we might kill or capture all of this party, a larger
band might attack us in the future. So I told the boys that if they would
keep still, I would bother the Indians a little, and then let them go.
This was agreed to. Upon my asking the chief _what for_, he said,

"This water belongs to the Indians."

I replied, "Do you call yourselves Indians? You are nothing but squaws and
papooses. I was here last night, and got water under your very noses, and
you did not know it."

"The white captain," the chief replied, "talks with two tongues. He lies."

"You are the one that lies," I rejoined. "Has the chief lost his eyesight?
Is he so old that he cannot see the white man's trail? Let him come
forward and meet his white brother alone, and he will show him his trail."

He at once advanced as I did myself. We shook hands. I pointed out my last
night's trail. He saw it at once, and turning to his companions, said to
them,

"The white captain has told the truth."

So we shook hands all around. I gave them some hard bread, also some
bacon, and we had a good time generally all day resting at this spring. At
nightfall they all departed, as silently as shadows, leaving us in full
possession of the spring of water.

CHAPTER XVI.

Recollections of Mountain Life.

Position of The Spring.--The Cache.--Kit Carson's Character and
Appearance.--Cool Bravery of a Mountain Trapper.--Untamed
Character of Many Hunters.--The Surveyor's Camp in an Indian
Territory.--Terrors from Indians.--Joe Walker.--A Mountain
Man.--Soda Lake.--Optical Illusion.--Camp on Beaver Lake.--The
Piyute Chief. Conversation with Him.--An alarm.--A Battle.

Mr. Goodyear in his interesting narrative continues: Here let me speak a
word or two about water. The springs, as a general thing, are found near
the summit of the mountains. In some cases I have had to pack the water a
distance of forty miles, for months at a time. From a lake where it
bubbled up from the bottom as warm as you would like to hold your hand in,
the process of evaporation in the leather bottles rendered it soon, almost
as cool as ice water.

Let us now return to our first camping ground on the Mohave river. Here I
_cached_ or buried for concealment, some of my provisions, to relieve the
animals of their heavy load. If Mr. Indian does not find the _cache_, it
will be all right on our return. I will explain how we do it. First, then,
we send out two or three men a