and then the country before them seemed quite level for a
hundred miles.

They expected they would find much difficulty on account of water, as
their experience had taught them that it was very scarce in such
locations, but this trail when they came to follow it led them for eight
or ten miles over a level piece of high land that looked as if it might
have slid down from the high mountain at some day long past, and this
easily traveled road brought them at last to the top of a steep hill,
down which they went and found near the bottom, a small weak stream of
water, but no grass, and but little fuel of any kind. (This was the same
camp at which Rogers and the Author overtook the advance party.) Here
they killed an ox, which made a good meal for all, and not much remained
over, for many had no oxen and were getting out of all sorts of
provisions. They depended much on the generosity of their fellow
travelers. Many of them stood back, and waited till those who owned the
food were satisfied, and were very grateful when they were invited to
take even the poorest morsels.

They could count the oxen and make a pretty close guess of how many days
they could live in this way, even with the best probable fortune
favoring them, and to the best of them there was but little hope, and to
those who were dependent it seemed as if the fate of Fish and Ischam
might be theirs almost any day. When the Author conversed with them at
this camp he found them the first really heart-broken men he had ever
seen. Some were men of middle age who had left good farms that gave them
every need, and these they had left to seek a yellow phantom, and now
there were yellow phantoms of a different sort rearing their dreadful
forms all about them. They called themselves foolish gold hunters to
forsake a land of plenty for a chance to leave their bones in a hot
desert. More eyes than one filled with tears, and hopes in more than one
breast vanished to almost nothing. More than one would gladly have
placed himself back where he could have been assured of the poorest fare
he ever saw upon his farm, for bread and water would have been an
assurance of life, of which there seemed to be really but little
expectation here.

When they left this camp in the canon the trail was between two high
rocks, rising like walls on each side. In one place they were so near
together that an ox could hardly squeeze through. In a very short time
they came to a bunch of willows