294 MULE-HUNTING EXPEDITION. 



quite black, and not the vestige of a plant visible. 

 The black expanse had exactly the appearance 

 of a bed of rocks, over which the tide ebbed 

 and flowed. Crossed a creek fifteen miles from 

 camp, deep and swift, and about fifteen yards 

 wide ; five miles beyond this cross another creek, 

 about half the size. Leave the timber and come 

 out on a wide sandy kind of desert, covered with 

 wild-sage and stunted juniper-trees, frightfully 

 dusty, and most tiresome for the mules ; no chance 

 of camping until quite over it, which is twenty 

 miles. After a weary march reach a creek, where 

 I stop ; a capital camping-ground, with fine grass 

 and water. Passed close along the bases of the 

 Three Sisters, lofty mountains, at this time covered 

 with snow. Saw a great many abandoned lodges, 

 but no Indians. The sandy places were quite 

 alive with the Oregon horned toad (Tapaya 

 Douglassii}, which is a lizard really very harm- 

 less, and particularly ugly. Every stream too 

 was thronged with beaver. 



May 28th. Mules all in at 4 A.M. Got off in 

 good time : weather not nearly so cold. Looked 

 over the creek, but saw no gold, but any quan- 

 tity of beaver - workings ; trees four feet round 

 had been cut down by them. Passed through a 

 tract of lightly-timbered land and open grassy 



