While not otherwise engaged in Genoa, as it is now called, I made a map of the road we had traveled, noting every watering-place, desert, mountain, grove of timber, plot of grass, etc., not forgetting to mark my distances as well as the points of compass.
While at Genoa, Natsab, the Indian, left me one night and started home on foot and alone and made his way in safety. It was a week before I found which way he had gone, and feared much that the Indians there had killed him. I saw him after I arrived home and asked his reason for leaving me without notice. He said he was afraid we would have to stay all Winter; and that if I had known he was going to leave I would stop him and make him stay too, and that was too long to live among the whites; he would have got sick and perhaps died.
At last the word came from San Francisco, and a man also to go with us to Salt Lake, which was very acceptable. Col. Reece resolved to fit up two men besides himself and accompany me one or two hundred miles, just to explore the country; for of the route we were to take nothing was known by white men, and we were all enthusiastic to search the unexplored regions.
On November 2, 1854, I started for home, with five animals for my own outfit of myself and the interpreter. Our through friend and partner for the trip back, Mr. Kinsey, had two horses, thus making seven well-loaded animals for three men to take care of. One large mule carried a keg of water as a reserve for times of distress. We each carried a canteen of water on our saddles as we rode; and several times our riding horses would, when our canteens were only partly full so that the water would sound as the motion of their bodies shook them, turned and hunted for the water and whinnyed coaxingly for a little sup of the water they had carried so long.
Carson River, at which point Mr. Davis overtook us, sinks or empties into a lake of its own, which is about twenty miles across. Around the lake is a very flat and large extent of country, wet and marshy, which affords great quantities of a grass known as "bayonet grass;" this yields tufts or bunches of black, rich seed that the Indians manage to cut and dry and then thresh or pound out the seed for their Winter's bread. We saw many large-sized stacks of the remains of their threshing at their threshing-floors, which were mostly inaccessible to horses, being on small, dry places in the midst of the sodded marshes that yield the grass.
After passing around the south end of the lake we crossed a low divide and entered a new valley some thirty miles from the lake. Where we entered this new desert valley was among rolling hills of sand blown up by the wind, some perhaps twenty feet high and covering from a half to a full acre of ground. In passing among these hills and valleys I saw the heads of two Indians who had not yet seen us. I took in the whole situation at a glance: a large alkali desert was before us in which was no water, while that we had in store was small and poor. Those Indians were not there without water being near, and if we could get them we could perhaps induce them to find or show us water. Our horses in the sand made no noise traveling, so we started at our best speed and soon overtook those whom we wanted as guides. They took us to water, though very reluctantly, and indeed not until they understood that they must do so.
We would never have found the water of ourselves; for the spring was in the top of a little elevation that covered perhaps five acres in the center of a valley. The spring was round and perhaps five feet across. It gave a rapid supply of water, but had no visible outlet. The Indians had fenced it with tall greasewood brush stuck in the ground as thick as they could put it, except at an opening about eight inches wide which would permit rabbits to enter, where they were trapped. A pit about two and one-half feet deep was dug in this opening and a strong, wiry sand-grass was fastened on either side of the hole so that the ends would overlap at the center of the hole or pit, making apparent smooth floor. When a rabbit jumped on it went down into the pit, which had no water in it. The grass readily sprang back to its place and was prepared for another rabbit. This continued until the pit was full, for it was so narrow and deep there was no chance to jump out. Three similar pits, at a distance from the spring, was prepared for antelope.
We camped here, used the greasewood for cooking supper and refreshed our horses. We kept the Indians all night with us so they could not notify others, who would perhaps prove dangerous. It was the intention to take them a day on the journey, but they escaped when we were not watching them. We traveled, after getting a full supply of water, all that day, all night and until 2 o'clock in the afternoon of the next day without any rest, except that got by stopping to eat and drink and tend the animals. This long journey was necessary in order to find grass and water.
About half or three-quarters of a mile before coming to the water our animals began to crowd ahead—pull on the bit—which surprised us all, as there were no signs of water, such as willows, trees or grass, in sight to attract our attention, nothing but the smooth desert of small, short desert brush, with occasional fields of sage brush. Suddenly our animals stopped at a little, swift-running brook not more than two or three feet wide.
Here we rested, watered and prepared for our journey. Towards evening we moved about two miles to some low sand hills, which generally afford an excellent grass called sand-grass. The next day we spent in trying to get more easterly over the mountains, but failed.