We went up to the place where our people were camped, perhaps a mile above town on the bank of a river, nearly dry, but where plenty of wood, water and grass were at hand; such a place as we had looked for in vain for many a weary day upon the desert.  This was as far above Death Valley as a king above a pauper, and we hoped never to see such a country again.

In camp we talked about moving on to the mines.  Rogers said he was going to start next day, and in answer to exclamations of surprise that he should start off alone, he said that some fellows camped a little way down the river were going to start and he had made arrangements to go with them, as the Bennett party would not go yet for a week.  In the morning he shook hands and bade us good-bye and good luck, and started off down the river bank, lost to us, as it proved, for many years.

The next day as we were all sitting on the ground I felt a sort of moving of the earth under me and heard a rumbling sound that seemed very queer.  It seemed there was a motion also to the trees around us.  We all started and looked a little frightened, and Skinner said he believed it was an earthquake, for he said he could see the motion in a sort of wave.  It was gone in half a minute.  Moody said:—­“How do you like California now?” I said I thought this part of it was a pretty good place for there was plenty of wood, water and grass, and that was better than we had seen in some places.

He then went on to say that he had heard Mr. Bennett’s story of their sufferings and narrow escape from death, and it was the most wonderful story he had ever heard.  He said the idea of Mrs. Bennett walking over such a country for twenty-two days was almost beyond belief, for he would not have thought her able to walk one-third the distance.  He never knew before how much women could do when they were called to do it, and they proved in emergencies to be as tough as any body.  He said if he ever got back home he should move to give them all the rights and privileges of men for sure.

One day I mounted my mule for a ride to the eastern foothills, and sat down on a little incline and overlooked the valley, a beautiful landscape, while my mule cropped the rich grasses in a circle described by the rope which confined him.  I was always a great admirer of nature, and as I sat there alone I could see miles on miles of mammoth mustard waving in the strong breeze which came down over the San Francisco Bay just visible to the northward, and on the mountain summits to the west could see tall timber reaching up into the deep blue of the sky.  It was a real contented comfort to be thus in the midst of luxuriance and beauty, and I enjoyed it, coming as it did at the end of the long and dreary road I had been traveling for the past twelve months.  Up the Platte; across the Rockies; down the Green River canons in my canoe; across the mountains to Salt Lake; out over the “Rim of the Basin,” and across the desert, guided