24 LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKEIR 



the tracks, intending to follow him next morning. I stood watch the first 

 half of the night, and the other two were to take the last half. I called 

 them and then crawled under the blanket, and in a moment I was asleep, 

 but the boys never got up. In the morning when I awoke I could hardly get 

 my breath, so I threw back the blanket and found the snow fully four 

 inches deep. This ended the bear hunt, and when we got back to camp we 

 found the oxen had stampeded and had run away beyond all recovery. This 

 left us with one ox, and we would not have had him only some one had 

 happened to be leading him. This was all we had left out of sixteen we 

 left Salt Lake with, besides two horses. It was only our mess, or division 

 that lost the cattle. The others were further behind and did not get into 

 the stampede. We didn't mind much, as we felt we were now in a game 

 country and could live anyway, but we didn't find game so plentiful. 



The next game we came across, was an old mare and two colts, a 

 yearling and a two-year-old. Ed Doty and Bill Rude happened to be ahead 

 and got all three of them. We camped right there and built a fire and went 

 to eating. I thought I never had eaten anything that tasted as good. They 

 had a little fat on them and that was what tasted so good to us. We ate the 

 old mare up that night and made jerky of the colts to pack along. As Rev. 

 Mr. Brier was well supplied with oxen, he kindly permitted us to pack one 

 or two of his oxen. 



Two or three days later some of the boys killed a deer, and some of us 

 stayed back to dry the meat, and the rest went on. Among those that stayed 

 was old man Gould, as we called him, and he and I tried to sleep together. 

 We had only one single blanket between us and he wouldn't pull his boots 

 off. He said if he had to die he wanted to die with his boots on. He 

 seemed a little off in his mind, and by the way, there were two in our party 

 who never did get entirely in their right minds again. The next day 

 brought us out into the most beautiful valley I ever saw in all my life. 

 Paradise, in fact. It was covered with thousands of cattle feeding, and 

 they looked so fat and sleek, I never had anything that impressed me as 

 that sight did, I felt as though I could stand there and gaze on it forever. 



After coming off the desert the contrast was beyond all description. 

 The boys that were ahead of us, when they came to the cattle, shot three or 

 four. It seemed to them that each man could eat a steer. The Spaniards 

 heard the shooting and didn't know what to make of it, but gathered such 

 arms and other implements as they had, and came out to where the boys 

 were. They did not know then what they were, as the boys were so ema- 

 ciated and ragged. In fact our boys didn't pay much attention to them, for 

 they were too busy skinning and tearing off the fat parts of the meat and 

 eating it just as it was. They hadn't taken time to start a fire to cook it. 

 It just happened that we had a man with us that had been In the Mexican 

 War, and he knew little Spanish. His name was Tom Shannon. When the 

 Spaniards saw the condition of the company they said, "Buena Mericanas", 

 and told them to come on down to the Ranch and they would kill an animal 

 for them there, but the boys wouldn't take any chances, and they began to 

 load themselves with beef. The Spaniards told them that was too much 

 hard work. The boys marched down to the ranch about four miles distant, 

 and when they arrived, found a bullock already slaughtered. The boys went 

 at once to eating roasted meat, and eating all they could stuff. This came 



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