Next morning I shouldered my gun and followed down the canon keeping the wagon road, and when half a mile down, at the sink of the sickly stream, I killed a wild goose.  This had undoubtedly been attracted here the night before by the light of our camp fire.  When I got near the lower end of the canon, there was a cliff on the north or right hand side which was perpendicular or perhaps a little overhanging, and at the base a cave which had the appearance of being continuously occupied by Indians.  As I went on down I saw a very strange looking track upon the ground.  There were hand and foot prints as if a human being had crawled upon all fours.  As this track reached the valley where the sand had been clean swept by the wind, the tracks became more plain, and the sand had been blown into small hills not over three or four feet high.  I followed the track till it led to the top of one of these small hills where a small well-like hole had been dug and in this excavation was a kind of Indian mummy curled up like a dog.  He was not dead for I could see him move as he breathed, but his skin looked very much like the surface of a well dried venison ham.  I should think by his looks he must be 200 or 300 years old, indeed he might be Adam’s brother and not look any older than he did.  He was evidently crippled.  A climate which would preserve for many days or weeks the carcass of an ox so that an eatable round stake could be cut from it, might perhaps preserve a live man for a longer period than would be believed.

I took a good long look at the wild creature and during all the time he never moved a muscle, though he must have known some one was in the well looking down at him.  He was probably practicing on one of the directions for a successful political career looking wise and saying nothing.  At any rate he was not going to let his talk get him into any trouble.  He probably had a friend around somewhere who supplied his wants.  I now left him and went farther out into the lowest part of the valley.  I could look to the north for fifty miles and it seemed to rise gradually in that direction.  To the south the view was equally extended, and down that way a lake could be seen.  The valley was here quite narrow, and the lofty snow-capped peak we had tried so hard to reach for the past two months now stood before me.  Its east side was almost perpendicular and seemed to reach the sky, and the snow was drifting over it, while here the day sun was shining uncomfortably hot.  I believe this mountain was really miles from its base to its summit, and that nothing could climb it on the eastern side except a bird and the only bird I had seen for two months was the goose I shot.  I looked every day for some sort of game but had not seen any.