44 EI.DORADO 



ney to the land of gold, and it was less than half ac- 

 complished. Five hundred miles la}' between us and 

 the Mormon settlement at Salt Lake, and nearly 1,500 

 before reaching our destination. After carefully consid- 

 ering the situation, it was decided to leave our wagons 

 and construct pack-saddles, making the burden as light 

 as possible for our animals. Their weakened condition 

 and the increasing heaviness of the roads and short- 

 ness of feed seemed to make this an absolute neces- 

 sity. 



If a house or barn, or a bridge, was to be built, we 

 had men who could have gone to work intelligently, but 

 a pack-saddle — "that was a horse of another color." 

 But '"where there is a will there is a way," and necessity 

 was our "mother of invention." Most of the boys had 

 never seen a pack-saddle. A couple of us had watched 

 Kit Carson mending his at Laramie and we had to take 

 the inftiative. Every one was ready to do his part 



As w^e would have no further use for our wagons we 

 decided, after due deliberation, to cut the spokes from 

 the wheels for saddles, and pack our cooking utensils 

 and sufBcient provisions to supply our needs to the 

 Mormon settlement. Our wagons were made of the 

 best material expressly for the trip, and we little ex- 

 pected to be compelled to use them for such a purpose, 

 or to leave them for fuel either for Indians or emi- 

 grants coming after us whose necessities might not be 

 as great as our own. 



Two crosses, two feet in length and about fifteen 

 inches apart, with a board beneath the lower extremi- 

 ties to rest upon either side of the animals' backs, and 

 the upper projections upon which to hang our blankets, 

 frying pans, cofifee pots, etc., was what we evolved 



