CAUGHT IN A SNOWSTORM—VIA THE SANTA CLARA AND RIO VIRGEN TO THE MUDDY—NEWS OF SAD DISASTER TO THE EMIGRANT COMPANY—MAKING CHARCOAL AND NAILS—AN APOSTLE AS A BLACKSMITH—SEARCHING FOR WATER ON THE DESERT—CROSSING AN ALKALI STREAM—DISCOVER GOLD NEAR SALT SPRINGS—HURRYING ON OVER THE DESERT—CATTLE POISONED AT BITTER SPRINGS—KILLING ANIMALS TO RELIEVE THEIR SUFFERINGS—FIRST WAGON OVER CAJON PASS, GOING WEST—SEVERE JOURNEY TO THE SUMMIT OF THE PASS—ALL GET OVER SAFELY—SENSE OF GREAT RELIEF—GRASS AND WATER IN ABUNDANCE—OVERTAKEN BY SURVIVORS OF THE EMIGRANT COMPANY—THEIR STORY OF TERRIBLE SUFFERING—DIVIDE PROVISIONS WITH THEM—CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS, 1849—CONTINUING THE JOURNEY NORTH—SPANISH WARNING IN A CEMETERY TO INDIANS—CRUELTY OF THE SPANIARDS TO THE INDIANS—THE WRITER PLACED IN CHARGE OF THE COMPANY—DIRECTED TO GO TO THE GOLD MINES.
WHEN the company had separated the weather was very threatening, and it soon began to snow very fast. We pulled on until late in the afternoon, and camped on the mountain. Next day we came to some Indian farms where the savages had raised corn, wheat and squash. We passed on to the Santa Clara, followed it down for three or four days, and found a written notice to those who came that way: "Look out, for we have killed two Indians here." With this warning, we felt that we must keep a vigilant guard all the time. From the Santa Clara we had a very long drive across the mountain and down a long, dry, rocky slope until we came to the Rio Virgen. We went along that stream three or four days; where we left it we found a cow with an Indian arrow sticking in her. We next passed over a high plateau to a stream well named the Muddy. There we laid by and doctored and shod our lame cattle.
While we were on the Muddy, Brother C. C. Rich and party came down the stream to us, bringing sad and heartrending news from the great emigrant company, which had broken into factions and become perfectly demoralized and confused. Some had taken packs on their backs and started on foot, their cattle dying, their wagons abandoned. All were despondent, and unwilling to listen to anybody. I think, from the best information we ever got of them, I would be safe in saying that four-fifths of them met a most horrible fate, being starved or choked to death in or near what was afterwards called Death Valley. In after years the miners of Pahranagat found the irons of the wagons very handy for use in their pursuits.
On the Muddy we burned charcoal and made nails to shoe our cattle, having to throw the animals down and hold them while Apostle C. C. Rich shod them. Brother Rich did his work well, for the shoes never came loose till they wore off.
From the Muddy I accompanied Captain Hunt and Henry Rollins twelve miles and found some small pools of water about two miles to the right of the trail; I went back to turn the packers to it, while Captain Hunt and Henry Rollins went ahead in search of more pools of water and found some. George Q. Cannon and I stayed there as guides for the wagon train, and turned them off to the water. When the train arrived, about 11 o'clock p.m., we had to dip water with cups and water the stock from buckets. Then we pressed on till daylight, made a halt long enough to take breakfast, and pushed on, for there was no feed for our stock.
About 2 p.m. we came to the Los Vegas, where we rested a day, then continued our journey over mountains and across dry deserts from day to day until we reached a stream of water about three rods wide. It was so strong with alkali that we dared not allow our cattle to drink of it, but put the lash to them so that they could not get a sup as we crossed it twice. Thence we traveled across a very sandy desert for twelve miles to the Salt Springs, where the train went around a point of the mountain. A. Pratt and I, with three or four others, followed on a small trail that passed over a notch of the mountain. While going through a narrow pass, Brother A. Pratt said it looked as if there might be gold there. At that we went to looking in the crevices of the rock, and in a few minutes one of the party found a small scale, and then another. Among the rest, I saw the precious metal projecting from a streak of quartz in the granite rock. From there we went over about one and a half miles to the Salt Springs, and met with the teams. Several of the party journeyed back to look further for the gold. I took along a cold chisel and hammer, and chipped out some at the place I had found, but as our teams were weakening very fast and there was neither food nor water at that place to sustain our stock, we had to push on across the sandy desert of seventy-five miles, day and night, until we came to the Bitter Springs.
These were the springs that Captain Hunt had told the emigrant company about before they left Salt Lake City, that from thence it was "away hellward to California or some other place." It certainly began to look that way now, when our cattle began to weaken and die all along the trail. The springs would have been as properly named if they had been called Poison Springs, instead of Bitter, for it seemed that from that place our cattle began to weaken every moment, and many had to be turned loose from the yoke and then shot to get them out of their misery.
We had to shoot one of Brother Pratt's oxen to end its suffering. This act fell to my lot. Oh, how inhuman and cruel it seemed to me, to drive the patient and faithful dumb animal into a barren desert, where there is neither food nor drink, to goad him on until he falls from sheer exhaustion, so that he bears any punishment, to make him rise, that his master sees fit to inflict, without giving a single moan, then to walk around and calmly look him in the face and fire the deadly missile into his brain, then leave his carcass to the loathsome wolves and birds of prey!
In looking back over a period of fifty years since then, the writer cannot call to memory a single act in his life that seemed so cruel and ungrateful as that; and still there was no earthly means to save the poor creature from a more horrible death, which would have come if he had been left in that driving snowstorm, when his whole frame shook with cold, there to lie and starve—one of the most miserable deaths that the human mind can conceive of. Of the two evils we chose the least by ending the suffering in a moment, when it would have taken hours if it had not been for this act of mercy, as we call it after taking in the whole situation.
From Bitter Springs our team took the lead to the end of the journey, or to Williams' Ranch, being the first team that ever crossed over the Cajon Pass going west, as I remember. Ascending to the first pass from the Bitter Springs our situation was most gloomy. In mud and snow, with darkness come on, every ro............