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mother was tucking her children into their beds. Out on the long slope
the feeding oxen moved like shadows through the sage-brush, and beyond
them coyotes shrieked incessantly.

Fairly in the middle of the camp a leaping flame shone on the faces of
a crowd of men. For the world-old question of a short cut had arisen
to divide opinions in this company and they had gathered around a
large fire to try to settle the matter.

They were on their way to California and the placer fields. In Salt
Lake City they had learned that the season was too far advanced to
permit their crossing the Sierras by the northern passes and they had
organized into what they called the Sand Walking Company, with John
Hunt, a bearded Mormon elder, as their captain and their guide. He was
to conduct them by a trail, unmarked as yet by any wagon track, over
which some of his people had traveled to the old Spanish grant
recently acquired by their church at San Bernardino. This route to the
gold-fields followed the Colorado watershed southward taking advantage
of such few streams as flowed into the basin, to turn northward again
at the pueblo of Los Angeles. Thus it described a great loop nearly
parallel with what is now Nevada's southern boundary.

But before the Sand Walking Company left Salt Lake City a man named
Williams drew a map for one of its number showing what he claimed was
a shorter pathway to the Land of Gold. This Williams Short Route, as
it came to be called during many a heated discussion, struck off
straight into the west bearing to the San Bernardino road the relation
of a cord to its arc; until it reached a snow-clad peak. This peak,
according to the map, was visible for many miles, a clear landmark
during-nearly half the journey. Reaching it the trail turned sharply
north to cross the range by an easy pass and traverse a long rich
valley to the gold-fields. There were many legends of good feed and
water-holes on the drawing. The promise of time saved was an important
consideration, for all of the company were getting impatient to reach
the placer diggings lest they be too late.

The trail forked near this place where they were encamped to-night.
John Hunt had halted the party here for two days while scouts crossed
the long divide to the west and looked over the country beyond the
summit to see if wagons could travel that way. And now his pathfinders
were giving their reports. They stood in the open space by the fire,
three lea