e
always getting themselves mired there.

This wet patch was known to every teamster in the county as "the
bottomless forty rods," and was shunned by them like a pestilence. Its
existence was a great drawback to us, for, between San Remo, where the
smelters were, and the town of Sulphide, where the mines were, there
was a constant stream of wagons passing up and down, carrying ore to the
smelters and bringing back provisions, tools and all the other
multitudinous necessaries required by the population of a busy mining
town. Had it not been for the presence of "the bottomless forty rods,"
all these wagons would have come through our place and we should have
done a great trade in oats and hay with the teamsters. But as it was,
they all took the mesa road, which, though three miles longer and
necessitating the descent of a long, steep hill where the road came down
from the First Mesa to the plains, had the advantage of being hard and
sound at all seasons of the year.

My father had spent much time and labor in the attempt to make a
permanent road through this morass, cutting trenches and throwing in
load after load of stones and brush and earth, but all in vain, and at
length he gave it up--though with great reluctance. For, not only did
the teamsters avoid us, but we, ourselves, when we wished to go with a
load to San Remo, were obliged to ascend to the mesa and go down by the
hill road.

The cause of this wet spot was apparently an underground stream which
came to the surface at that point. The creek which supplied us with
water for irrigation had its sources on Mount Lincoln and falling from
the Second Mesa into our Basin in a little waterfall some twelve feet
high, it had scooped out a circular hole in the rock about a hundred
feet across and then, running down the length of the valley, found its
way out through the canyon. Now this creek received no accession from any
other stream in its course across the Basin, but for all that the amount
of water in the canyon was twice as great as that which came over the
fall; showing conclusively that the marsh whence the increase came must
be supplied by a very strong underground stream.

The greater part of Crawford's Basin was owned by my father, Philip
Crawford, the elder, but a portion of it, about thirty acres at the
upper end, including the pool, the waterfall and the best part of the
potato land, was owned by Simon Yetmore, of Sulphide.

My father was very desirous