journey and kept on far into the night, expecting at every turn to find 

 the water we were in search of. I am not hkely to forget that ride while 

 I hve. After sunset it grew very cold and my rheumatic shoulder began 

 to ache intolerably; we were riding toward the rising moon, which was 

 at the full that night, and, under other circumstances, we should have 

 greatly enjoyed the wondrous effects of the moonlight on the desert, but 

 our discomfort from cold and thirst and weariness was too great to per- 

 mit enjoyment of any spectacle. "On and still on," the interminable 

 road kept winding away to the moon and it was not until after one in 

 the morning, that we reached a muddy pool. The mules and horses 

 would not drink it, but, by straining it, we made tolerable coffee. 



The next morning, after a short march, we found good water and 

 spent the remainder of the day there, to rest ourselves and our hard- 

 tried stock. Then, by easy marches, with stops to examine the geology 

 of the country, we reached our destination, Laclede Spring in the middle 

 of Laclede Meadow, named for one of the early French fur-traders from 

 St. Louis. Laclede Meadow is a grassy flat in the middle of a wide 

 sagebrush plain, with abundance of excellent water for man and beast, 

 but entirely without shade. Taylor and Pearson would take the wagon 

 to some spot that I did not visit and bring back a load of the largest 

 sagebrush I have ever seen. Excellent fuel for cooking was thus avail- 

 able, but we missed the campfire of logs, around which we could gather 

 after supper and enjoy that acme of physical well-being which comes 

 from a hard day's work and sufficient food and drink. I did not learn, 

 until four years later, how greatly a pipe adds to this feeling. 



As in the preceding season, Speir soon demonstrated his superiority 

 to the rest of us as a collector and the many fine things which we gath- 

 ered that summer were mostly found by him. When something of prom- 

 ise had been discovered, we would all turn to and help excavate it. The 

 fossils were wrapped in generously cushioned bundles and packed in 

 wooden boxes for shipment home. In "prospecting" we usually worked 

 in couples, or at least within hail of one another, in case of accident 

 or needed help. Here I may pause long enough to note the extraordinary 

 good fortune that attended us in all our Western work in regard to ill- 

 ness and injury. One dislocated shoulder, immediately remedied, makes 

 the list of injuries and of serious illness we had none at all. When one 

 remembers the many risks from firearms, from climbing in mountains 

 and precipitous bad lands, from horses, hostile Indians, fire and flood, 

 our almost perfect immunity is really remarkable. Narrow escapes we 

 had in plenty, but they were always escapes. 



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