hing unusual happened anywhere about. He
was perhaps only one of a hundred that tried to cross the plains and had
to be abandoned when they reached the upper Platte, where the alkali
dust made their feet so sore they could not travel, and as they could
not be hauled on wagons they were left behind. But this dog Cuff did not
propose to be left behind to starve, and crippled along after us, we
doing all we could for him, and proved as tough as the best of us.
Bennett and I had trained him as a hunting dog in the East, and he was
very knowing and handy in every particular.

We were out of this camp at daylight. Very little rest for some of us,
but we must make the best of the cool morning while the snow is hard,
and so move on as soon as we can see the way. As it gets lighter and the
sun comes up red and hot out of the desert we have a grand view of the
great spread of the country to south and of the great snow mountain to
the north and east, the peak standing over the place where we left our
wagons nineteen days before, on the edge of Death Valley. The glare of
the snow on the sun makes us nearly blind, but we hurry on to try to
cross it before it becomes so soft as to slump under our feet. It is two
or three feet in the deepest places, and probably has been three times
as deep when freshly fallen, but it is now solid and icy. Our rawhide
moccasins protect our feet from cold, and both we and the animals got
along fairly well, the oxen breaking through occasionally as the snow
softened up, but generally walking on the top as we did ourselves. The
snow field reached much farther down the western slope than we had
hoped, much farther than on the eastern side. Before we got out of it,
we saw the track of some animal which had crossed our route, but as it
had been made some days before and now could be seen only as some holes
in the surface, we could not determine what sort of an animal it was.

A mile or two down the hill we were at last out of the snow, and a
little farther on we came to the little babbling brook Rogers and I had
so long painted in the most refreshing colors to the tired women, with
water, wood and grass on every hand, the three greatest blessings of a
camper's life. Here was where Rogers and I had cooked and eaten our meat
of crow, quail and hawk, pretty hard food, but then, the blessed water!

There it danced and jumped over the rocks singing the merriest song one
ever heard, as it said--Drink, drink ye t