As soon as we could get the harness off the oxen, we went to look for our little buried sack of wheat, which we were compelled to leave and hide on our way out.  We had hidden it so completely, that it took us quite a little while to strike its bed but after scratching with our hands awhile, we hit the spot, and found it untouched.  Although the sand in which it was buried seemed quite dry, yet the grain had absorbed so much moisture from it, that the sack was nearly bursting.  It was emptied on a blanket, and proved to be still sound and sweet.

Our first work now was to kill an ox and get some meat to cook for those who were coming later.  We got the kettle over boiling with some of the wheat in it, for the beans were all gone.  We killed the ox saving the blood to cook.  Cutting the meat all off the bones, we had it drying over a fire as soon as possible, except what we needed for this meal and the next.  Then we made a smooth place in the soft sand on which to spread the blankets, the first good place we had found to sleep since leaving Death Valley.

The next job was to make moccassins for ourselves and for the oxen, for it was plain they could not go on another day barefooted.  We kept busy indeed, attending the fires under the meat and under the kettle, besides our shoemaking, and were getting along nicely about sundown, when Old Christian Crump appeared in sight followed by the women and the rest of the party.  The women were just as tired as ever and dropped down on the blankets the first thing.  “How many such days as this can we endure?”—­they said.  We had them count the days gone by, and look around to see the roughest part of the road was now behind them.  They said that only five days had passed, and that two thirds of the distance still remained untraveled, and they knew they could never endure even another five day’s work like the last.  We told them to be brave, and be encouraged, for we had been over the road and knew what it was, and that we felt sure of being able to do it nicely.  They were fed in bed as usual, and there they lay till morning.  We men went to making moccasins from the green hide, and when we had cut out those for the men and women the balance of the hide was used in preparing some also for the oxen, particularly the worst ones, for if I remember correctly there was not enough to go round.

The morning came, bright and pleasant, as all of them were, and just warm enough for comfort in the part of the day.  The women were as usual, and their appearance would remind one quite strongly of half-drowned hens which had not been long out of trouble.  Hair snarled, eyes red, nose swollen, and out of fix generally.  They did not sleep well so much fatigued, for they said they lived over their hard days in dreams at night, and when they would close their eyes and try to go to sleep, the visions would seem to come to them half waking and they could not rest.

There was now before us a particularly bad stretch of the country as it would probably take us four or five days to get over it, and there was only one water hole in the entire distance.  This one was quite salt, so much so that on our return trip the horses refused to drink it, and the little white one died next day.  Only water for one day’s camp could be carried with us, and that was for ourselves alone and not for the animals.