Shortly after leaving Bunkerville we passed Mesquite, a small town on the north side of the river, where the cowboys started from who passed us near Moapa on their way to Los Angeles with the bunch of horses. At five-thirty we reached the top of a mesa overlooking Littlefield, a quaint Mormon settlement of five houses.
Here we drove down to the river again, through the town and under the pomegranate and fig trees, and alongside of the alfalfa and grain fields. We took note that they had some very good horses here and everybody looked happy and prosperous. By this I mean they had just what they needed and no more. This, I take to be prosperity; anything more would be affluence, which makes trouble.
We went up the river as far as Beaver Creek, where we turned off and camped. This was eighteen miles from our morning camp and it had been a very interesting day indeed for us, although hard on the horses. The Virgin River water is poor, but this Beaver Creek water is fine, so we fill our barrels to-night, as we are told by the rancher here that it is forty miles over the mountains to St. George and twenty-five miles to water.
As each man drinks a gallon and a half of water, and each horse from seven to eight pails a day, and besides that there are our needs for cooking, we get to thinking nothing else but water, and carry it sometimes unnecessarily; but we never take a chance and whenever we come to any good water we fill up.
We made a good start at five-thirty the next morning for St. George, which lay over on the other side of Beaver Dam Mountains, down on Clara Creek. We had a stiff pull to get up on the mesa and then a continual climb up over the rim. It grew cooler as we climbed, and after about fourteen miles we stopped for noon. From here we had a splendid view of the basin, saw where the Virgin River breaks through the mountains and where the Beaver Dam and Virgin wash come together. Then we drove on up and at 3 P. M. topped the crest and started down into Clara Creek Valley. Our brake worked well and the horses were glad of a chance to let out without pulling, and we made the first three miles in fifteen minutes, probably. Then we ran into a wash and slowed up, but soon got a good road again, although it was red clay.
While getting some beautiful views we dropped so fast that at 5:30 P. M. we reached the bottom, literally covered with red dust and filled with excitement. We came to the creek at Shem, an Indian settlement, eight miles from Clara and thirteen miles from St. George. We saw quite a few Tepee Indians; we were not sure what tribe they belonged to, but concluded they must be Utes as this is Utah. Night before last we camped on the Virgin River, Nevada, and last night on Beaver Dam Creek, Arizona, and to-night on Clara Creek, Utah. “I guess that is going some,” as the little boy said.
Coming down the canyon this afternoon we saw painted on a rock “Isaac Sprague 1908.” We were sorry he did not put down his address so we could have looked him up, but assumed he was a Mormon and not a Yankee.
We made about twenty-seven miles to-day, eighteen up and nine down hill, which was quite a day’s work for the horses, as it was pretty much up all day, and the down was pretty much down. We will hope for an easier trail to-morrow.
A SAMPLE OF MORMON ARCHITECTURE