them. I asked the price. It was five dollars,
and I paid it gladly as the owner passed the bottle over to me. I saw in
that bottle of pickles my day of deliverance and salvation, and drawing
my long knife from my bootleg soon drew the cork and filled my fevered
mouth with pickles. I assure my readers that I can taste those gherkins
to this day. The proprietor, who evidently thought that I was a "little
off," brought me to a sense of realization by telling me that his tent
was not a mule stable and that I had better get out. His voice and
expression made me feel that I might be in danger of losing my pickles,
so I waited not on ceremony, but beat a hasty and complete retreat.

We had now finished the desert which, with all its events and
experiences, was already behind us. We had travelled more than one
thousand miles with no tree in sight, and our feelings can easily be
imagined when, in looking a short distance ahead, we saw a clump of
trees--real trees, green trees, shade-giving trees. We instantly became,
as it were, initiated into the tree-worshipping sect. We were soon, men
and beasts, within the cooling shade, and the packs stripped from the
poor, tired animals, when they were led into the shallow water of the
Carson, where they drank and bathed to their heart's content, and were
then turned loose into a stretch of good grass.

We couldn't treat ourselves as well as we had treated our animals, for
we had only a bite of hardtack crumbs, which we washed down with some of
the "elixir of life" from our canteens. But we stretched ourselves
underneath the friendly trees and, just letting loose of everything,
slept until nearly noon the next day.

The vicinity in which we camped seemed to have been pre-empted by a
number of parties, who lived in tents and sold provisions to the
immigrants. The settlement was called "Ragtown."

After coming out of our long sleep and taking in the situation of our
whereabouts we were soon ready to take up our westward march, which, in
two days, brought us to the first real house we had seen since leaving
the Missouri. This house was known as "Mormon Station." It was a
good-sized story and half building, with a lean-to on one side and a
broad porch on the other, along which was a beautiful little stream of
cold, clear water. Cups were hanging on the porch columns for the use of
immigrants. There were also long benches for them to sit and rest on.
Connected with this house was a stock ran