ne of travel many bare, bleached bones of
animals that had died in previous years, many of them doubtless the
animals of earlier emigrants. Some of these, as for example, the
frontal or the jaw-bone, whitened by the elements, and having some
plain, smooth surface, were excellent tablets for pencil writing. An
emigrant desiring to communicate with another, or with a company, to
the rear, would write the message on one of these bones and place the
relic on a heap of stones by the roadside, or suspend it in the
branches of a sage bush, so conspicuously displayed that all coming
after would see it and read. Those for general information, intended
for all comers, were allowed to remain; others, after being read by
the person addressed, were usually removed. Sometimes when passing
such messages, placed by those ahead of us, we added postscripts to
the bulletins, giving names and dates, for the edification of whomever
might care to read them. It was in this way that some of the
developments regarding the Indian situation were made known by one
train to another.

Thus we progressed, counting off the average of about eighteen miles a
day from the long part of the journey that still lay before us, when
we reached Thousand Springs, adjacent to the present boundary line
between Utah and Nevada. This, we were told, was the source of the
Humboldt River. We were told, too, that the four hundred miles down
the course of that peculiar stream--which we could not hope to
traverse in much less than one month--we would find to be the most
desert-like portion of the entire trip, the most disagreeable and
arduous, for man and beast. Such was to be expected by reason of the
character of that region and the greater danger there of Indian
depredations; also because the passage through that section was to be
undertaken after our teams had become greatly worn, therefore more
likely to fail under hard conditions. Furthermore, scarcity of feed
for the stock was predicted, and, along much of the way, uncertainty
as to water supply, other than that from the Humboldt River, which
was, especially at that time of the year, so strongly impregnated with
alkali as to be dangerous to life.

Nearly all the face of the country was covered with alkali dust,
which, in a light, pulverulent state, rose and filled the air at the
slightest breeze or other disturbance. It was impossible to avoid
inhaling this powder to some extent, and it created intense thirst,
t