I could see with my glass the train of wagons moving slowly over the plain toward what looked to me like a large lake.  I made a guess of the point they would reach by night, and then took a straight course for it all day long in steady travel.  It was some time after dark, and I was still a quarter of a mile from the camp fires, where in the bed of a canon I stepped into some mud, which was a sign of water.  I poked around in the dark for a while and soon found a little pool of it, and having been without a drop of it for two days I lay down and took a hasty drink.  It did not seem to be very clear or clean, but it was certainly wet, which was the main thing just then.  The next morning I went to the pond of water, and found the oxen had been watered there.  They stirred up the mud a good deal and had drank off about all the clean part, which seemed to refresh them very much.  I found the people in the camp on the edge of the lake I had seen from the mountain, and fortunately it contained about a quarter of an inch of water.  They had dug some holes here, which filled up, and they were using this water in the camp.

The ambitious mountain-climbers of our party had by this, time, abandoned that sort of work, and I was left alone to look about and try to ascertain the character of the road they were to follow.  It was a great deal to do to look out for food for the oxen and for water for the camp, and besides all this it was plain there were Indians about even if we did not see them.  There were many signs, and I had to be always on the lookout to outgeneral them.  When the people found I was in camp this night they came around to our wagons to know what I had seen and found, and what the prospects were ahead.  Above all they wanted to know how far it was, in my opinion to the end of our journey.  I listened to all their inquiries and told them plainly what I had seen, and what I thought of the prospect.  I did not like telling the whole truth about it for fear it might dampen their spirits, but being pressed for an opinion I told them in plain words that it would at least be another month before their journey would be ended.  They seemed to think I ought to be pretty good authority, and if I was not mistaken, the oxen would get very poor and provisions very scarce before we could pull through so long.  I was up at day break and found Mr. Bennett sitting by the fire.  About the first thing he said:—­“Lewis, if you please I don’t want you hereafter to express your views so openly and emphatically as you did last night about our prospects.  Last night when I went to bed I found Sarah (his wife) crying and when pressed for the cause, she said she had heard your remarks on the situation, and that if Lewis said so it must be correct, for he knows more about it than all of you.  She felt that she and the children must starve.”