As we were about to leave I told him we would come back, next day and bring him some clothes if we could find any to spare, and then we shouldered our guns and went back toward the wagons, looking over our shoulders occasionally to see if we were followed.  We walked fast down the hill and reached the camp about dark to find it a most unhappy one indeed.  Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Arcane were in heart-rending distress.  The four children were crying for water but there was not a drop to give them, and none could be reached before some time next day.  The mothers were nearly crazy, for they expected the children would choke with thirst and die in their arms, and would rather perish themselves than suffer the agony of seeing their little ones gasp and slowly die.  They reproached themselves as being the cause of all this trouble.  For the love of gold they had left homes where hunger had never come, and often in sleep dreamed of the bounteous tables of their old homes only to be woefully disappointed in the morning.  There was great gladness when John Rogers and I appeared in the camp and gave the mothers full canteens of water for themselves and little ones, and there was tears of joy and thankfulness upon their cheeks as they blessed us over and over again.

The oxen fared very hard.  The ground was made up of broken stone, and all that grew was a dry and stunted brush not more than six inches high, of which the poor animals took an occasional dainty bite, and seemed hardly able to drag along.

It was only seven or eight miles to the warm spring and all felt better to know for a certainty that we would soon be safe again.  We started early, even the women walked, so as to favor the poor oxen all we could.  When within two miles of the water some of the oxen lay down and refused to rise again, so we had to leave them and a wagon, while the rest pushed on and reached the spring soon after noon.  We took water and went back to the oxen left behind, and gave them some to drink.  They were somewhat rested and got up, and we tried to drive them in without the wagons, but they were not inclined to travel without the yoke, so we put it on them and hitched to the wagon again.  The yoke and the wagon seemed to brace them up a good deal, and they went along thus much better than when alone and scattered about, with nothing to lean upon.

The warm spring was quite large and ran a hundred yards or more before the water sank down into the dry and thirsty desert.  The dry cornstalks of last years crop, some small willows, sagebrush, weeds and grass suited our animals very well, and they ate better than for a long time, and we thought it best to remain two or three days to give them a chance to get rest.  The Indian we left here the evening before had gone and left nothing behind but a chunk of crystallized rock salt.  He seemed to be afraid of his friends.