Said he:—­“This Indian may be all right, and maybe he will lead us all into a dreadful trap.  They are treacherous and revengeful, and for some merely fancied wrong done by us, or by some one else of whom we have no control or knowledge, they may take our scalps, wipe us out of existence and no one will ever know what became of us.  Now this map of mine don’t show any bad places on this river, and I believe we can get down easily enough, and get to California some time.  Field and I cannot make up our minds so easily as you fellows.  I believe your chances are very poor.”

The boys now had our few things loaded on the two colts, for they had fully decided to go with me, and I was not in the least put back by McMahon’s dire forebodings.  We shook hands with quivering lips as we each hoped the other would meet good luck, and find enough to eat and all such sort of friendly talk, and then with my little party on the one side and McMahon and Field, whom we were to leave behind, on the other, we bowed to each other with bared heads, and then we started out of the little young cottonwoods into the broad plain that seemed to get wider and wider as we went west.

The mountains on the northern side grew smaller and less steep as we went west, and on the other hand reached down the river as far as we could see.  The plain itself was black and barren and for a hundred miles at least ahead of us it seemed to have no end.  Walker had explained to us that we must follow some horse tracks and enter a canon some miles to the northwest.  He had made his hands work like horses’ feet, placing then near the ground as if following a trail, We were not much more than a mile away when on looking back, we saw Chief Walker coming towards us on a horse at full speed; and motioning for us to stop.  This we did, though some of the boys said we would surely be marched back and scalped.  But it was not for that he came.  He had been watching us and saw that we had failed to notice the tracks of the horses he told us about so he rode after us, and now took us off some little distance to the right, got off his horse and showed us the faint horse tracks which we were to follow and said “Mormonie”.  He pointed out to us the exact canon we were to enter when we reached the hills; and said after three “sleeps” we would find an Indian camp on top of the mountain.  He then bade us good bye again and galloped back to his own camp.

We now resumed our journey, keeping watch of the tracks more closely, and as we came near the spurs of the mountain which projected out into the barren valley we crossed several well marked trails running along the foot hills, at right angles to our own.  This we afterwards learned was the regular trail from Santa Fe to Los Angeles.  At some big rocks further on we camped for the night, and found water in some pools or holes in the flat rocks which held the rain.