While slowly driving the heavy wagons to the hunting grounds they suffered the usual hardships of plains travel.  The weather, as in most Texas winters, alternated between the extremes of heat and cold.  There had been little rain; in consequence water was scarce.  Twice they were forced to cross wild, barren wastes, where the pools had dried up, and they suffered terribly from thirst.  On the first occasion the horses were in good condition, and they travelled steadily, with only occasional short halts, for over thirty-six hours, by which time they were across the waterless country.  The journal reads:  “January 27th—­Big hunt—­no water, and we left Quinn’s blockhouse this morning 3 A.M.—­on the go all night—­hot.  January 28—­No water—­hot—­at seven we struck water, and by eight Stinking Creek—­grand ‘hurrah.’” On the second occasion, the horses were weak and travelled slowly, so the party went forty-eight hours without drinking.  “February 19th—­Pulled on twenty-one miles—­trail bad—­freezing night, no water, and wolves after our fresh meat. 20—­Made nineteen miles over prairie; again only mud, no water, freezing hard—­frightful thirst. 21st—­Thirty miles to Clear Fork, fresh water.”  These entries were hurriedly jotted down at the time, by a boy who deemed it unmanly to make any especial note of hardship or suffering; but every plainsman will understand the real agony implied in working hard for two nights, one day, and portions of two others, without water, even in cool weather.  During the last few miles the staggering horses were only just able to drag the lightly loaded wagon,—­for they had but one with them at the time,—­while the men plodded along in sullen silence, their mouths so parched that they could hardly utter a word.  My own hunting and ranching were done in the north where there is more water; so I have never had a similar experience.  Once I took a team in thirty-six hours across a country where there was no water; but by good luck it rained heavily in the night, so that the horses had plenty of wet grass, and I caught the rain in my slicker, and so had enough water for myself.  Personally, I have but once been as long as twenty-six hours without water.

The party pitched their permanent camp in a canyon of the Brazos known as Canyon Blanco.  The last few days of their journey they travelled beside the river through a veritable hunter’s paradise.  The drought had forced all the animals to come to the larger water-courses, and the country was literally swarming with game.  Every day, and all day long, the wagons travelled through the herds of antelopes that grazed on every side, while, whenever they approached the canyon brink, bands of deer started from the timber that fringed the river’s course; often, even the deer wandered out on the prairie with the antelope.  Nor was the game shy; for the hunters, both red and white, followed only the buffaloes, until the huge, shaggy herds were destroyed, and the smaller beasts were in consequence but little molested.