THE START FROM RED BLUFES. 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 28th.—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 29th.—Sunday. 
April 30th.—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 
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