Hurry,
was
the
word!
We
wasted
no
time.
Our
party
consisted
of
four
persons—a blacksmith
sixty
years
of
age,
two
young
lawyers,
and
myself.
We
bought a
wagon
and
two
miserable
old
horses.
We
put
eighteen
hundred
pounds
of
provisions
and
mining tools
in
the
wagon
and
drove
out
of
Carson
on
a chilly
December
afternoon.
The
horses
were
so
weak
and
old
that
we
soon
found
that
it
would
be
better
if
one
or
two
of
us
got
out
and
walked.
It
was
an
improvement. Next,
we
found
that
it
would
be
better
if
a
third
man
got out.
That
was
an
improvement
also.
It
was
at
this
time
that
I volunteered
to
drive, although I had
never
driven a
harnessed
horse
before
and
many
a
man
in
such
a position
would
have
felt
fairly
excused
from
such
a responsibility.
But
in
a
little
while
it
was
found
that
it
would
be
a
fine
thing
if
the
drive
got
out
and
walked also.
It
was
at
this
time
that
I resigned
the
position
of
driver,
and
never
resumed
it
again.
Within
the
hour,
we
found
that
it
would
not
only
be
better,
but
was
absolutely
necessary,
that
we
four,
taking
turns,
two
at
a time,
should
put
our
hands
against
the
end
of
the
wagon
and
push
it
through
the
sand,
leaving
the
feeble
horses
little
to
do
but
keep
out
of
the
way
and
hold
up
the
tongue.
Perhaps
it
is
well
for
one
to
know
his
fate
at
first,
and
get
reconciled
to
it.
We
had learned
ours
in
one
afternoon.
It
was
plain
that
we
had
to
walk
through
the
sand
and
shove
that
wagon
and
those
horses
two
hundred
miles.
So
we
accepted
the
situation,
and
from
that
time
forth
we
never
rode.
More
than
that,
we
stood regular
and
nearly constant
watches
pushing
up
behind.
We
made
seven
miles,
and
camped
in
the
desert.
Young
Clagett (now
member
of
Congress
from
Montana) unharnessed
and
fed
and
watered
the
horses;
Oliphant
and
I
cut
sagebrush, built
the
fire
and
brought
water
to
cook with;
and
old
Mr. Ballou
the
blacksmith
did
the
cooking.
This
division
of
labor,
and
this
appointment,
was
adhered
to
throughout
the
journey.
We
had
no
tent,
and
so
we
slept
under
our
blankets
in
the
open
plain.
We
were
so
tired
that
we
slept soundly.
We
were
fifteen
days
making
the
trip—two
hundred
miles; thirteen, rather,
for
we
lay
by
a
couple
of
days,
in
one
place,
to
let
the
horses
rest.
We
could
really
have
accomplished
the
journey
in
ten
days
if
we
had
towed
the
horses
behind
the
wagon,
but
we
did
not
think
of
that
until
it
was
too
late,
and
so
went
on
shoving
the
horses
and
the
wagon
too
when
we
might
have
saved
half
the
labor.
Parties
who
met us, occasionally,
advised
us
to
put
the
horses
in
the
wagon,
but
Mr. Ballou,
through
whose
iron-clad earnestness
no
sarcasm
could
pierce, said
that
that
would
not
do,
because
the
provisions
were
exposed
and
would
suffer,
the
horses
being "bituminous
from
long
deprivation."
The
reader
will
excuse
me
from
translating.
What
Mr. Ballou customarily meant,
when
he
used a
long
word,
was
a
secret
between
himself
and
his
Maker.
He
was
one
of
the
best
and
kindest
hearted men
that
ever
graced
a
humble
sphere
of
life.
He
was
gentleness
and
simplicity
itself—and unselfishness, too. Although
he
was
more
than
twice
as
old
as
the
eldest
of
us,
he
never
gave
himself
any
airs, privileges,
or
exemptions
on
that
account.
He
did
a
young
man's
share
of
the
work;
and
did
his
share
of
conversing
and
entertaining
from
the
general
stand-point
of
any
age—not
from
the
arrogant, overawing summit-height
of
sixty
years.
His
one
striking
peculiarity
was
his
Partingtonian
fashion
of
loving
and
using
big
words
for
their
own
sakes,
and
independent
of
any
bearing
they
might
have
upon
the
thought
he
was
purposing
to
convey.
He
always
let
his
ponderous
syllables
fall
with
an
easy
unconsciousness
that
left
them
wholly
without
offensiveness.
