FINDING MY PEOPLE
On leaving my newly found friends I faced a discouraging prospect. The start for the high, arid table-lands bordering the Yakima valley cut me loose from all communication. No more immigrants were met until I reached the main-traveled route beyond the Columbia River.
The road lay through a forbidding sage plain, or rather an undulating country, covered by shifting sands and dead grass of comparatively scant growth. As the sun rose, the heat became intolerable. The dust, in places, brought vivid memories of the trip across the Plains.
Strive against it as I might, my eyes would strain at the horizon to catch a glimpse of the expected train. Then an intolerable thirst seized upon me and compelled me to leave the road and descend into the valley for water.
I dared not linger off the trail and take chances of missing the expected train. So I went through another stretch of travel, of heat, and of thirst, that lasted until during the afternoon, when I found water on the trail. Tethering my pony for his much-needed dinner, I opened my sack of hard bread to count the contents; my store was half gone. I lay down in the shade of a small tree near the spring to take an afternoon nap. Rousing before sundown, refreshed, Bobby and I took the trail with new courage.
When night came, I could not find it in my heart to camp. The cool of the evening invigorated the pony, and we pushed on. Finding that the road could be followed, though but dimly seen, I kept on the trail until a late hour, when I unsaddled and hobbled the pony. The saddle blanket was brought into use, and I was soon off in dreamland forgetting all about the dust, the trail, or the morrow.
Hobbling the pony.
In the morning I awoke to find that the pony had wandered far off on the hillside, so far, in fact, that it required close scanning to discover him. To make matters worse, his hobbles had become loosened, giving him free use of all his feet, and he was in no mood to take the trail again. Coaxing was of no avail, driving would do no good. Taking an opportunity to seize his tail, I followed him around about over the plain and through the sage brush at a rapid gait; finally he slackened pace and I again became master.
For the life of me I could not be sure of the direction of the trail after all this roaming over the plain at Bobby's heels, but I happened to take the right course. When the trail was found, there was the saddle to look for, and this was located with some difficulty.