hirsty ones your fill--the
happiest sweetest music to the poor starved, thirsty souls, wasted down
almost to haggard skeletons. O! if some poet of wildest imagination
could only place himself in the position of those poor tired travelers
to whom water in thick muddy pools had been a blessing, who had eagerly
drank the fluid even when so salt and bitter us to be repulsive, and now
to see the clear, pure liquid, distilled from the crystal snow,
abundant, free, filled with life and health--and write it in words--the
song of that joyous brook and set it to the music that it made as it
echoed in gentle waves from the rocks and lofty walls, and with the
gentle accompaniment of rustling trees--a soft singing hush, telling of
rest, and peace, and happiness.

New life seemed to come to the dear women. "O! What a beautiful stream!"
say they, and they dip in a tin cup and drink, then watch in dreaming
admiration the water as it goes hurrying down; then dip and drink again,
and again watch the jolly rollicking brook as if it were the most
entertaining thing in the whole wide earth. "Why can't such a stream as
that run out of the great Snow Mountain in the dry Death Valley?" say
they--"so we could get water on the way."

The men have felt as glad as any of them, but have gathered wood and
made a fire, and now a camp kettle of cut up meat is boiling for our
supper. It was not yet night, but we must camp in so beautiful a place
as this, and though the food was poor, we were better off than we had
been before.

Bennett proposed that I take the mule and go back to where we saw the
track of the animal in the snow and follow it in hope that we might get
some game for we had an idea it might be an elk or bear or some large
game, good to kill and give us better meat: So I saddled the mule and
took the trail back till I came to the track, then followed it as best I
could, for it was very dull and gave me no idea what it was. I traced
out of the snow and then in a blind way through bushes as high as the
mule's back--Chaparral we called it now--among which I made my way with
difficulty. I could now see that the track was made by an ox or
cow--perhaps an elk--I could not tell for sure it was so faint. This
chaparral covered a large piece of table land, and I made my way through
it, following the track for a mile or two, till I came to the
top of a steep hill sloping down into a deep canon and a creek, on the
bank of which grew sycamore and a