It occurred to me that they might go out early in the morning, so I secreted myself within gun shot of the trail behind an old, moss-covered log where I slept comfortably; and when it was light enough in the morning to see a deer, I leveled my gun across the log in a position commanding the trail and waited and watched until nine o’clock, but nothing came upon that pathway that morning.  After getting tired of watching and waiting I went down to the trail where, to my astonishment, I found the fresh tracks of a large bear which must have passed by that way while I was sleeping.  As a rule I do not like to be treated discourteously, but in this instance I felt glad that this stranger had passed me by.

On arriving at the fort late in the evening I found my friend in a terrible state of mental excitement.  He said that he had not slept a minute during the whole of the night before.  He had filled the door of his room with rails, and sharpened one end of a long stick, which he intended to use if necessary as a weapon of defence.  When I arrived he was again filling the door with rails.  I had the gun, pistol and big knife with me so this was his only means of defence.  He said he would not stay alone another night for all the gold in California.

I was much discouraged by our failures in hunting, and after a lengthy discussion we decided to make another attempt to cross the mountains and escape from what then seemed to us certain starvation.  This was Thursday night and we set Monday as the time for starting.  By Saturday night everything was in readiness for the start and Sunday we devoted to Bible reading, for we each still had a pocket Bible.  As much of the flesh of the wolf and the lamented mule as we thought we could carry had been thoroughly jerked, and finding that we would not be overburdened by it, we economized by roasting and eating little scraps of flesh, the marrow from the bones, and even the head of the mule was roasted, the fragments of flesh scraped off and eaten, and Field found a rich fatty substance in behind the eyes, which he ate.

We had a canteen in which our powder was carried, but the powder was nearly all gone so we emptied it and used the canteen to carry water in.  Early Monday morning we loaded ourselves, mostly with jerked mule and wolf, leaving many useful things behind, bid adieu to Fort Uinta and took up our line of march rather reluctantly.

My companion was not strong and we soon found it expedient for me to take on part of his burden.  We rested often and yet long before night he became so tired that we had to go into camp.  Most of the day we had traveled on an old deserted trail.  The nights being cold we were under the necessity of keeping up a fire as we had left our blankets at the fort.  The next morning we made an early start and rested often.  At about noon we found good shade and water, and the sun being quite hot we stopped and rested in the shade for more than three hours, then