ELDORADO 117 



cient depth to cover the wagon felHes as the jaded 

 and worn-out animals labored under the stimulant of 

 the brad and lash to draw their burdens. "It was the 

 last straw that broke the camel's back." The last 10 

 miles we could walk almost the entire distance upon the 

 bodies of dead and dying animals, horses, mules and 

 oxen, by the score, still attached to the wagons, lying 

 in and along the roadside, in harness and yoke. Driv- 

 ers, with women and children, had abandoned all to 

 seek water and save their own lives. The stock with 

 sufficient strength left to travel in some instances were 

 detached from wagons and urged along, loose, before 

 them. The ground was strewn with guns, ox chains 

 and every kind of thing that had been abandoned. And 

 to this day that sandy plain is covered with the bleached 

 bones of the faithful beasts that perished on that fatal 

 desert. By exercising due care and caution,! passed 

 over the ground in safety with my train in 1853, with 

 all the evidences of the terrible losses in '49 and '50 

 still visible. 



"Ragtown" was so named from a party of Califor- 

 nians who came over the mountains with a pack train 

 of provisions to supply "hard-up" emigrants, as a 

 money making scheme. This was the first "white man's 

 town" (except the Mormon city) upon which we had 

 had an opportunity to feast our eyes and cheer our 

 drooping souls since leavng the frontier settlements of 

 Iowa five months before. A number of tents had been 

 erected to be used as a store, sleeping and cooking 

 rooms. I could not answer for Mood}-, for he was al- 

 ways both hungry and dry — with a big D — but for my- 

 self, I "squandered" four bits for thin soup, served in a 

 tin cup, and $1 each for two biscuits. (It was the best 



