The writer had tried it
often. Picture to yourself, dear reader the situation and let your own
imagination do the rest. It can never come up to the reality.
In the morning, as Rogers and I were about to start, several of the
oldest men came to us with their addresses and wished us to forward them
to their families if we ever got within the reach of mails. These men
shed tears, and we did also as we parted. We turned silently away and
again took up our march.
As we went down the canon we came to one place where it was so narrow,
that a man or a poor ox could barely squeeze through between the rocks,
and in a few miles more reached the open level plain. When three or four
miles out on the trail and not far from the hills we came to a bunch of
quite tall willows. The center of the bunch had been cut out and the
branches woven in so as to make a sort of corral. In the center of this
was a spring of good water and some good grass growing around. This was
pretty good evidence that some one had been here before. We took a good
drink and filled our canteens anew, for we did not expect to get another
drink for two or three days at least.
We took the trail again and hurried on as the good water made us feel
quite fresh. After a few miles we began to find the bones of animals,
some badly decayed and some well preserved. All the heads were those of
horses, and it puzzled us to know where they came from. As we passed
along we noticed the trail was on a slight up grade and somewhat
crooked.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191