pedient, unless in order to reach grass or
water. When the requisites for encamping can not be found at the
desired intervals, it is better for the animals to make a very long
drive than to encamp without water or grass. The noon halt in such
cases may be made without water, and the evening drive lengthened.

WATER.

The scarcity of water upon some of the routes across the plains
occasionally exposes the traveler to intense suffering, and renders it
a matter of much importance for him to learn the best methods of
guarding against the disasters liable to occur to men and animals in
the absence of this most necessary element.

In mountainous districts water can generally be found either in
springs, the dry beds of streams, or in holes in the rocks, where they
are sheltered from rapid evaporation. For example, in the Hueco tanks,
thirty miles east of El Paso, New Mexico, upon the Fort Smith road,
where there is an immense reservoir in a cave, water can always be
found. This reservoir receives the drainage of a mountain.

During a season of the year when there are occasional showers, water
will generally be found in low places where there is a substratum of
clay, but after the dry season has set in these pools evaporate, and it
is necessary to dig wells. The lowest spots should be selected for this
purpose when the grass is green and the surface earth moist.

In searching for water along the dry sandy beds of streams, it is well
to try the earth with a stick or ramrod, and if this indicates moisture
water will generally be obtained by excavation. Streams often sink in
light and porous sand, and sometimes make their appearance again lower
down, where the bed is more tenacious; but it is a rule with prairie
travelers, in searching for water in a sandy country, to ascend the
streams, and the nearer their sources are approached the more water
will be found in a dry season.

Where it becomes necessary to sink a well in a stream the bed of which
is quicksand, a flour-barrel, perforated with small holes, should be
used as a curb, to prevent the sand from caving in. The barrel must be
forced down as the sand is removed; and when, as is often the case,
there is an undercurrent through the sand, the well will be continually
filled with water.

There are many indications of water known to old campaigners, although
none of them are absolutely infallible. The most certain of them are
deep green cottonwood or willow trees growi