ers. We are to go in advance, with a working party of Infantry
accompanying us, provisioned for twenty-eight days. Parties are
detailed to-day to cut and bring in timber, which is obtained about a
mile and a half up the mountain, where timber grows in abundance: pine,
juniper, and tamarack.

_July 2_ (Friday). The timber party is still at work to-day,
notwithstanding that it is cloudy and rainy. Our pontons were taken out
and overhauled, and two or three of them were condemned. We received
six more wagons from the Quartermaster, to carry timber. Clothing was
issued to all who were in need of it.

This evening our hunters, who were after game, returned with a young
antelope and some long-eared hares--we had, consequently, quite an
excellent stew for supper.

_July 3_ (Saturday). We were off betimes upon our new road, and marched
as far as Pass Creek, thirteen miles. At the very outset we had three
wagons obstinately stuck in mud holes, requiring two hours, at least,
to get in motion again. We cut brush and boughs, to make a footing for
the mules, and tied ropes to the wheels, and ourselves joined in the
pulling. In this way we dragged out two of the wagons, but the other
had to be entirely unloaded, the contents being carried about twenty
yards, through mud knee-deep.

Our course ran through a deep ravine all the way, and we crossed four
creeks, one of them a very difficult one. The banks were about five
feet above the water, and densely covered by thorny bushes. The creek
was too wide to jump, so we were compelled, _nolens volens_, to scratch
our way down through the briers and then wade to the opposite side,
where the scratching ensued again in climbing out. This nauseous
smelling shrub, the sage, grows in great quantities. It makes our
marching very disagreeable, being so stiff, gnarled and thorny, growing
sometimes to the height of five feet and the largest trunks measuring
from eighteen to twenty-two inches in circumference. Split and twisted,
with a strong appearance of dead, dry wood, the bark resembles that of
the cedar, being dry and shelly.

The day was exceedingly sultry and oppressive; the atmosphere was
perfectly calm, not a leaf trembling, and the air seemed heated like
that of a furnace, causing an unpleasant feeling of lassitude and a
difficulty in respiration. The heat of the day was the more strange
from the fact that ice was found this morning three-sixteenths of an
inch in thickness.

_July 4_