He Had Fallen Upon The Trail Of Captain
Bonneville's Party, Just After Leaving The Nebraska; And, Finding
That They Had Frightened Off All The Game, Had Been Obliged To
Push On, By Forced Marches, To Avoid Famine:
Both men and horses
were, therefore, much travel-worn; but this was no place to halt;
the plain before them he said was destitute of grass and water,
neither of which would be met with short of the Green River,
which was yet at a considerable distance.
He hoped, he added, as
his party were all on horseback, to reach the river, with hard
travelling, by nightfall: but he doubted the possibility of
Captain Bonneville's arrival there with his wagons before the day
following. Having imparted this information, he pushed forward
with all speed.
Captain Bonneville followed on as fast as circumstances would
permit. The ground was firm and gravelly; but the horses were too
much fatigued to move rapidly. After a long and harassing day's
march, without pausing for a noontide meal, they were compelled,
at nine o'clock at night, to encamp in an open plain, destitute
of water or pasturage. On the following morning, the horses were
turned loose at the peep of day; to slake their thirst, if
possible, from the dew collected on the sparse grass, here and
there springing up among dry sand-banks. The soil of a great part
of this Green River valley is a whitish clay, into which the rain
cannot penetrate, but which dries and cracks with the sun.
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