When we got out of the snow we had lost the trail again but the hills on the sides were covered with large brush, and on a higher part of the mountain south, were some big trees, and we began to think the country would change for the better pretty soon.  We followed down the ravine for many miles, and when this came out into a larger one, we were greatly pleased at the prospect, for down the latter came a beautiful little running brook of clear pure water, singing as it danced over the stones, a happy song and telling us to drink and drink again, and you may be sure we did drink, for it had been months and months since we had had such water, pure, sweet, free from the terrible alkali and stagnant taste that had been in almost every drop we had seen.  Rogers leveled his shot gun at some birds and killed a beautiful one with a top knot on his head, and colors bright all down his neck.  It was a California quail.  We said birds always lived where human beings did, and we had great hopes born to us of a better land.  I told John that if the folks were only there now I could kill game enough for them.

We dressed our three birds and got them boiling in the camp kettle, and while they were cooking talked over the outlook which was so flattering that our tongues got loose and we rattled away in strange contrast to the ominous silence of a week ago.  While eating our stew of crow and hawk, we could see willows alders and big sage brush around and we had noticed what seemed to be cottonwoods farther down the canon, and green trees on the slope of the mountain.  We were sure we were on the edge of the promised land and were quite light hearted, till we began to tell of plans to get the good people out who were waiting for us beside the little spring in the desert.  We talked of going back at once, but our meat was too near gone, and we must take them something to encourage them a little and make them strong for the fearful trip.  As to these birds—­the quail was as superb a morsel as ever a man did eat; the hawk was pretty fair and quite good eating; but that abominable crow!  His flesh was about as black as his feathers and full of tough and bony sinews.  We concluded we did not want any more of that kind of bird, and ever since that day, when I have heard people talk of “eating crow” as a bitter pill, I think I know all about it from experience.

There seemed to be no other way for us but to push on in the morning and try to obtain some relief for the poor women and children and then get back to them as fast as ever we could, so we shouldered our packs and went on down the canon as fast as we could.  We came soon to evergreen oaks and tall cottonwoods, and the creek bottom widened out to two hundred yards.  There were trees on the south side and the brush kept getting larger and larger.  There was a trail down this canon, but as it passed under fallen trees we knew it could not have been the same one we had been following on the other side of the summit, and when we discovered a bear track in a soft place we knew very well it was not a trail intended for human beings, and we might be ordered out almost any moment.