On arriving we were welcomed in the true, old-mountaineer style. Although grass was abundant, he turned our mules into his oat field. We told him about Martin, and he said, "Well now, I will go into town every Saturday, get drunk, and abuse Martin for this until I run him out of the country. I will never let up on him. Why he aint fit to live."
Baker had his squaw fix us up some food; all we would take. Next morning we started on feeling much better than when leaving Denver. We met with others along the road who supplied our wants.
While at Bitter creek one of our mules got poisoned with bad water. We got him as far as Jack Robinson's camp, leaving him and getting another.
On reaching Bridger, we overtook a government outfit coming into Camp Floyd—Captain Clery and escort. The Captain was on his way to relieve the then acting Quartermaster. He offered to supply us if we would travel with him as they did not know the road. We traveled with him two days receiving the best of treatment from officers and men. Our route led down Provo Canyon. I had a number of acquaintances in this valley; among the number Melvin Ross who lived at the head of the valley. He was a man of considerable means. I told Moore we would go and camp with him, telling how welcome we would be. There was a sergeant in the company who knew the road from Weber. Neither Moore nor myself had traveled the road from Weber to Provo valley. We went ahead and took the wrong road so that we lost several miles in getting back to the Provo road. In the meantime the soldiers passed on and got ahead of us. This plagued us a little but we concluded to keep it to ourselves. When we finally arrived at Ross's ranch we found the soldiers had passed and were camped a short distance down the road.
Ross was out in front of his house just laying out a big fat mutton dressed. He knew me but spoke rather coolly for an old friend, but asked us to get down. I told him we would like to stop and get something to eat and stay all night, but that we were without money. He replied that we had some good ropes and blankets. I told him we needed them, as we might go on down the canyon and camp, for we were anxious to get home to our families. He said there was good camping down the canyon. I thought he was doing this simply to joke us, but not so. We finally started on, but expecting to be Celled back and laughed at.
Moore commenced laughing at me, saying, "That's your friend, is it?"
I said, "He'll call us back; he cannot mean this only as a joke."
Moore said, "Nary a joke; that man's in earnest."
I felt just about as bad as I ever remember to have felt. We had been running the gauntlet for several hundred miles among strangers, looking forward with great expectations on reaching friends at home. We had traveled forty-five miles since eating. This we told Ross, but not a bite would he let us have unless we gave him a rope or blanket. This seemed so mean that we would rather have traveled all next day without food than to ask anyone again.
When we came up to the soldier camp they asked us to stop and have supper. Our mules were fed oats and turned out. We said nothing about the grand (?) reception we had had, as we were ashamed to mention it. We stayed till about eleven o'clock and then went on down the canyon and laid out a short distance from several old friends and acquaintances. We dared not call on anyone; so early next morning we started for our homes in Provo, joking each other often and wondering if our wives would treat us as Ross had.