In the morning I started down the canon which descended rapidly and had a bed of sharp, volcanic, broken rock.  I could sometimes see an Indian track, and kept a sharp lookout at every turn, for fear of revenge on account of the store of squashes which had been taken.  I felt I was in constant danger, but could do nothing else but go on and keep eyes open trusting to circumstances to get out of any sudden emergency that might arise.

As I recollect this was Christmas day and about dusk I came upon the camp of one man with his wife and family, the Rev. J.W.  Brier, Mrs. Brier and two sons.  I inquired for others of his party and he told me they were somewhere ahead.  When I arrived at his camp I found the reverend gentleman very cooly delivering a lecture to his boys on education.  It seemed very strange to me to hear a solemn discourse on the benefits of early education when, it seemed to me, starvation was staring us all in the face, and the barren desolation all around gave small promise of the need of any education higher than the natural impulses of nature.  None of us knew exactly where we were, nor when the journey would be ended, nor when substantial relief would come.  Provisions were wasting away, and some had been reduced to the last alternative of subsisting on the oxen alone.  I slept by the fire that night, without a blanket, as I had done on many nights before and after they hitched up and drove on in the morning I searched the camp carefully, finding some bacon rinds they had thrown away.  As I chewed these and could taste the rich grease they contained, I thought they were the sweetest morsels I ever tasted.

Here on the north side of the canon were some rolling hills and some small weak springs, the water of which when gathered together made a small stream which ran a few yards down the canon before it lost itself in the rocks and sand.  On the side there stood what seemed to be one half of a butte, with the perpendicular face toward the canon.  Away on the summit of the butte I saw an Indian, so far away he looked no taller than my finger, and when he went out of sight I knew pretty well he was the very fellow who grew the squashes.  I thought it might be he, at any rate.

I now turned back to meet the teams and found them seven or eight miles up the canon, and although it was a down grade the oxen were barely able to walk slowly with their loads which were light, as wagons were almost empty except the women and children.  When night came on it seemed to be cloudy and we could hear the cries of the wild geese passing east.  We regarded this as a very good sign and no doubt Owen’s Lake, which we expected to pass on this route, was not very far off.  Around in those small hills and damp places was some coarse grass and other growths, but those who had gone before devoured the best, so our oxen had a hard time to get anything to eat.