296 
FROM ARISPE BACK TO 
there, as well as some of their contents. They showed 
us some salt pork which they had taken themselves — 
an article which forms no part of a soldier’s rations 
in Mexico.* 
We gave the Mexican officers a quarter of our 
fresh beef It was evident now how the fire which I 
have mentioned originated. A portion of the brigade 
had passed the canon a few days after us ; and their 
twenty or thirty camp fires had, no doubt, communi- 
cated the fiames to the grass, which had afterwards 
extended over the whole mountain. 
At two o’clock we reached the worst portion of the 
Guadalupe Pass; where the great and sudden rise takes 
place. We attempted to double the teams, but found 
that no more than four mules could be used to advan- 
tage, owing to the short turns in the road. The get- 
ting up these hills proved a very difficult task, and it 
was only by every one putting a shoulder to the wheels 
and chocking them at every five or six feet, that they 
could be surmounted. It was dark when we reached 
the small stream seven miles beyond, which, though full 
when we passed, now furnished scarcely water sufficient 
for our mules. 
June 14dli. The road being good, we completed our 
day’s journey by 2 o’clock, p. m., and encamped on the 
banks of the arroyo where we had nooned before. 
* This statement was found to be true on our return to the Copper 
Mines, where news had been sent from Janos ; and on leaving for Cali- 
fornia, two months later, I took with me a man who had been in the 
affray, and substantiated what had been related to us by the Mexican 
soldiers. On returning from California a year later we saw on the spot 
where this affair took place the skeleton of a man. 
