The Cruise of a Schooner

by Albert W. Harris

Then he drew us a diagram of the trail, told us where the bad places were, wished us good luck, and said good-bye. We turned in for an early start in the morning. That start was so early we met the young folks coming home from the dance.

It was Thursday morning, the twenty-third of June, that we filled our barrels and started on our sixty-mile stretch to Green River. We crossed Castle Valley to the east, climbed up on the mesa after crossing Huntington Creek, and made about fourteen miles before we stopped for lunch. From one of the benches we had a splendid view of the whole of Castle Valley and could see sixty miles south, and forty miles north, from this point. We picked out the pass over the mountains to the south where we came into the valley, by the snow-capped mountain above it, and could see the range of mountains distinctly forty miles north, and our row of castles to the southwest. To the southeast lay some barren-looking peaks called “Robbers’ Roost,” where Bassett and his gang held forth for so long. It was a hard but fascinating country, but Bob brought me to earth as I stood admiring the scene by saying, “Some society and a little water would change this for the better a whole lot, wouldn’t it?” I didn’t say anything, but thought the water would certainly help, but as for the society I preferred the prospect without habitations, which would take away the charm of it for me.

Starting on over a rolling country at about four thousand feet elevation we met, fortunately, around 3:30 P. M., two men in a buggy, driving one horse and leading another. They told us it was about fifteen miles to the water hole, that there was still a barrel of water there, that we could find it by watching the trail after we had gone about fifteen miles, and that we would see where they had turned out of the trail, if we looked sharp, They told us the water was not where they had turned out, as they had missed the place, but that it was a quarter of a mile farther on, as they had afterward discovered. They told us also when we came to the forks of the trail to take the right fork; that was all, but it was enough.

It would seem like a difficult problem to tell when you have gone fifteen miles in such a country, but we could calculate that about as easily as we could tell the time of day by the sun. Having lost my watch in the early part of the trip I had discovered I didn’t need it anyway, and was saved the trouble of winding it every night. In calling off the time to Doc and Bob I found that I agreed with their watches almost exactly, although once I missed it by fifteen minutes; but I am not sure I was not right even then.

So it was on the trail. We knew how many hours we had been traveling and could tell to almost a certainty how many miles we were making per hour, and thus had no difficulty in telling how far we had gone.

When we had climbed to the top of another rise Doc said, “Well, it is four o’clock and we are fifteen miles from water. We will make about five miles more to-day, and then we can water the horses to-morrow morning at that water hole, about 10 A. M., and just let them do without water for breakfast.” That sounded about right to me, but I wasn’t sure about the 10 A. M. schedule. I thought we could make ten miles before 10 A. M., but we carried this programme out almost to the letter. We drove on for about five miles and camped for the night, having made about twenty-two miles of the sixty that day.

The next day, Friday, the twenty-fourth, was a long, hard day. The horses all did well, but it was up hill and down over rocks and through heavy sand, and several times we had to use all the horses at once. About nine-thirty Doc rode Dixie on ahead, looking for the place where the buggy had turned out, and when we saw him waiting for us by the side of the trail we knew he had found the water; in fact, he had gone right to it with the directions we had received, but without those tell-tale wheel tracks a quarter of a mile from the water, I do not believe we would have found it.

The water was down in a miniature canyon, in a bowl-shaped rock, where stock could not get to it, or the sun’s rays reach it for any length of time, and this rock bowl held, when full, probably twenty barrels of water. The little stream had long ago gone dry, but here out of sight were still a few barrels of water left. It took us quite a while to get the horses down over the rocks close to the water, and it was a case of bucket brigade to get it out to them. When we had them back at the wagon again I noticed that it was ten o’clock; so we did find the water before ten, but I didn’t think there was enough difference in time to call Doc’s attention to it.

After lunch, about 4 P. M., we passed a wash that looked wet to me and I asked Doc if he wouldn’t explore it, while the horses rested in the shade of a cottonwood tree. He came back presently with the information that there was good water about “half a quarter” above, so we unhitched and all went up, and found water running in the bed of the stream for about four feet in one place and about ten feet in another. It was just a case of one of those underground, bottom-side-up streams having a leak in the top, and the water had come up through. The find made us feel safe on the water question. We still had water in our barrels; had found water twice for the horses, and just where Jeff had told us we might find it; and felt quite “sot up” over it.