Some of our boys, whose stock was nearly worn out, concluded that they would join the three wagons and take more time to get through. This move reduced our little company of packers to six men and ten animals. In the morning we bade them all goodby (some of them for the last time), swung into our saddles, and moved on.
After crossing the divide we entered Pleasant Valley, which, with its level floor, abundant grass, and willow-fringed stream of cool water, was very appropriately named. As our provisions were now getting short, I was on the lookout for game of any sort that would furnish food. After dinner, taking my rifle, I went along down the stream as it led off the road, when a pair of ducks flew up and alighted a short distance below. These were the first ducks I had seen since leaving the Platte, and, being out for something to eat, I was particularly glad to see them. I watched them settle, and then creeping up through tall wild rice I got a shot and killed one of them. I quickly reloaded. As I was out there alone I was necessarily on my guard. The duck was about twenty-five feet from the bank, and as the water was deep and cold and no one with me I concluded not to go in after it. So I took out the ramrod, screwed the wormer to it, lengthened it out with willow cuttings fastened one to another, and then shoved it out on the water until the wormer touched the duck, which I managed to twist into the game and draw it ashore. We had an elegant supper that night.
The next day or two I came to a pond where were sitting five snipe. I killed the whole bunch, and they helped to make another square meal. We were now near the border of the Great Desert proper, where, out of the midst of a level plain, stood a lone mountain known as the "Old Crater," which, together with its surroundings, had all the appearance of an extinct volcano. The plain round about this mountain had been rent in narrow cracks or crevices leading in various directions from the mountain off on to the plain, some of them crossing the trail, where we had to push and jump the stock across them. In dropping a rock into them there seemed to be no bottom. All about them the ground was covered with pieces of broken lava, largely composed of gravel stones that had been welded together by intense heat. A half mile or so from the mountain stood a block of the same material, which was nearly square in shape and larger than a thirty-by-forty-foot barn.
We made good time here after coming off the mountain, although we suffered intensely for want of water, the sun being very hot. However, we soon found ourselves in the "Thousand Spring Valley," and, being influenced by its name, expected to have, for that day at least, all the water we could drink. But, as is sometimes the case, there was
"Water, water everywhere,
But not a drop to drink."
Near the entrance of the valley, which is about thirty miles long, is the Great Rock Spring, deriving its name, I presume, from its flowing out from under an immense rock, forming a pool or basin of the brightest and clearest of water, but so warm that neither man nor beast could drink it. We all waded around through the basin, the water being about two feet deep. After a few more miles, we could see ahead of us clouds of steam vapor rising from the earth in various places. We came to the first group of boiling springs at noon, nearly famished for water that one could drink. We turned out for a resting-while. Some went to look for cool water, and found none, while others made some coffee with boiling water from a spring, of which there were hundreds on a very few acres of ground. Some of the springs were six to ten feet across and three or four inches deep. We set our coffee-pots right in a spring and made coffee in a very short time. The hot sun pouring down on us, and boiling springs all about us, and no cold water to drink, made the place desirable for only one thing—to get away from.
Toward night we turned off into the hills and looked for water, where, tramping over the rocks and brush, supperless, until nearly midnight, we found a most delicious spring. We all drank together, men and animals, and together laid down and slept.
A little farther along, one day at noon, while we were drinking our coffee, two wild geese flew over and down the river. Watching them sail along as if to light at a certain point, I took my rifle and followed. The trail led to the right and over a range of hills, coming into the valley again several miles ahead, and the direction in which I was pursuing the geese being a tangent, I soon lost sight of the company. I went hurriedly on down the river bottom, much of which was covered with wild rice, very thick and almost as high as my head. The course and windings of the river here were, as elsewhere, marked by the willows along the banks. I was now a mile or so from the trail, and coming quite near where I expected to find the game. Passing cautiously by a clump of willows I noticed something white on the dead grass, which, upon investigation, proved to be a human skeleton in a perfect state of preservation. I picked up the skull, looked it over, and picked off the under jaw which was filled with beautiful teeth. Putting these in my pocket and replacing the skull, I moved carefully forward, expecting to soon see the geese. Picking my way through the stiff mud, I saw several moccasin tracks. I was just on the point of turning back when I saw the head of an Indian to my left, within easy range of my rifle. Looking hurriedly about me, I saw another at my right and quite a distance to the rear. In a moment they drew their heads down into the grass. I immediately realized the danger of retreating back into open ground, so I plunged forward into the wild rice, gripping my rifle with one hand and making a path through the rice with the other. I ran along in this way until my strength was nearly gone and the hand I worked the rice with was lacerated and bleeding. I faced about, dropped to my knees, and, with rifle cocked, awaited developments. After resting a few minutes and getting over my scare I started in the direction of the trail, hoping to get out of the rice and the willows into the open. Again I had to rest. My hands and arms were now both so lame and sore I could scarcely use them. When I finally got out of the rice, I straightened up and ran like a deer, expecting at every jump I made to be pursued and shot. I made straight for a bend in the slough which was partly filled with water. The opposite bank being lined with willows, some of them began to move a little and I concluded some one was coming through them. Levelling my rifle and with finger on the trigger, I heard some one shout to me not to shoot. It was a white man, who wanted to cross the slough. He ran into the water and mud far enough so that I could reach him and pull him on to the bank. He, too, had encountered the Indians in the rice and willows, and for a time was unable to stand, being completely exhausted with fear and his efforts to escape. As soon as he could walk, we started away from that locality with what strength and energy we had left. He was there alone and unarmed, looking for strayed cattle, and had been skulking and hiding from Indians for more than an hour before I came along. I, being well armed, might have discouraged them in their hunt for either one of us. At least they never got in my way after our first sight of each other.
My hands were now swollen and very painful. The stranger carried my gun, and in a couple of hours we overtook my comrades. As I got on to my mule I thought what a fool I had been to go alone so far on a wild-goose chase. That day's experience ended my hunting at any considerable distance from camp.