Back to my home place.
Story of the Crow Emigrant Train of 1865 - Section 5
Fully three-fourths of the time after we left Salt Lake City we had to take our stock to pasture sometimes as much as five miles from the road. We no longer had the abundance of feed that we had all during the first part of our journey. There were usually a few straggling Indians along the road waiting for the chance to take our stock and herd it for us during the night. When father would ask them where there was good pasture to be found they would point in the distance. We generally hired two Indians together. All we gave them was their supper and breakfast- all they could eat. That was all the pay they wanted. We never trusted the Indians to go alone with the stock. Always two armed men went with them. The Indians were unarmed.
The Indians would drive the stock to the feeding ground. Then the two white men would take turns sleeping while the Indians herded the stock. One white man always stayed awake. The white men would tell the Indian herders what time they wanted to be back at camp the next morning with the stock. "When tabe so high," they would say, meaning when the sun was up so high in the morning. When it came time to start back to camp the Indians would begin shouting "Vamouse! Vamouse!" Then the men would put one of the Indians on horseback and let him lead the way. The long line of animals would wind in and out on their way down the mountain to camp. The Indians knew that breakfast was awaiting them in camp and they were always anxious to get there as soon as possible.
One young Indian buck followed us for a week. He would disappear during the day but at night when we reached the place where we were going to camp he would always be waiting there for us and anxious to take our stock to pasture for the night. He had taken short cuts during the day and got to camp ahead of us. He would grin when we drove up and say "How?" Mother was always sympathetic and each morning would give him a lunch to take along with him- a chunk of bread and two or three slices of fat bacon. We had lots of soda crackers that the alkali had gotten into and we couldn't eat them. We would give them to the Indians and they would eat them greedily.
At the Carson sink in Nevada people were just beginning to try to farm. One outfit had about four hundred acres of barley. Some of it was tall enough to cut, but most of the crop was too short. It was sandy soil there and they were hiring Indians and white men for two dollars a day to pull up the grain by the roots and pile it up so that it could be threshed.
After the Carson sink comes the desert. We started across at three o'clock in the afternoon, intending to drive all night. All the horses and mules were given all the water they could drink. Then father mixed flour in the water and got them to drink nearly as much more. Horses are eager for flour and water. Flour was worth twenty-five dollars a sack and father used maybe four sacks. But the desert was ahead and we had to get across. The flour slimes their stomach and keeps animals from getting so thirsty.
We traveled until midnight. Here we divided up the water we had hauled along with us. It was measured out very carefully. Each animal received its share- about three gallons. From there on there was no more water to be had until we reached the other side of the desert.
We started up again after midnight. The Brannons and the Bordeaus became dissatisfied with father. They claimed that we were traveling too slow and that if we didn't hurry up it would get hot before we got across the desert. Father knew better than to try to force his stock through the sand under such trying circumstances. He told them that he was going to drive his teams on the walk and no faster. So the other two families drove on and left us.
When it came daylight we could see their five wagons in the distance struggling along. Their horses were already played out. Trying to hurry where the sand is six inches deep soon wears a team out. When we overtook them it was still sixteen miles to water. They were in a sad plight but father told the boys just to pull out around them and go on without stopping.
Our mules began to smell the moisture when we got within six or seven miles of water. It perked them right up. First one old mule would start wagging his ears back and forth wisely. Then others would begin doing the same. Pretty soon some mule would start hollering "Hee Haw" as loud as he could. Soon they were all hee hawing back and forth to one another. They all knew they were getting near to water. When we got almost there nothing could hold them back. Wagons, harness, drivers and everything else was of no avail. We just let them go and they plunged right into the river and drank their fill.
It was the middle of the forenoon when we got across the desert. After the stock had rested a little, father and the boys took several of the mule teams and started back to help the people we had left behind. They hitched a team of mules to each wagon on ahead of the horses and pulled the wagons, horses and all the six or seven miles to water.
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