which was still
attached the running gear of a wagon. A few rods below him were his wife
and two children about five and three years old, floating down the
strong current in the wagon bed.
I swam my mule across, and the minute I reached the land, I jumped off,
and, leaving my rifle on the ground, ran over the rocks down stream
after the woman and children, who were screaming at the top of their
voices. The river made a short bend around some rocks on which I ran
out, and, wading a short distance, I was able to grasp the corner of the
the wagon bed as it came along, which was already well filled with
water. Holding to it, the current swept it against the shore, where the
woman handed her children out to me and then climbed ashore herself. As
soon as all were on land, the woman, hugging her children with one arm,
knelt at my feet and clasping me about the knees sobbed as though her
heart would break, as she kept repeating that I had saved their lives,
and expressing her thanks for the rescue.
As soon as I could collect my wits I began to tug at the wagon-bed, and
then the woman helped, and together we got it where it was safe. Then we
led the children up to where the man had got ashore with his team.
By this time the rest of our train had crossed the river and were with
the man and his horses. When they learned just what had happened, they
became very indignant because the man had apparently abandoned his wife
and children to the mercies of the river, while he exerted himself to
save his team. Quicker than I can tell it, the tongue of the man's wagon
was set up on end, and hasty preparations being made to hang the man
from the end of it. Almost frantic with what she saw, the wife again
threw herself at my feet and begged me to save her husband. Her tears
and entreaties, probably more than all I said, finally quieted the men,
although some of them were still in favor of throwing him in the river.
We eventually helped them get their wagon together, when we moved on
and left them.
At this place the river runs down into a canon, where we had to ford it
four times in ten miles, the stream changing that many times from one
side of the rocky walls to the other. We made the last ford about middle
afternoon, and as it was Sunday, we put out for the day and night.
"Up with my tent, here will I lie to-night.
But where to-morrow? Well, all's well for that."