I could hold no more, then, filling my canteen, I made another start for the Toros. The unexpected happened. I had not travelled more than a half hour when I met Beauchamp coming with a led horse and saddle. That was the finest horse that I ever set eyes on. Beauchamp had made up his mind after he got to Toros that I would get uneasy and start to follow on foot, so he took the doctor's horse and started back to meet me, and it was a good thing he did, as I was about all in. My feet were badly blistered, and the water I had drank made me very sick at the stomach.

"We stayed two days at Toros to rest the horses. Weaver came up to us on the second day with my horse. We only travelled a few miles next day to an Indian village, where there were a few old Indians and some small children. The place was called Cabezon, named after an old Indian who had a very large head. There we stayed one night and bought corn fodder for our horses, the salt grass at the Toros having made them all sick.

"The Indians at Cabezon told us a strange story of a ship which they said lay out in the great basin that is now the Salton Sea. They said that at one time that country was all under water, and the water full of fish. They pointed out the great water line on San Jacinto Mountain to the west of us and said that it was where the water had marked the rock. Any parties travelling on the Southern Pacific trains from Los Angeles to Yuma may see the same water marks

now.

"The next day's travel was across the north end of the then dry lake. The surface was as

white as snow and as hard as ice. A hard day's travel brought us to the Dos Palms springs, where we stayed two nights to let our horses rest and graze. There was a mud volcano about one and one-half miles from the springs, where there was an abundance of fairly good grass. Encamped at the springs were some San Bernardino Mormons who were freighting with teams to La Paz on the Colorado River. One of the Mormons had an extra pair of boots which I could wear, and I bought them for eight dollars. Leaving Dos Palms springs, we made about twenty-five miles, and found plenty of good tank water at what was called Tabbe Sakle, meaning in the Indian language, Yellow Hammer Nests. The finding of that tank was of much importance to us, as it made it possible for us to divide a five mile drive from Dos Palms to Chacagula springs. We were then beginning to realize that we had to favor our horses as much as possible, as they had been eating nothing but green grass, and that mostly salt, except the one night at Cabezon. At Chacagula, Weaver warned us to be careful about letting our horses eat the Galleta grass, as he had noticed a number of campo mucho on the grass that day. He advised us to cut the grass with our butcher knives and tie the horses up and feed them. The campo mucho is an insect something like a grasshopper, but much larger and sometimes as much as three inches long. They are the color of whatever they feed on, and a hungry horse or mule is liable to get one in biting off the grass. The teamsters who hauled across the road, used to carry heavy hoes and cut the grass for their stock when they were

where the Galleta grew. The handling of the grass knocked the insects off; they are almost sure to kill any animal that eats them.

"From Chacagula we made the Mule springs, seventeen miles, and here again Weaver found water that a stranger never would have found, and here again our knives supplied us with grass for the stock. Our next day we spent a part of the time travelling through drifting sand hills, where the horses sank nearly half to their knees in the loose sand, with the sun pouring down all the heat there was in it, and our stock leg-weary. It was a grand sight when we came over the last sand hill and found ourselves on the Colorado River bottom, which had been overflowed from the river in July, and the vegetation was as high as a horse in many places among the mesquite trees. We all felt like taking our saddles off and camping, but Weaver said no, we had about fifteen miles to go to get to the river. The stock seemed to freshen up as soon as we got on the bottom, as the ground was firm and not rocky.

"We were greatly surprised by running smack into an Indian cornfield about halfway to the river. The overflows had come early that year, and some Mohave Indians had reoccupied an old ranch that Weaver knew of. We had a feast on watermelons and green corn that night. The next day I had a chill to pay me, the second one since leaving San Francisco. The first one I had the day following my hard tramp from Agua Caliente to Indian Wells. The chills seemed to come every seventh day, or if it missed the

seventh, it would be seven or fourteen days before I would have another.

"We reached Bradshaw's Ferry early in the day, but concluded to lay over that day in order to give me a fair chance to shake. We hobbled our horses and turned them loose, as there was good feed along the river. Next morning all the stock but my horse was easily found, Beauchamp, Weaver and Ayers hunting for him till late in the afternoon, when they found him mired in a slough about two miles from the river, with nothing but his head above the mud and water. He was a hard looking horse. We ferried across that evening and landed at Olive City in Arizona. The city consisted of one house about 12x10x10 feet high, covered with brush and sided up with willow poles stuck in the ground, and smaller willow poles nailed on the larger ones without any chinking. However, it was plenty warm enough for the climate. That night we pushed on to La Paz in order to get food for our stock, there being no grass on the Arizona side at that place. At La Paz we bought grass from the Indians, they bringing it from the hills on sticks. The way they manage they take a dry willow pole six or eight feet long, lay down a layer of grass the length of the stick, lay the stick on the grass, then a layer of grass on the stick, and with thongs made of the leaves of a kind of cactus, tie the grass firmly around the stick. In that way they would get fifty or sixty pounds into a bundle, and the squaws would pack it to market on their heads.

"We stayed in La Paz two days, where we found a number of men who had returned from the new diggings at Weaver and Walker. La

Paz at that time was a town of several hundred inhabitants with several stores, a bakery and feed corral, but no postoffice nor mail service. When we left La Paz we followed the Colorado River bottom for thirty or thirty-five miles, where we found quail very plentiful and killed all we wanted to eat. The last night that we camped in the bottom, we stayed at a slough that I learned later the Indians called Supalm. There we met three men coming in from the new mining country. We all camped at the slough and next morning one of the strangers had but one boot, the coyotes having taken one during the night. I still had the old boots with the soles nearly ripped off, and I gave them to the unfortunate one.

"That day we started to cross the mesa and hilly country to Williams Fork, via Black Tanks. Beauchamp had been feeling bad all day, and about noon he had to lie down under à tree. I knew that we would be out of water by four o'clock, so I took all the empty canteens we had, and the horses, and started to Black Tanks, which was not more than seven or eight miles away. Dr. Howard remained with Beauchamp and suggested that I make some strong tea and put into a canteen for Beauchamp, so, after watering the horses, I set about making tea. I imagined I could hear voices, so after getting my water to heating, I climbed up past the tank and over the falls to another tank in the same canyon. There I found five Sonoranos, as we called the Mexicans at that time, cooking their dinner, which consisted of tortillas straight, and they were using a hat to mix their dough in. They were a little startled at my appearance,