n, you will continue at your work until you are directed to
return."

Had I allowed either of the above transactions to have passed unpunished,
I might as well have started for the States, for all order would have been
at an end.

Sometimes we would see a small party of Indians at a short distance from
us. I would step to my instrument, and turn the glass towards them. They
would at once commence to scamper, throw sand, turn into all manner of
shapes, lie down, roll over, thinking no doubt it was a gun or something
that would destroy them. At one time, I attempted to cross from the sink
of the Mohave river to Providence, some sixty miles, expecting to find
water at Washburn's well. This was a hole which I afterwards found dug
down about ten feet in the white sand that covers this desert. On this
sand not any thing grows, but musquit bush, which bears a bean that the
Indians eat.

After travelling to within twelve miles of the mountain, my animals and my
men all gave out. We did not have a drop of water, and my chart said that
there was none short of the mountain. I told the boys that evening was
coming on, and I would take some leather bottles we had and go and get
some water as quickly as I could. So just before dark, I started with
bottles enough to hold twenty quarts. I had a trail to follow in the dark,
not over a foot in width. After what seemed to me the longest twelve miles
I ever travelled, I arrived at the mountain. After following the ravine
through the top, I found the spring, drank heartily, filled my bottles,
and started on my return trip. I arrived at the place where I had left my
men, just as the day was breaking. After giving them a good drink, I gave
some to each of the animals, any one of which would drink from a canteen
or bottle.

We then all immediately started on towards the mountain, at which place we
finally arrived. When within about fifty yards of the spring, I saw a
small party of Indians camped just above it. One of them, the chief,
stepped forward, and in Spanish ordered me to stop. And here let me say,
that almost all of the Indians, especially their chiefs, can talk Spanish.
When he ordered me to stop, I burst out into a laugh, and asked him "what
for." My boys in the meantime were preparing for a fight. I told them to
put up their weapons, as I did not wish to commence fighting the Indians
here, as there were lots of them, and we had a good deal of work to do in
that vicinity. Though