All the next morning, Monday, June 10th, we rode through a delightful region of rolling meadows, beautiful groves of pines and aspens, and cool, clear creeks. Near noon we descended into a fertile valley where we crossed two superb torrential streams and camped at the second under a giant pine. Fennemore felt very sick, which prevented further progress this day, and we put in the afternoon exploring as far as we could the neighbourhood. More lakes were found and as they were in a cup-like depression we called them the "Hidden Lakes." Jack made some fine negatives of several of these pretty bodies of water, two of which I have added to the illustrations of this volume. Not far from our camp two more splendid creeks came together to form one, which Dodds said he thought was that named by them Big Boulder, where it joined the main stream down below. The next morning, Tuesday, we began our day's work by soon crossing Cataract and Cascade creeks before they united to form the Big Boulder, rushing down with an impetuosity that was forbidding. The two forming creeks were much alike, but we could see back in the distance a beautiful cascade of fully 1000 feet in which the second stream originated, and we distinguished it by that name. All day we travelled over a rancher's paradise, meeting no Indians and seeing no recent signs of any except in some filmy smoke mounting mysteriously from canyons in the tangled sandstone labyrinth below. Who were they, how many, and what might be their temper? were questions that came to us as we reflected on the presence there of unknown human beings, and furthermore would we meet them, and if so when? As on the preceding day we crossed many fine brooks which in the dry season probably would not make so vigorous a showing. Late in the afternoon, having travelled fifteen miles, we reached the point where the end of the Wasatch or Aquarius Plateau, the high slope of which we were using as a bridge from Potato Valley to the Unknown Mountains, broke back to the north, cutting us off once more from our objective, for a wide stretch, twenty-five miles in an airline, of ragged desert apparently impassable still intervened. We camped there at a convenient little spring. In the morning I was sent with Johnson for my companion in one direction down the mountain to look for some old trail, while Prof. with Dodds went in another. Scarcely had I gone half a mile when I found tolerably fresh Indian sign, and a mile or two farther on we struck a recently travelled trail. The horses that had gone over it were unshod and there were moccasin tracks indicating Indians without a doubt, but what kind of course the track did not reveal. The trail led towards the Dirty Devil Mountains, and we followed it three or four miles to ascertain with certainty its general course. There was a possibility of our stumbling upon the Indians in camp at some bend, and as this was not desirable for only two of us we turned back as soon as we felt sure of the direction. Prof. had seen no trail at all, and he said we would take the one I had found and follow it. That night was disagreeable and rainy with numberless mosquitoes, but worst of all one of our new men always snored till the ground shook, and owing to the rain we could not get away from him, for we had to remain in the improvised tent to keep dry.
The morning light never was more welcome and we were all up early. The day was fair. We were soon off and made our way down from the grassy heights to the trail, tracing its wearisome twists and turns, sometimes thinking it was not going our way at all when the next turn would be exactly right. In general its course was about east. The land was desolate and dry, and exactly as the region appeared from above, a complete labyrinth of variously coloured cliffs and canyons. Besides being very crooked on account of the nature of the topography, the trail at times was indistinct because of the barren rocks, smooth as a floor, with nothing to take an imprint. In these places we were obliged to make the best guess we could. We came to a place where a valley lay about 1800 feet below us, with the descent to it over bare, smooth, white sandstone almost as steep as a horse could stand on. We travelled a mile and a half over this and then found ourselves in a better looking region where, after a few miles, we discovered a beautiful creek flowing rapidly. There was plenty of good grass and we made our camp beneath some cottonwood trees, having accomplished twenty miles the way we came. Smoke of an Indian fire was rolling up about three miles below us, but we paid little attention to it. Every man delayed putting down his blankets till the champion snorer had selected the site of his bed, and then we all got as far away as the locality would permit. Having slept little the night before, we hardly stirred till morning, and in gratitude we called the stream Pleasant Creek without an attempt at originality.
It was Friday, May 14th, and our long cavalcade proceeded in the usual single file down along the creek in the direction of the Indian smoke. Scarcely had we gone three miles when suddenly we heard a yell and the bark of a dog. Then we discovered two squaws on the other side who had been gathering seeds, and who were now giving the alarm, for we were close upon an Indian camp set on the edge of a low hill on the opposite side of the creek. Our outfit presented rather a formidable appearance, especially as we were an unexpected apparition, and we could see them all running to hide, though I thought for a moment we might have a battle. Without a halt, Prof. led the way across the creek to the foot of the hill, and as we reached the place one poor old man left as a sacrifice came tottering down, so overcome by fear that he could barely articulate, "Hah-ro-ro-roo, towich-a-tick-a-boo," meaning very friendly he was, and extending his trembling hand. Doubtless he expected to be shot on the instant. With a laugh we each shook his hand in turn saying "towich-a-tick-a-boo, old man," and rode up the hill into the camp, where we found all the wickiups with everything lying about just as they had been using it at the moment of receiving the alarm. We dismounted and inducing the terrified old man to sit down in one of the wickiups, Prof. sat with him and we rolled cigarettes, giving him one, and when all were smoking, except Prof. who never used tobacco, we urged him in English and Pai Ute and by signs to call the others back. I walked a few yards out on the hill and just then, with a rush and a clatter of language I could not understand, except "Impoo immy pshakai?" (What do you want?) the two squaws who had been up the creek arrived. The foremost one, frothing at the mouth with excitement and effort, dashed at me with an uplifted butcher knife as if she would enjoy sending it into me, but I laughed at her and she halted immediately in front of me. She broke into a maniacal laugh then and shouted something to the hidden refugees. We persuaded the old man also to call them, and he stepped out from the cedars which grew on the point and spoke a loud sentence. At last they began to appear silently and one by one. There were eight of the men, all well dressed in buckskin, and a number of women and children. When they became confident that we really meant to be friendly they relaxed their vigilance. With the hope of securing a guide and also to study them a little we went into camp in the creek bottom under the hill where they came to visit us. Their language and appearance showed them to be Utes.
