During the night, notwithstanding the continuance of the storm, I had a very sound and refreshing sleep behind the protecting log where we made our camp, and at daylight next morning we resumed our journey, fortified by a breakfast of coffee and hard bread.  I skirted around the base of Lassan’s Butte, thence down Hat Creek, all the time following the trail made by Lieutenant Williamson’s party.  About noon the soldier I had picked up at my first camp gave out, and could go no farther.  As stipulated when I consented to take him along, I had the right to abandon him, but when it came to the test I could not make up my mind to do it.  Finding a good place not far off the trail, one of my men volunteered to remain with him until he died; and we left them there, with a liberal supply of hard bread and coffee, believing that we would never again see the invalid.  My reinforcement was already gone, and another man with it.

With my diminished party I resumed the trail and followed it until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, when we heard the sound of voices, and the corporal, thinking we were approaching Lieutenant Williamson’s party, was so overjoyed in anticipation of the junction, that he wanted to fire his musket as an expression of his delight.  This I prevented his doing, however, and we continued cautiously and slowly on to develop the source of the sounds in front.  We had not gone far before I discovered that the noise came from a band of Pit River Indians, who had struck the trail of the surveying expedition, and were following it up, doubtless with evil intent.  Dismounting from my horse I counted the moccasin tracks to ascertain the number of Indians, discovered it to be about thirty, and then followed on behind them cautiously, but with little difficulty, as appearances of speed on their part indicated that they wished to overtake Lieutenant Williamson’s party, which made them less on the lookout than usual for any possible pursuers.  After following the trail until nearly sundown, I considered it prudent to stop for the night, and drew off some little distance, where, concealed in a dense growth of timber, we made our camp.

As I had with me now only two men, I felt somewhat nervous, so I allowed no fires to be built, and in consequence our supper consisted of hard bread only.  I passed an anxious night, but beyond our own solicitude there was nothing to disturb us, the Indians being too much interested in overtaking the party in front to seek for victims in the rear, After a hard-bread breakfast we started again on the trail, and had proceeded but a short distance when, hearing the voices of the Indians, we at once slackened our speed so as not to overtake them.