Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/286

218 the scouts; he agreeing to let the scouts take the stock captured by them and divide it equally among themselves.

After having started, the Colonel was undecided as to where he would cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains. At that time there was no map of the country between California, Oregon and Nevada, but finally he decided to cross over the Beckwith Pass. After we had crossed the mountains we turned north, crossing the Truckee river where Rene now stands. From here we traveled across the sagebrush plain to Honey Lake.

So far we had no trouble with Indians, and the command stopped to let the horses rest a few days. While lying there Col. Elliott requested me to take four other scouts and go north four days to prospect for water and grass, for this was now a strange country to all of us.

My companions were John Reilly, Fred Miller, John Boyd and George Jones, of whom there will be more said later on, and who were my companions the rest of the summer, or, as long as I was able to scout. Altogether there were twelve scouts in my company. In the evening of the second day of our trip we camped at a nice little spring. We got into camp just at sundown, and having seen considerable Indian sign during the day, I had the boys stake their horses near the camp, and I took a look around on the ridges to see if there were any camp-fires in that part of the country. I was gone for.about three hours, and the boys got quite uneasy while I was away. I only saw one Indian camp, which was northeast of our camp, and not having discovered it until after dark I was unable to tell just how far it was away. On my return I told the boys that we would have