A fortunate circumstance threw us in the company of a stranger journeying westward in a wagon. Like everybody else, he showed great interest in my travels, and when he saw the condition of my dog, he offered to convey him over the mountains.
We arrived at the summit of the pass by ten o'clock. There we rested an hour and fed our animals. The journey down the western slope, while apparently as trying to the donkeys as the ascent had been, was more inviting to the convalescing dog, and he on the way surprised us by leaping out of the wagon and making after a jackrabbit.
At two o'clock Don's Good Samaritan drove away to the south, and at four we arrived at the Donaldson Ranch. Many courtesies were extended us here and we were half persuaded to remain over night with these hospitable people. We cooked dinner early, gave our animals a liberal mess of barley, filled our canteens, packed and departed at seven with the well-wishes of all and a fifty-pound bag of grain, which was donated to Mac A'Rony.
Darkness had set in. Although cautioned about two diverging trails which we would reach before ascending the mountain, before an hour had passed I realized we were going in the wrong direction. The night was chill and pitch dark. Quickly changing the saddle from Mac to my fleet-footed Skates, I rode back to the ranch. No light shone through the windows of the house, and I knew that every one had retired. I could see no expedient left me other than to arouse somebody to set me straight. Feeling my way to the house, I shouted with all my might, and soon awoke Mr. Donaldson, Jr., who came good-naturedly to my relief, saddled a horse, and insisted on guiding my party to the summit. We did not arrive there until midnight.
The noonday saw me at Horse Creek, and midnight, at Sand Spring, where we camped. At dawn, a sweeping glance from my tent door revealed the most desolate of surroundings. To the west was a great barren desert, while on every hand were massive sand dunes, some of them towering a hundred feet.
A breeze had sprung up during the night. After purchasing a peck of pine nuts from some Piute Indians who had camped close by for the night, and were now starting out on the home trail, I tied the door flaps as tightly as possible to keep out the drifting sand, then went back to bed. In spite of my precautions the sand forced an entrance, coated our blankets an inch thick, and scattered seeds of unkindness in our nostrils, ears and hair. When I awoke and saw the sides of the tent bended inward and half way up the walls an uneven horizon, where, through the canvas, the sand and sunshine met, I roused my companion and we dressed. In a few moments more we might have been buried alive.
How we were to cook breakfast was a serious question. On unfastening the door, we were immediately blinded with sand and alkali dust; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I could find the ruins of the old restaurant of '49, which at early dawn I had discovered only two hundred feet away. The floor of this structure had long since gone to provide camp-fires for many a traveler, but I kicked off a piece of siding. Then I tried to find the tent. I groped and stumbled in the blinding storm, and only by calling to Coonskin and keeping him constantly answering did I hold to my bearings and succeed in reaching camp.
Saturating a few sticks with coal oil, I got them a-blazing, and then under cover of our water-pail I ventured out of the tent and built a fire sufficient to boil coffee. Our bread when buttered looked as if veneered with sand-paper. Coonskin, gulping down a half cup of coffee, echoed my sentiments when he remarked, "It takes plenty of grit to cross these plains."
How we ever packed and drove our half-crazed animals out of that sandy hurricane is beyond my power to describe. Blinded and choked with the sand themselves, they could scarcely be made to walk to the well. Having washed out their throats, Skates was persuaded to move, and the others followed reluctantly out of range of the warring elements.
As soon as we were clear of the sand belt, we stopped and made our toilet. All day long while crossing that broad desert my eyes smarted and swelled, and they did not cease paining me until we reached the first habitation, where I procured witch-hazel.