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28 LINDSAY APPLEGATE

of our horses were barefooted, and our progress through the rocky country was consequently very slow. The country was so desert-like that we had about despaired of finding water that night, but just at dark we unexpectedly came to a little spring. There was but little water, but by digging some we were able to get quite enough for ourselves and horses, though it kept us busy until about midnight to get the horses watered. Although we had met with singularly good fortune in thus finding water at the close of the first day's march on the des- ert, we could not always expect such good luck in the future ; and as we lay down in our blankets among the sagebrush that night, we could not help having some gloomy forebodings in regard to the future of our expedition.

FROM THE LITTLE SPRING ON THE DESERT TO BLACK ROCK.

On the morning of the 10th of July, we found an abundance of water in the basin we had scraped out at the little spring early in the night, so that we were able to start out on the desert much refreshed. Our horses, however, looked very gaunt as there was a great scarcity of grass about the spring. The landscape before us, as we made our start this morning, was anything but inviting. It was a vast sand plain. No trees or mountains were in sight. Far in the distance were some dark looking ridges. There was no vegetation excepting dwarf sage and grease wood growing in the sand and gravel. At about three o'clock in the afternoon we came to a huge vol- canic wall, varying in height from twenty or thirty to sev- eral hundred feet, extending north and south as far as the eye could reach and apparently without any gap through it. We divided at the wall so as to explore it both ways. The party going southward, after proceeding a few miles, came to a little stream, forming a beautiful meadow at the base of the wall, and flowing through a narrow gateway into the ridge. They immediately dispatched one of their party in pursuit of us with the good news, and we returned to the meadow early in the afternoon, and decided to turn out our horses and give