92 LIFE I xN THE FAR WEST. 



River is the most considerable, this lake presents the curious pheno- 

 menon of a vast body of M^ater without any known outlet. Accord- 

 ing to the trappers, an island, from which rises a chain of lofty 

 mountains, nearly divides the northwestern portion of the lake, 

 while a smaller one, within twelve miles of the northern shore, 

 rises six hundred feet from the level of the water. Rube declared 

 to his companions that the larger island was known by the Indians 

 to be inhabited by a race of giants, with whom no communica- 

 tion had ever been held by mortal man ; and but for the casual 

 wafting to the shores of the lake of logs of gigantic trees, cut by 

 axes of extraordinary size, the world would never have knoMai that 

 such a people existed. They were, moreover, white as themselves, 

 and lived upon corn and fruits, and rode on elephants, &c. 



While following a small creek at the southwest extremity of 

 the lake, they came upon a band of miserable Indians, who, from 

 the fact of their subsisting chiefly on roots, are called the Diggers. 

 At first sight of the whites they immediately fled from their wretch- 

 ed huts, and made toward the mountain ; but one of the trappers, 

 galloping up on his horse, cut off their retreat, and drove them like 

 sheep before him back to their village. A few of these wretched 

 creatures came into camp at sundown, and were regaled with such 

 meat as the larder afforded. They appeared to have no other food 

 in their village but bags of dried ants and their larvae, and a few 

 roots of the yampah. Their huts were constructed of a few bushes 

 of grease-wood, piled up as a sort of bretkwind, in which they 

 huddled in their filthy skins. During the night, they crawled up 

 to the camp and stole two of the horses, and the next morning not 

 a sign of them was visible. Now La Bonte witnessed a case of 

 mountain law, and the practical etTects of the " lex talionis" of the 

 Far West. . 



The trail of the runaway Diggers bore to the northwest, or 

 along the skirt of a barren waterless desert, which stretches fai 

 away from the southern shores of the Salt Lake to the borders of 



