The men have felt as glad as any of them, but have gathered wood and made a fire, and now a camp kettle of cut up meat is boiling for our supper.  It was not yet night, but we must camp in so beautiful a place as this, and though the food was poor, we were better off than we had been before.

Bennett proposed that I take the mule and go back to where we saw the track of the animal in the snow and follow it in hope that we might get some game for we had an idea it might be an elk or bear or some large game, good to kill and give us better meat:  So I saddled the mule and took the trail back till I came to the track, then followed it as best I could, for it was very dull and gave me no idea what it was.  I traced out of the snow and then in a blind way through bushes as high as the mule’s back—­Chaparral we called it now—­among which I made my way with difficulty.  I could now see that the track was made by an ox or cow—­perhaps an elk—­I could not tell for sure it was so faint.  This chaparral covered a large piece of table land, and I made my way through it, following the track for a mile or two, till I came to the top of a steep hill sloping down into a deep canon and a creek, on the bank of which grew sycamore and alder trees, with large willows.  I stopped here some minutes to see if I could see or hear the movement of of anything.  Across the creek I could see a small piece of perhaps half an acre of natural meadow, and in it some small bunches of sycamore trees.  After a little I discovered some sort of a horned animal there, and I reckoned this was good enough game for me to try and capture, so led the mule out to one side and down the hill near the creek, then tied her, and crept along the bank, about four feet high, toward the little meadow.  When about right, as I thought, I climbed up behind a bunch of sycamores, and when I slowly and cautiously raised up I was within fifty yards of a cow or steer of some sort which I could dimly see.  I put a ball square in its forehead and it fell without a struggle.  I loaded again quick as possible, and there saw two other smaller cattle stepping very high as though terrified, but not aware of the nature or location of the danger.  I gave a low whistle and one of them looked toward me long enough for me to put a ball in it.  The third one was now behind a clump of sycamores, and I soon saw its face through a little opening not more than three inches wide.  I made a shot, and wounded it, and then rushed up and gave it a fatal one.

I examined my game and found the first one was a poor old cow, but the others were yearlings, one of them very fat and nice, and I soon had the hind quarters skinned out, and all the fat I could find, which made a big load for the mule.  It was now almost dark, and the next problem was to get back to camp again.  The brushy hills would be terrible to cross with a load of meat, and by the way the ground lay I concluded our camp was on this same creek farther down.