From near this camp we have a low range of mountains to cross, a sort of spur or offshoot of the great snow mountain that reaches out twenty miles or more to the southeast, and its extremity divides away into what seems from our point of view a level plain.  We had attained quite an elevation without realizing it, so gradual had been the ascent, and our course was now down a steep hillside and into a deep canon.  In its very bottom we found a small stream of water only a few yards long, and then it sank into the sands.  Not a spear of grass grew there, and if any had grown it had been eaten by the cattle which had gone before.  This was the same place, where Rogers and I had overtaken the advance portion of the Jayhawkers when we were on our outward trip in search of relief, and where some of the older men were so discouraged that they gave us their home addresses in Illinois so that we could notify their friends of their precarious situation, and if they were never otherwise heard from they could be pretty sure they had perished from thirst and starvation when almost at their journey’s end.

The scenes of this camp on that occasion made so strong an impression on my memory that I can never forget it.  There were poor dependent fellows without a morsel to eat except such bits of poor meat as they could beg from those who were fortunate enough to own oxen.  Their tearful pleadings would soften a heart of stone.  We shared with some of them even when we did not know the little store upon our backs would last us through.  Our oxen here had water to drink, but nothing more.  It might be a little more comfortable to drink and starve, than both choke and starve, but these are no very pleasant prospects in either one.

Both ourselves and the oxen were getting barefoot and our feet very tender.  The hill we had just come down was very rough and rocky and our progress very slow, every step made in a selected spot.  We could not stop here to kill an ox and let the remainder of them starve, but must push on to where the living ones could get a little food.  We fastened the oxen and the mule to keep them from wandering, and slept as best we could.  The women and children looked worse than for some time, and could not help complaining.  One of the women held up her foot and the sole was bare and blistered.  She said they ached like toothache.  The women had left their combs in the wagons, and their hair was getting seriously tangled.  Their dresses were getting worn off pretty nearly to their knees, and showed the contact with the ground that sometimes could not be avoided.  They were in a sad condition so far as toilet and raiment were concerned.  Life was in the balance, however, and instead of talking over sad things, we talked of the time when we would reach the little babbling brook where Rogers and I took such long draughts of clear, sweet water and the waiter at our dinner gave us the choice of Crow, Hawk or Quail, and where we took a little of all three.