We were some seven or eight miles along the road when I stopped to fix my moccasin while Rogers went slowly along.  The little mule went on ahead of both of us, searching all around for little bunches of dry grass, but always came back to the trail again and gave us no trouble.  When I had started up again I saw Rogers ahead leaning on his gun and waiting for me, apparently looking at something on the ground.  As I came near enough to speak I asked what he had found and he said—­“Here is Capt.  Culverwell, dead.”  He did not look much like a dead man.  He lay upon his back with arms extended wide, and his little canteen, made of two powder flasks, lying by his side.  This looked indeed as if some of our saddest forebodings were coming true.  How many more bodies should we find?  Or should we find the camp deserted, and never find a trace of the former occupants.

We marched toward camp like two Indians, silent and alert, looking out for dead bodies and live Indians, for really we more expected to find the camp devastated by those rascals than to find that it still contained our friends.  To the east we could plainly see what seemed to be a large salt lake with a bed that looked as if of the finest, whitest sand, but really a wonder of salt crystal.  We put the dreary steps steadily one forward of another, the little mule the only unconcerned one of the party, ever looking for an odd blade of grass, dried in the hot dry wind, but yet retaining nourishment, which she preferred.

About noon we came in sight of the wagons, still a long way off, but in the clear air we could make them out, and tell what they were, without being able to see anything more.  Half a mile was the distance between us and the camp before we could see very plainly, as they were in a little depression.  We could see the covers had been taken off, and this was an ominous sort of circumstance to us, for we feared the depredations of the Indians in retaliation for the capture of their squashes.  They had shot our oxen before we left and they have slain them this time and the people too.

We surely left seven wagons.  Now we could see only four and nowhere the sign of an ox.  They must have gone ahead with a small train, and left these four standing, after dismantling them.

No signs of life were anywhere about, and the thought of our hard struggles between life and death to go out and return, with the fruitless results that now seemed apparent was almost more than human heart could bear.  When should we know their fate?  When should we find their remains, and how learn of their sad history if we ourselves should live to get back again to settlements and life?  If ever two men were troubled, Rogers and I surely passed through the furnace.

We kept as low and as much out of sight as possible, trusting very much to the little mule that was ahead, for we felt sure she would detect danger in the air sooner than we, and we watched her closely to see how she acted.  She slowly walked along looking out for food, and we followed a little way behind, but still no decisive sign to settle the awful suspense in which we lived and suffered.  We became more and more convinced that they had taken the trail of the Jayhawkers, and we had missed them on the road, or they had perished before reaching the place where we turned from their trail.