This morning our cattle were all missing and it still rains and snows
very heavily. Pack and T. Cloward started early on foot to hunt the
cattle but after following them over seven miles in the storm and
seeing that they had kept on the road towards the Platte river, they
returned to camp. It rained and snowed heavily till eleven o'clock at
which time the balance of the camp arrived. John Pack asked the company
to let us have some of their loose cattle to bring on our wagons till
we overtook ours again, but the captains both generously refused for
some cause or other. However, some of the brethren took their cattle
out of their teams and let us have them and we moved onward. After
traveling about thirteen miles we saw our cattle about four miles to
the left of the road at the foot of a mountain. We halted and Lamb took
one of the mules to fetch the cattle to the road. Soon after Pack and
Jackson Redding came up and learning that we had found the cattle, they
started to them to drive them to camp and Lamb being relieved, returned
to the wagon. We harnessed up and arrived at the mineral spring about
six o'clock, having traveled sixteen and a quarter miles. This spring
has been represented as poisonous but if it is so, it must be in
consequence of minerals under the water. The water has no bad taste
till the cattle trample in it. It then becomes almost black as ink and
this is probably what makes it poisonous.