THE STAET FKOM RED BLUFFS. 245 



CHAPTER X. 



THE START FROM RED BLUFFS MISHAPS BY THE WAY DEVIL'S 



POCKET ADVENTURE AT YREKA FIELD-CRICKETS THE CALI- 



FORNIAN QUAIL SINGULAR NESTING OF BULLOCK'S ORIOLE. 



April 2 8 th. My pack-train is completed, my 

 provisions arranged for packing on the mules. 

 I have eighty-one mules and a bell-horse. To 

 manage mules without a horse carrying a bell 

 round its neck is perfectly impossible. The bell- 

 horse is always ridden ahead, and wherever it goes 

 the mules follow in single file. (But of this and 

 packing I shall have more to say further on.) 



April 29^/i. Sunday. 



April 3(M. I have determined to find my 

 way through Oregon by an unknown route; 

 doing this, I shall reach the Commission at least 

 two months earlier than by taking the ordinary 

 mail-route to Portland. 



Again and again I am warned of the risk not 

 only of losing my mules and men, but my own 

 scalp into the bargain. The country swarms 

 with hostile Indians, many large streams have to 



