About the third night the Jayhawkers were overtaken by seven more wagons owned by A. Bennett and friends, J.B. Arcane and family, two men named Earhart and a son of one of them, and one or two other wagons.
The Jayhawker's train was made up of men from many states, but seemed well united and was as complete as when they first started. The Author was with the party that came up in the rear, which had started later but traveled faster on account of having a road broken for them. He visited the leaders in camp when they were discussing the necessity of forming a new travelling compact to help and protect each other on the road. Those who had no families were objecting to being bound to those who had women and children with them. They argued that the road would be hard and difficult and those wagons with women and children would require more assistance than they would be able to render in return. They said they could go back and follow Hunt who was on a better road and they could proceed with more safely.
Among those with this train was Rev. J.W. Brier, his wife and three children. He objected to being turned back and said he did not want to be assisted, but would go with them and do his part and take care of himself. The Author listened to the various speeches without speaking and became satisfied that it would end in every one looking out for himself in case of hard times. He went over to their camp again the next night and wished to ask them why they were steering so nearly due north. He said to them that they were going toward Salt Lake rather than California, and that the Bennet party did not feel inclined to follow them any farther in that direction. They replied that their map told them to go north a day or more and then they would find the route as represented. They would then turn west and reach Owen's Lake and from there there would be no more trouble. The Jayhawker crowd seemed to think they could go anywhere and no difficulty could happen which they couldn't overcome. Bennett's little train turned west from this point and the Jayhawkers went on north, but before night they changed their minds and came following on after Bennett whom they overtook and passed, again taking the lead.
Thus far the country had been well watered and furnished plenty of grass, and most of them talked and believed that this kind of rolling country would last all the way through. The men at leisure scattered around over the hills on each side of the route taken by the train, and in advance of it, hunting camping places and making a regular picnic of it. There were no hardships, and one man had a fiddle which he tuned up evenings and gave plenty of fine music. Joy and happiness seemed the rule, and all of the train were certainly having a good time of it.
But gradually there came a change as the wagon wheels rolled westward. The valleys seemed to have no streams in them, and the mountain ranges grew more and more broken, and in the lower ground a dry lake could be found, and water and grass grew scarce—so much so that both men and oxen suffered. These dry lake beds deceived them many times. They seemed as if containing plenty of water, and off the men would go to explore. They usually found the distance to them about three times as far as they at first supposed, and when at last they reached them they found no water, but a dry, shining bed, smooth as glass, but just clay, hard as a rock. Most of these dry lakes showed no outlet, nor any inlet for that matter, though at some period in the past they must have been full of water. Nothing grew in the shape of vegetables or plants except a small, stunted, bitter brush.
Away to the west and north there was much broken country, the mountain ranges higher and rougher and more barren, and from almost every sightly elevation there appeared one or more of these dry lake beds. One night after about three days of travel the whole of the train of twenty seven wagons was camped along the bank of one of these lakes, this one with a very little water in it not more than one fourth or one half an inch in depth, and yet spread out to the width of a mile or more. It was truly providential, for by digging holes along the border the water would run into them and prove abundant for all, both oxen and men. If it had proved dry, as so many before had proved, or if we had been a few days earlier or later we might not have found a drop. This proved to be the last time the whole twenty seven wagons were gathered in one camp together.
The Author came into camp about nine o'clock in the evening after climbing many peaks and taking a survey of the surrounding country with a field glass. Men from nearly every mess came to him to inquire what he had seen. They asked all sorts of questions and wanted an opinion as to the advisability of trailing across the prairie directly west, which then seemed easy. They were told that from what could be seen from the summit of buttes both north and south of the camp, ranging a hundred or so miles in almost every direction, it was believed no water could be found, between the present camp and a range of mountains which could be seen crossing the route far to the west. "Well," said Capt. Doty of the Jayhawkers, "I don't like to hear such discouraging talk from Manley, but I think we will have to steer straight ahead. The prospect for water seems to be about the same, west or south, and I cannot see that we would better ourselves, by going north." When morning came Capt. Doty and his party yoked up and set out straight across the desert, leaving seven wagons of the Bennett party still in camp.
For some time all of us had seen in the range ahead an appearance of a pass, or lower place in the mountain, and we had got to calling it Martin's Pass, naming it after Jim Martin. There was a snow-capped peak just to the south of it and the pass, now apparently exactly west of the lake camp, seemed to the Jayhawkers easy to reach. Their wills were strong enough and they were running over with determination and energy enough to carry them over any plain, no matter how dry or barren, or over any mountain no matter how rugged and steep.
Five days they traveled, without finding water, and small supply they took along had been consumed. For lack of water they could not eat or sleep. The oxen gathered round the little fire and seemed to beg for water, they had no cud to chew unless it was the cud of disappointment. The range of mountains they had been aiming for still seemed far away and the possible show for reaching it seemed very poor indeed, and the prospect of any water hole between them and the mountains poorer yet. Hope was pretty near gone. Martins mess unyoked their oxen from the wagons, put some small packs on their own backs, and loaded some upon the backs of the oxen, and turned south toward the nearest snowy mountain they could see, the same one towards which the Bennett party steered from the lake camp.
The Doty party kept their courage longer and kept on straight ahead for another day, and then camped, almost without hope. No rest came to them, nor sleep. Towards morning as they stood around the fire a stray cloud appeared and hid the stars, and shortly after began to unload a cargo of snow it carried. They spread out every blanket, and brushed up every bit they could from the smooth places, kindled a little fire of brush under the camp kettles and melted all the snow all of them could gather, besides filling their mouths as fast as ever they could, hoping that it would full in sufficient quantities to satisfy themselves and the oxen, and quench their dreadful thirst. Slowly the cloud moved scattering the snowflakes till they felt relieved. The last time the Author conversed with a member of this party was in 1892, and it was conceded that this storm saved the lives of both man and beast in that little band of Jayhawkers. It was like manna falling from Heaven, and as surely saved their lives as did the manna of the Bible save the lives of the tribes of Israel. They had no reason to expect a storm of rain or snow, but came to them just as they were perishing. A little further on they came to a small stream of water, and as the bed showed only a recent flow it must also have come from the little local storm further up the mountain. They used this water freely, even though it was not very good, and it acted on them very much like a solution of Glanber Salts.