“By that time,” he said, “we shall be in the Ute country, and they are the meanest tribe of Indians in the west, and we may look for trouble with them any moment, day or night.”  And addressing the men he said, “I want you to keep your guns loaded and ready for use at a moment’s warning, and you must stay with the wagons, all but the scouts, who will be under Will’s control, for if they attack us I want to give them as warm a reception as we possibly can, for if we whip them in the first battle, that will settle it with that bunch.  They will not trouble us again.”

The next night we camped at Soda Springs.  There were three springs close together.  Two of them were mineral, one strong with soda, and the other was very salt, and the third one was pure cold water.  As soon as the wagons were corralled, several of the young girls took buckets and started for the springs to get water, and as luck had it they all went to the Soda spring.  Not one of them had ever even heard of a soda spring until they tried this one.  They had not had any water to drink since noon and were very thirsty, so drank very heartily without stopping to taste, but as soon as the water was down, there was a cry from as many as had drunk, and they all ran back to the wagons, screaming, “oh! oh!  I am poisoned, oh!  What shall I do?” And with their hands pressed to their breasts and the gas bursting from nose and mouth they did make a sad sight to those who did not understand the effects of soda springs, but to Jim and me it was very amusing, for we knew they were in no danger of poison.

Some of the sufferers cried as well as screamed.  I could not speak for laughing, for I remembered my own first experience in drinking from a soda spring, but Jim told them they were not poisoned and told them what kind of water they had drunk.  In a few moments all the crowd was at the soda spring, drinking its poison water as the girls still called it.  The older women asked what they should do for water to cook with.  I pointed to the salt spring and told them to go and get water from that if they had fresh meat to cook, and the water would salt it and for coffee I pointed to the spring of water farthest from us, and I told the girls they could drink all the water they wanted from that spring and not have to make such faces as they did after they drank the soda.  One of the girls said she reckoned I would have made a face if I had felt as she did.  Jim stood near us with a smile on his lips, which I knew meant mischief of some sort.  He said.  “Will, why don’t you tell the girls how you enjoyed your first drink of soda water?” And seeing how I blushed, for my face was burning, he said, “I guess I had better tell them myself.  I don’t think you know how comical you looked.”  And in the most ridiculous way he could think of he described how I looked and acted on that to me never-to-be-forgotten occasion, “My first drink from a soda spring.”

I have been told there is a large town at this place now, and that it is a great resort for the sick.  They use this salt water, which I forgot to say was also hot as well as salt, for bathing, and is considered a great cure for many diseases.