d very uncomfortable to wear.
I endured the pain all day, and we must have advanced quite a little
distance in spite of my lameness, but I was glad when night came and we
camped in the dark brushy canon, having a big fire which made me quite
comfortable all night, though it was quite cold, and we had to keep
close together so as to use the blanket. I felt a little better in the
morning and after eating some of our poor dried meat, which was about as
poor as crow, and I don't know but a little worse, we continued on our
way.

The tangle got worse and worse as we descended, and at times we walked
in the bed of the stream in order to make more headway, but my lameness
increased and we had to go very slow indeed. About noon we came to what
looked like an excavation, a hole four feet square or more it looked to
be, and on the dirt thrown out some cottonwood trees had grown, and one
of the largest of these had been cut down sometime before. This was the
first sign of white men we had seen and it was evidently an attempt at
mining, no one knows how long ago. It encouraged us at any rate, and we
pushed on through brush and briers, tangles of wild rose bushes and
bushes of every sort, till all of a sudden we came out into an open
sandy valley, well covered with sage brush and perhaps a hundred yards
wide; probably more.

The hills on the south side had on them some oak trees and grassy spots,
but the north side was thickly covered with brush. Our beautiful little
brook that had kept us company soon sank into the dry sand out of sight,
and we moved rather slowly along every little while we spoke of the
chances of wagons ever getting through the road we had come, and the
hope that my lameness might not continue to retard our progress in
getting back to the place of our starting, that the poor waiting people
might begin to get out of the terrible country they were in and enjoy as
we had done, the beautiful running stream of this side of the mountain.
If I did not get better the chances were that they would perish, for
they never could come through alone, as the distance had proved much
greater than we had anticipated, and long dry stretches of the desert
were more than they would be prepared for. As it was we feared greatly
that we had consumed so much time they would get impatient and start out
and be lost.

I continued to hobble along down the barren valley as well as I could
and here and there some tracks of animals were disc