When Prof. got back to Kanab he heard that a party of Red Lake Utes had killed a white boy near the Sevier settlements, and he concluded this band must have been the one. They probably thought we were pursuing them into their secret lair to punish them. Their great anxiety to trade for powder indicated their lack of that article and partly explained the precipitousness of their retreat. They had numbers of well dressed buckskins and a very small amount of powder would buy one, but as we had only metallic cartridges we could do little in the line of exchange. To satisfy one of them that we had no loose powder I removed the spring from the magazine of my Winchester and poured the sixteen cartridges out. He had never seen such a gun before and was greatly astonished, though he hardly understood how it worked. Prof. tried his best to persuade one to go with us as a guide, for the labyrinth ahead was a puzzle, but whether through fear or disinclination to leave friends not one would go. The chief gave us a minute description of the trail to the Unknown or Dirty Devil Mountains as well as he could by signs and words, some of which we could not understand, and long afterwards we learned that his information was exactly correct, though at the time through misunderstanding we were not able to follow it. They also told us there was a trail to the big river beyond the mountains.
There was a little canyon in the creek nearby and the water rushed down over a bed of bare rock at an angle of about twenty degrees. We were surprised to discover hundreds of fish six to nine inches long wriggling up the stream along one edge where the water was very shallow. They formed a line from top to bottom.
Unable to secure the guide, we left at six o'clock in the morning, Saturday, June 15th, with all our relations cordial, the Utes going away before we did, and struck out on the trail which led south-eastward from this camp. Travelling twelve miles, we passed through a narrow canyon into a larger one, believing that we were following the chief's direction. Recent heavy rains had washed out the trail, and not knowing its course it was impossible to keep even its general direction. Going up a left-hand branch of the canyon—that is, to the north—we found no exit, so we came down and followed a trail up the right-hand branch till it disappeared, then going back once more to the entrance we again went up the left-hand branch till we came to a vertical wall one thousand feet high, which turned us around. The right-hand one was entered another time, and towards its head where the cliffs could not be climbed we made camp, with an abundance of water which was so strongly alkaline we could not use it and had to keep the stock from it also. Our kegs were full and we did not suffer except by limitation. In the morning we continued up the same canyon till it ended in vertical cliffs, beneath which there was a large pool of pure cool water, with ferns clinging above it to the rocks and rank vegetation all around. This was an immense relief, and we found it hard to turn our backs on so attractive a spot and go down the gorge once more to a point not far below our last camp. Here the walls were about a thousand feet and very precipitous, though somewhat broken. Prof., Jack, Dodds, and I climbed out on the north and hunted for water in different directions on the top. I kept on and on down a dry wash, persisting against the objection of Dodds, who thought it useless, and was at last rewarded by discovering a pocket among the rocks containing several barrels of water, with another that was larger a short distance below in a crevice on a rock-shelf at the brink of a canyon.
We returned to camp with this news, where Prof. and Jack soon joined us. They had found no pockets, but had seen the divide between the waters of the Colorado and the Dirty Devil, which we could follow to the mountains if we could scale the cliffs. Prof. had selected a point where he thought we could mount. With a liberal use of axe, shovel, and pick we succeeded in gaining the summit in an hour and a half. With all the cliff-climbing we had done with horses this seemed to me our paramount achievement. The day was ending by this time, and I led the way with some trepidation towards the pocket I had found, for in my haste to get back I had not carefully noted the topography. The cedars and piñons all looked alike in the twilight shades, and as I went on and on the men behind began to lose faith and made joking remarks about my mental status. I felt certain I was right, yet the distance seemed so much greater in the dusk than when I had traversed it on foot that I was a little disturbed. By the time we at last got to the pocket darkness was upon us, though nobody cared for anything but water, and there it was fresh and pure. The animals and ourselves (Andy filling the kettles first) consumed the entire amount, but it gave each a full drink, and we held the second pool in reserve.
Tantalus Creek.