Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/154

 plain covered with stunted sage and not a spear of grass, we came to a small spring of good water seven miles farther brought us to a mountain cov- ered with stunted cedars here we found a weak spring hardly furnishing water for ourselves and animals we halted an hour or so while here Brother Fred was attacked with a violent pain in his back he was better in an hour and moved on with the train we traveled till dark and came to a good spring here we camped takeing our mules to a Kenyon near by for grass distance 26 miles

Thursday Aug 25 This forenoon our road was some hilly till we struck the Clajux Creek a distance of fourteen miles passing several good springs this creek is four feet wide and two ft deep good water we passed up the creek nine miles to where the road leaves it and camped Here we found our friends Rhorer's & co who have traveled with us since leaveing Ft Kearny they started from the city two days before we did and were in waiting for us grass poor distance 2 1 miles

Friday Aug 24th ^49 Last night it rained quite hard most all night and this morning the clouds look lowery enough as they come over the mts we packed up soon after we struck over the ridge and had quite a shower it soon cleared off and the dust being laid we had the pleasantest time to travel that we have had for some time six miles brought us to the old road that passes Ft. Hall^^ near Steeple Rock this is two elevations of rock ris- ing from one base four or five hundred feet after striking this road we had sixteen miles very mountainous some verry steep decerns where men hitch a tree behind waggons to hold back this distance brought us to goose creek we passed up three miles and camped for the night near the creek distance 25 miles

Saturday Aug 2f This morning at daylight two of our mules was mising one belonged to Rhorer the other ours we were soon up and a dozen horsmen looking for a track they soon struck the trail in a Kenyon near by and a half a dozen followed in hot haste after following the trail for ten miles through ravines and over steep mountains they sudely came on one of the mules and a horse hitched no men to be found one man that was behind saw two men run down the opposite side of the hill in a ravine he followed but lost sight of them the party returned bringing the horse and mule back the horse we learned soon after was stolen four miles above from a small party the mule found was Rohrer's the probability is that a third man took some other course with ours and we did not find it we laid by for the day giving the men a chance to attend to personal matters

Sunday 26^ Aug '^p This morning our road was on the banks of the creek for twenty miles here we passed several trains of ox teams who were re- cruiting we halted at noon near the creek where the road leaves it and then moved on sixteen miles to Hot Spring Valley arrived at 9 Oclock P. M. near where we camped was a warm spring but became cold after run-