Rogers refused to do this, he said he would
stay with me and see me out, and that he could not do much alone, and
had better wait till I got better. So we worked along through the
tangled brush, being many times compelled to wade the stream to get
along, and this made our moccasins soft and very uncomfortable to wear.
I endured the pain all day, and we must have advanced quite a little
distance in spite of my lameness, but I was glad when night came and we
camped in the dark brushy canon, having a big fire which made me quite
comfortable all night, though it was quite cold, and we had to keep
close together so as to use the blanket. I felt a little better in the
morning and after eating some of our poor dried meat, which was about as
poor as crow, and I don't know but a little worse, we continued on our
way.
The tangle got worse and worse as we descended, and at times we walked
in the bed of the stream in order to make more headway, but my lameness
increased and we had to go very slow indeed. About noon we came to what
looked like an excavation, a hole four feet square or more it looked to
be, and on the dirt thrown out some cottonwood trees had grown, and one
of the largest of these had been cut down sometime before. This was the
first sign of white men we had seen and it was evidently an attempt at
mining, no one knows how long ago. It encouraged us at any rate, and we
pushed on through brush and briers, tangles of wild rose bushes and
bushes of every sort, till all of a sudden we came out into an open
sandy valley, well covered with sage brush and perhaps a hundred yards
wide; probably more.
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