There is no good reason why I should set down such mournful details. While we were pressing steadily but painfully westward, so hungry that it seemed to me I could have eaten anything resembling food, and thirsty until my tongue was parched, the rays of the sun beat down upon us with pitiless fury, until we were so worn that life seemed at times like some frightful dream.
I can remember distinctly, however, what happened on that day when we heard those who were leading the train, shout that we had come upon water in abundance. When Ellen and I, leaping out of the wagon, ran forward, we saw before us several large springs from which the water was bubbling generously. Our delight was even as great as the disappointment was bitter, when the water was found to be almost boiling hot.
SPRINGS OF HOT WATER
It seems hardly possible that any liquid could come out of the earth so warm, and if I had never left Pike County I would have set down such a tale as a fable; but we did find boiling water, so hot that when Eben Jordan let down into one of those springs a slice of bacon tied to a string, it was well boiled in less than fifteen minutes.
However, we were not to be deprived of water even though it was hot, for father proposed that we fill some of our cups, declaring it would be sweet to the taste once it was cool.
This we did not only once, but three or four times, during the continuation of the march, for we came upon many of those hot springs on the trail after we left the banks of Mary's River.
Then came a day in August when, after an unusually wearisome march, we suddenly overtook two emigrant wagons in which were fourteen people who had come from Missouri.
Verily it seemed as if old friends were meeting, for as our train came in sight, some of the strangers began to sing, "My name it is Joe Bowers," and however weary I had once been of hearing that tune, it now sounded in my ears like music.
That evening we spent visiting; those people, like ourselves, were traveling toward the land of California, and only those who have been journeying in the desert and through the wilderness, without meeting any human beings save Indians, can understand how intent was the pleasure we experienced in being with our own kind again.