You know that a good-sized mountain sheep would make a fair supper for twenty-four people, even though they had been starving three or four days; but this was a small one, and I think Field and I ate about half of the quarter.  The twenty-two Indians soon devoured the three-fourths and all of the soft viscera, including the stomach and intestines, after which some of the boys came to our tent while we were stuffing our, what had been for several days empty, stomachs.  We offered them part of our bounteous supply of mutton, having much more than we could eat; but no, they would not touch it until we were filled full, when they accepted what was left, and soon stowed it away.  All were now pretty well filled up once more.

The next day was spent without food, traveling over rough mountains.  Within a pass, late in the afternoon, we crossed the fresh trail of some other band of roving red-skins, and Walker suspected who they were, and went into camp early.  The Indians had killed nothing that day, but I had killed a small rabbit which, unfortunately for it, came in my way during the day.  This we offered to the women for themselves and the little children; but they positively refused to accept it, insisting that they did not want it or need it, and that the small supply of milk from the cow was quite sufficient for the little ones, and the others spurned the offer to divide so little a thing, so we had it all to ourselves.

It appeared that these people were accustomed to go for long periods without food, and with little apparent inconvenience; but Field and I began to feel as I suppose Dr. Tanner felt after a few days’ fasting, and began to wish that the old chief would get hungry and kill one of his large, fat steers, but he still held them in reserve.

Early the next morning, now nine days from the time we had left the river, the old chief took two of the young men and left camp, as we afterwards learned, to go in search of the Indians whose trail we had crossed the evening before.  Some time in the early part of the night, one of the young men returned and informed us that they had found the wandering tribe, and that we were to go back to their trail and follow it to their camp up in a Southeast direction, Walker and one of the young men having remained with their new-found friends.

Field and I both felt greatly disappointed in not being able to proceed north; and in the meantime we had become very tired of the society of these people, notwithstanding the fact that they were exceedingly clever; but we were almost starved to death, and had about come to the conclusion that we would be obliged to make some change.  We were still on the east side of, and considerable distance from the river, and probably not more than one hundred, or one hundred and twenty miles from the place where we parted from you.

The chief had sent particular instructions for us to go with the tribe; but, after canvassing the whole situation, we decided to part company with our good friends, proceed northward, and try to reach Fort Bridger or some other settlement in the northwest, and so informed them, and requested the boys to bring in our mule and horse, which they did after failing to induce us to go with them.