164 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



" "We formed ourselves," says Bncke, '" into parties of from five 

 to ten men in each. Each party bought a light waggon and 'two 

 horses to draw it. Into this were loaded the necessary provisions, 

 cooking ntensils and personal effects of the party. One of us, turn 

 about, sat in the waggon and drove, the rest walked." 



Unwisely, as it , turned out, the parties travelled in detachments. 

 The party of which Bucke was a member numljered ten. They chose 

 a man named Samuel Jamieson as captain. Crossing the Humboldt 

 mountains, and then following the river of the same name to the west- 

 M'ard, they were attacked by the Shoshones. Columns of smoke here 

 and there along the river uplands gave the signal to the swarthy foe. 

 "' Then I heard, for the first time in my life, from a hundred savage 

 throats, that most unpleasant of sounds, the Indian war-whoop." The 

 ranks of Bucke's party had been swelled and their scanty supply of 

 provisions depleted by the addition of a party of six, who had been 

 robbed of everything l)y the Indians, and fallen back for help and 

 food. For a full half-day a running fight ensued with a hundred 

 naked savages, " yelling the war-whoop at the top of their voices." 

 The Indians had few guns, and depended mainly on their bows and 

 arrows; the whites had five rifles, a sliot gun and two 'revolvers. The 

 latter reserved their fire until it was likely to prove effective. One 

 of them was wounded with an arrow, another with a rifle-ball in the 

 groin. The whites were tbe better strategists, economized their fire, 

 were cooler, and shot straighter. Bucke believed he had hit one or 

 more of the enemy. Bushing toward the bushes to capture the gun of 

 one of those, he was peremptorily recalled by tbe captain. " At the 

 time the Indians abandoned the fight we had our last l)ullets in our 

 guns and they were not all loaded." 



But their troubles were by no means over. They had forgotten 

 i( fill their water cask in the morning. The trail had left the river. 

 Thirsty and exliausted they toiled wearisomely in the hot sun, on the 

 hot sand, " with nothing in sight but sand, sage brush and here and 

 there rocky hills." It was 9 at night before the trail again struck 

 the riv^er. Their suffering had been intense, and Bucke describes it 

 in a most graphic manner. The craving for water was such that 

 enormous quantities of it were swallowed before their thirst was satis- 

 fied. Then followed six more days of hunger and privation, during 

 which they marched about 150 miles, with nothing to eat but a little 

 fiour stirred in boiling water. They arrived at Sam Black's almost 

 exhausted with want of food. " Naturally, the first thing we did was 

 to arrange for supper. Inside of two hours after our arrival we sat 

 down to a table loaded with meat, game, vegetables and hot biscuits. 



