H HAS AN ADVENTURE. 199 



could hope to get through. He remained with us all day, but 

 would not be tempted, so we made up our minds to go on 

 alone, though none of us knew one yard of the country. He 

 told us that we might expect to see Indians any day, as they 

 frequently came as far south as this, and that a party had 

 been killed near Fort Mason a few days before. This turned 

 out to be only partially true. 



We left the Jan Jaba the next morning, travelling over a 

 horribly rocky country and only making about sixteen miles. 

 That night we arranged the guards, each of us taking two 

 hours, and being seven we got two nights off in the week. 

 The first man went on at eight and the last came off at six, the 

 first and last having an easy time of it, as we often did not 

 turn in till nine and were up by five. 



The second night H had an adventure during his guard. 



He was going round to see whether all the horses were right, 

 when he suddenly fell on something which seemed to heave up, 

 H being thrown up in the air and coming down with con- 

 siderable force ; he then found that he had walked on to one of 

 his horses when asleep, and it had suddenly jumped up, making 

 him think there had been an earthquake. We found that some- 

 times the last man would have what seemed an extraordinary 

 long two-hours' watch, it being so long before daylight appeared, 

 and the sun seemed to rise later every morning ; and this, we 

 discovered, was owing to one of the men having always put on 

 the hands of the watch, which he was given when going on 

 guard, to shorten his own two hours. 



As we got near Fort Mason the character of the country 

 changed, the dense brush giving way to mesquit grass with 

 numbers of small thorny mesquit trees scattered about it. This 



