Traveled 12 miles in the forenoon and halted where grass was not very plentiful. In the afternoon we traveled five miles farther, when we came to another fork in the road.
The left hand road is the old trail and leads down the river to the “Sink,” as it is called, it being where the water of the river disappears in the sandy desert, as is the case with a majority of the streams of the “Great Interior Basin.”
From the “Sink” the road passes thence over a desert plain to Salmon Trout River, and thence across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Sacramento valley. The distance from this place to the Sacramento valley, according to the best information in our possession, is about 300 miles.
The other, or right hand road, is called the Cherokee Cutoff, and the distance is said to be but 180 miles from this place to the Feather River gold mines.
CHAPTER IV.
THE HUMBOLDT RIVER TRAIL
The question arose, which of the two roads shall we pursue—follow the old road—the advantages and disadvantages of which we are pretty well informed; or shall we risk the new one of which we know nothing, except from unreliable reports.
The question was submitted to a vote of the company, and it was in favor of trying the “Cutoff,” as it is called, with scarcely a dissenting vote. Haynes and Fifield, who left the company at Raft River, left a posted notice here, which showed them to be several days in advance of us. They chose the old trail, and cautioned us against taking the new one, as it was their opinion that it was a longer and a poorer road.
The “Cutoff” leaves the Humboldt River at a bend, where it curves more southerly, and at what in later times was called “Wannamucca” on the Central Pacific Railroad. The “Cutoff” leaves the river and crosses a desert plain, very barren and slightly undulating, in a westerly direction.
We left the Humboldt with the expectation of being at the gold mines in about a week, providing the reports were reliable as to the distance. We traveled 14 miles after leaving the river before we found water. At that place we found a spring, but there being several trains camped here tonight, it was with great difficulty that we could procure water sufficient for the needs of our mules and horses.
There is not a spear of grass to be found in this section, and we were compelled to tie our mules to sage brush to keep them from straying away, without a particle of food. (Distance, 31 miles.)