(144 NOTES TAKEN. — 
and Acuolate waste, broken and torn into ravines, mounds, 
gullies and defiles, the soil a bright red clay, and not a tree or 
a shrub, except the white dwarf cedar, to be seen. Crossing 
this was like descending the Alps; we had to lead or drive 
our horses, go single file, and hang on in many places to the 
cedars that grew in our path. 
At the bottom, we found ‘the bed of a large stream, a 
tributary to the Big Witchita, quite dry, with only a pool of 
water here and there, standing under the banks, salt and 
bitter. 
This being a foretaste of what we were to expect, the ever 
- vigilant Captain began to think of the future, and cast about 
for some place to fill our gum-elastic water-bags. 
After much search, he found a tiny thread of water 
trickling down the hill side, and sous meee one of the men 
to dig out a basin to catch it in. 
In this way, in an hour’s time, we filled our water bags, 
_and drank freely ourselyes, when continuing our march over 
the same barren tract, we nooned near the dry bed of a large 
creek, where in a hole was brackish water sufficient for our 
thirsty animals. 
In passing down the bed of this stream, in the afternoon, — 
we came upén an Indian trail, when Conner displayed the 
extraordinary powers he possessed of designating by the mere 
tracks in the sand the character of the trail. 
Riding along with his eyes bent upon the sand, he soon 
stopped, and said “ Witchita trail, may be so, eight animal, 
