,
friendly sides.

For a couple of days we had been trying the experiment of camping during
the day and travelling at night, but we soon got enough of that way of
getting along. The traveling at night was all right, but to camp all day
with a scorching sun overhead and a burning sand under our feet was more
than we could endure, so we again worked by day and slept at night.

There was no fuel along here except willows, and they were so green it
was impossible to coax them into a blaze. We finally resorted to a
willow crane, which we made by sticking a couple of willows into the
sand, arching them over toward each other and tying them together,
hanging our coffee-pot between them, underneath which we made a fire of
dead grass tied in knots. For a long time we laid on the sand and fed
that fire with knotted grass, but _boil_ the coffee would not.

We had now reached the sink of the Humboldt, which was a small lake,
perhaps ten or twelve miles long and two or three miles wide. The upper
half was quite shallow, with soft, miry bottom covered with flags and
rushes. The lower half was clear, open water, rounding off at its lower
end with a smooth, sandy beach, making it a very pretty thing to look
at, but its water was so brackish as to be unpalatable for drinking
purposes.

We camped for the night near its flags and rushes, a large quantity of
which we cut and brought in for the animals, which seemed to give them
new life and ambition. We also cut as many bundles as we could carry
away bound to the backs of our loose stock, for we still had forty-two
miles more of desert, without wood, water or grass, before reaching the
Carson River. While camping in this vicinity two pelicans sailed around
and lighted in the clear lake, beyond reach of rifle-shot. These were
the first birds of the kind I had ever seen outside of a showman's cage,
and I was determined to have one of them if possible; so, with rifle in
hand, I waded out till the water came up under my arms, and, not being
able to go any farther, I fired, but without avail.

In looking about me as I waded back, I saw a little white tent a short
way off, just on the edge of the lake. Going to it, I found a lone man
about half drunk. I asked him what he was doing there, and he said he
had some alcohol to sell at five dollars a quart. I bought a quart, my
canteen full, and went back to camp. We succeeded in making coffee of
the strongest kind and enough of it to fill our si