598 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
ing a large Government bridge on Williamson River a number of Indians came 
up to me and demanded $2.00 toll, this I refused to pay. I learned afterward 
that these Indians made a living by collecting toll from people crossing this bridge. 
After following Sprague River for about fifty miles I found it rose in a small 
range of hills and I was at my wits end as to what to do ; my only guide had 
proved false. At last, I resolved to go north. I was in a country only occupied 
by Indians and wild animals, I came to a place where the trail I was following 
forked, one going directly north and was but little traveled, the other, a well beaten 
trail, led a little west of north. While debating as to the best course to pursue, 
an Indian boy came along driving two pack ponies, or cayuses, as they call them. 
He took the large trail, I asked him where he was going and he told me to Sican 
Valley to a sheep ranch. I had been told that I would go through this valley 
and by a sheep ranch on my way to Silver Lake, I therefore followed the Indian. 
After going about five miles the trail came to an end in a thick forest, at an 
Indian encampment ; a number of braves in war paint came out and told me I 
was lost, and that they would show me the road for $2.00. I was so indignant 
at having been cheated so that I refused to pay them anything, and started east. 
Fortunately, just as the sun went down we found the trail we had left. Here we 
ate the last of our provisions, as the night before an Indian had stolen our bacon 
that we had packed under a lot of tinware in the bottom of a box near the head 
of our bed, and the bread had fallen off our pack and was lost. Next morning, 
bright and early, we started without breakfast in hopes of reaching the sheep 
ranch, which we luckily did just before dark, very hungry and tired; here a good 
cup of coffee, some hot bread and mutton-chops soon made us forget our past 
hunger and dangers, and we were glad to learn that another day's journey 
would bring us to Silver Lake, which we reached next day. Here we heard all 
about the wonderful bone-yard that had been discovered by a stockman in a 
desert twenty-eight miles from here. 
Next day, accompanied by the postmaster as guide, we started for the fossil 
fields and reached a house eight miles from the locality that day, where we camped 
for the night. It took all next day to reach our destination, as we had to find 
our way through a sage brush desert. We had a wagon along and it was slow 
work. The fossils we were in search of were of quite recent species, some in fact, 
were of existing ones. The bones lay scattered around a small alkaline lake and 
were all exposed, resting on a bed of clay. They had been covered with loose 
volcanic sand and ashes which the wind had drifted away and piled in great 
heaps sixty feet or more in height. These sand drifts were covered with wind- 
marks and looked like newly harrowed fields. There were numerous hillocks, 
from a few feet to eighteen or twenty feet high, the summits of which had been 
protected by a patch of sage brush and the sides laid bare and rounded by the 
wind. We pitched our tent and hitching our pony to a sage brush hauled it into 
camp, and so repeated this till a large pile was gathered. Early next morning we 
were busy gathering together the loose bones and placing them in piles ; we put 
them on our pack-horses and carried them to camp. They were well preserved ; 