In
truth
his
air
was
so
natural
and
so
simple
that
one
was
always
catching
himself
accepting
his
stately sentences
as
meaning something,
when
they
really meant
nothing
in
the
world.
If
a
word
was
long
and
grand
and
resonant,
that
was
sufficient
to
win
the
old
man's love,
and
he
would
drop
that
word
into
the
most
out-of-the-way
place
in
a sentence
or
a subject,
and
be
as
pleased
with
it
as
if
it
were
perfectly
luminous
with
meaning.
We
four
always
spread
our
common
stock
of
blankets
together
on
the
frozen ground,
and
slept
side
by
side;
and
finding
that
our
foolish, long-legged hound pup had a
deal
of
animal
heat
in
him,
Oliphant
got
to
admitting
him
to
the
bed,
between
himself
and
Mr. Ballou,
hugging
the
dog's
warm
back
to
his
breast
and
finding
great
comfort
in
it.
But
in
the
night
the
pup
would
get
stretchy
and
brace
his
feet against
the
old
man's
back
and
shove,
grunting
complacently
the
while;
and
now
and
then, being
warm
and
snug, grateful
and
happy,
he
would
paw
the
old
man's
back
simply
in
excess
of
comfort;
and
at
yet
other
times
he
would
dream
of
the
chase
and
in
his
sleep
tug
at
the
old
man's
back
hair
and
bark
in
his
ear.
The
old
gentleman
complained
mildly
about
these
familiarities,
at
last,
and
when
he
got
through
with
his
statement
he
said
that
such
a
dog
as
that
was
not
a
proper
animal
to
admit
to
bed
with
tired men,
because
he
was
"so
meretricious
in
his
movements
and
so
organic
in
his
emotions."
We
turned
the
dog
out.
It
was
a hard, wearing, toilsome journey,
but
it
had
its
bright
side;
for
after
each
day
was
done
and
our
wolfish
hunger
appeased
with
a
hot
supper
of
fried bacon, bread,
molasses
and
black
coffee,
the
pipe-smoking, song-
singing
and
yarn-spinning
around
the
evening
camp-fire
in
the
still
solitudes
of
the
desert
was
a happy,
care-free
sort
of
recreation
that
seemed
the
very
summit
and
culmination
of
earthly
luxury.
It
is
a
kind
of
life
that
has a
potent
charm
for
all
men,
whether
city
or
country-bred.
We
are
descended
from
desert-lounging Arabs,
and
countless
ages
of
growth
toward
perfect
civilization
have
failed
to
root
out
of
us
the
nomadic instinct.
We
all
confess
to
a gratified thrill
at
the
thought
of
"camping out."
Once
we
made
twenty-five
miles
in
a day,
and
once
we
made
forty
miles
(through
the
Great
American Desert),
and
ten
miles
beyond—fifty
in
all—in twenty-three hours,
without
halting
to
eat,
drink
or
rest.
To
stretch
out
and
go
to
sleep,
even
on
stony
and
frozen ground,
after
pushing
a
wagon
and
two
horses
fifty
miles,
is
a
delight
so
supreme
that
for
the
moment
it
almost
seems
cheap
at
the
price.
We
camped
two
days
in
the
neighborhood
of
the
"Sink
of
the
Humboldt."
We
tried
to
use
the
strong
alkaline
water
of
the
Sink,
but
it
would
not
answer.
It
was
like
drinking lye,
and
not
weak
lye, either.
It
left a
taste
in
the
mouth, bitter
and
every
way
execrable,
and
a
burning
in
the
stomach
that
was
very
uncomfortable.
We
put
molasses
in
it,
but
that
helped
it
very
little;
we
added a pickle,
yet
the
alkali
was
the
prominent
taste
and
so
it
was
unfit
for
drinking.
The
coffee
we
made
of
this
water
was
the
meanest
compound
man
has
yet
invented.
It
was
really
viler
to
the
taste
than
the
unameliorated
water
itself. Mr. Ballou, being
the
architect
and
builder
of
the
beverage
felt
constrained
to
endorse
and
uphold
it,
and
so
drank
half
a cup,
by
little
sips,
making
shift
to
praise
it
faintly
the
while,
but
finally threw
out
the
remainder,
and
said frankly
it
was
"too
technical
for
him."
But
presently
we
found a
spring
of
fresh
water, convenient,
and
then,
with
nothing
to
mar
our
enjoyment,
and
no
stragglers
to
interrupt it,
we
entered
into
our
rest.