FROM THE KINGSTON SPRINGS TO SAN BERNARDINO. 173 



Our journey was growing tiresome. We were getting low in 

 spirits, and everything having been talked out we traveled 

 most of the time in silence. In our springless wagons we 

 could not sleep, so we walked and rode alternately, listening 

 anxiously for Indian approaches, and dreading that at any 

 moment an arrow-pierced horse might fall. But nothing 

 befel us. In the morning, at four o'clock, in pitchy darkness, 

 we halted. The air was cold, and no fuel was to be had for 

 warmth or cooking our scant food. There was not a spear of 

 grass, so instead of hoppling our horses and turning them 

 loose we tied them to the wagons. In prairie travel, when 

 grass was plenty, tethering horses was practicable ; but in a 

 country like this it was not ; it took so broad a range to feed 

 each. So there being too few teamsters to guard the animals, 

 hopples were used to restrain them. These sometimes got loose, 

 and, in spite of their broken-down condition, the horses would 

 wander out of sight and cause us much vexatious delay. 

 When there was no grass we tied them up and gave them what 

 we could spare of wheat. Our teams were now in such condi- 

 tion we were afraid they would not take us through. Our day's 

 march on the 12th was forty-five miles. 



The morning of December loth dawned upon us bright and 

 clear, and found us encamped in another of these great desert- 

 basins, surrounded by ranges of barren mountains. We broke 

 camp early in the day and continued on our way over the 

 sandy and stony plain in the direction of a gap in the moun- 

 tain rim, which was indistinctly visible from our camping 

 place. In the course of the forenoon ocular evidence was 

 manifested of our being in the modern El Dorado, for we saw 

 gold-bearing rock scattered over the plain, although in rather 

 limited quantities. Before long our party was scattering over 

 the plain " prospecting " and bringing the results of their 

 searchings to our Mormon friends — the most of whom were 

 versed in aurific lore, which they had acquired during a resi- 



