"I do not know whether they will get track of you before morning or not; but they will get on your track," said the mild-eyed man. "You must not let the sun see you here. To-morrow when the sun looks down from behind the top of that mountain you must be a long way from here. Ride hard all day; and when night comes, don't stop riding, but ride hard all night, and in the morning you will be in the Goshute land and they will not follow you there. They have long been wanting your meat, and when they find only your tracks they will ride like the wind."
When he had done talking, they all arose with a mild dignity, wrapped their remnants of blankets around them, turned their faces towards their home among the cedars and none looked around, except the mild-eyed man, who gave us a look of mingled pity and hope, then nodded his head towards their home, gave a motion of the hand and a prolonged sigh, as much as to say, "I'm going home to sleep."
The old man's advice to us was carefully followed. I examined my journal and notes of the country before we started. The whole day's travel was over a level country from one valley to another, with no high divide or hardly a separating hill; but at noon I found myself lost, in spite of all my care and even extra caution preparatory for such an important day. I could not find any lack of attention in myself and no responsibility was upon any other person in the matter—the route was very plain, and yet I had gone to the left of a mountain instead of to the right. I knew where we were, although there was no trail on either route, yet I knew we had taken the wrong side of the mountain. I was afraid of the result and questioned whether it would give our pursuers any advantage. Should we turn back or go ahead? was another question.
Our lives was the game we were playing for that day, and the responsibility of correct moves was upon me. The thought made me sweat like rain. I told all the men and asked them to ride slowly, very slowly, while I rode up the mountain to see if I could make any discovery. I rode to a good, secure place and there knelt upon the ground and, with my whole soul, asked God to show me what to do in this trying time of uncertainty.
I arose and mounted my horse, fully satisfied. I knew how it would terminate. An impression a feeling, some would call it, made me understand this: "Go on; you will come out all right;" that is, keep going as you are going, and you will come around to the right place, was what it meant.
Some might ask, How did you get that information? I can only tell you that it was spoken in those words to my soul. It was planted instantly in my understanding by the power of God. It was revealed to my spirit independent of the body.
I rode down and overtook my fellow-travelers in perfect cheer and told them that we would go on, we were going just right.
Just before sunset we came to the very water I had intended, in the morning, to reach, which was in a nice, grassy vale close by a large cedar grove, and on looking back on the route I designed to come, we saw, on a point of the mountain, three smokes near to each other, which among Indians means to rally to some appointed place. We all, Gentiles though two of the company were, acknowledged the hand of God in guiding us, as we thought, the wrong way.
Water, grass and rest our animals must have in order to carry us safely through the night. We could see the Indian smokes; they could see ours and very likely see us. We must make them think we were going to stay all night, so we drove the horses away from camp quite a distance and towards the Indians, gathered a good lot of wood, ate supper and waited impatiently for the mantle of night to be thrown over our movements.
As soon as I felt sure the Indians' keen eyes could not see our moves through the darkness, two men ran for the horses and drove them around so the fire would not show their forms. The other two men carried the saddles far back from the fire, where we hastily saddled and left the horses in care of one man while the other three went to the fire, put on all the wood and lazily passed and re-passed between the distant Indians and the fire, then mounted and rode with good speed from our comfortable fire and beautiful Antelope Spring. This place received its name, Antelope Spring, as follows: On approaching this place, as we went west, we saw a drove of antelope feeding just in the edge of the scattering cedars, and one antelope quite a little behind the rest, which one of our men prepared to shoot; but all the animals seeing us ran away. The one behind was thrown into a dreadful fright, and could not run with the others, while the man prepared to shoot. He resolved to be an antelope no longer, and with magical power threw off his antelope skin, and in the twinkling of an eye, stood up a tall Indian with bow and arrows in hand. He followed us to camp and there showed us all about the transformation.