ontain silver, but I believe it turned out to be lead
and too far from transportations to be available.

CHAPTER X.

Bennett and Arcane now concluded not to wait for me to go ahead and
explore out a way for them to follow, as I had done for a long time, but
to go ahead as it was evidently the best way to turn south and make our
own road, and find the water and passes all for ourselves. So they
hitched up and rolled down the canon, and out into the valley and then
turned due south. We had not gone long on this course before we saw that
we must cross the valley and get over to the west side. To do this we
must cross through some water, and for fear the ground might be miry, I
went to a sand hill near by and got a mesquite stick about three feet
long with which to sound out our way. I rolled up my pants pulled off my
moccasins and waded in, having the teams stand still till I could find
out whether it was safe for them to follow or not by ascertaining the
depth of the water and the character of the bottom.

The water was very clear and the bottom seemed uneven, there being some
deep holes. Striking my stick on the bottom it seemed solid as a rock,
and breaking off a small projecting point I found it to be solid rock
salt. As the teams rolled along they scarcely roiled the water. It
looked to me as if the whole valley which might be a hundred miles long
might have been a solid bed of rock salt. Before we reached this water
there were many solid blocks of salt lying around covered with a little
dirt on the top.

The second night we found a good spring of fresh water coming out from
the bottom of the snow peak almost over our heads. The small flow from
it spread out over the sand and sank in a very short distance and there
was some quite good grass growing around.

This was a temporary relief, but brought us face to face with stranger
difficulties and a more hopeless outlook.

There was no possible way to cross this high steep range of mountains
anywhere to the north and the Jayhawkers had abandoned their wagons and
burned them, and we could no longer follow on the trail they made. It
seemed that there was no other alternative but for us to keep along the
edge of the mountain to the south and search for another pass. Some who
had read Fremont's travels said that the range immediately west of us
must be the one he described, on the west side of which was a beautiful
country, of rich soil and having plenty of catt