as hot enough to scald him. General
Washburn was right in his conjecture. It is a fortunate circumstance
that I to-day rode my light-weight pack horse; for, if I had ridden my
heavy saddle horse, I think that the additional weight of his body would
have broken the turf which held up the lighter animal, and that he would
have disappeared in the hot boiling mud, taking me with him.

At the base of Brown mountain is a lake, the size of which we could not
very accurately ascertain, but which was probably about two miles long
by three-quarters of a mile wide. On the south end appeared to be an
outlet, and it seems to be near the head of the Snake river. Owing to
the difficulty of reaching the beach, growing out of the mishaps arising
from the giving way of the turf, as I have described, our nearest
approach to the lake was about one-half of a mile.

During the absence of Washburn and myself Mr. Hedges has spent the day
in fishing, catching forty of the fine trout with which the lake
abounds. Mr. Stickney has to-day made an inventory of our larder, and we
find that our luxuries, such as coffee, sugar and flour, are nearly used
up, and that we have barely enough of necessary provisions--salt,
pepper, etc., to last us ten days longer with economy in their use. We
will remain at the lake probably three or four days longer with the hope
of finding some trace of Everts, when it will be necessary to turn our
faces homewards to avoid general disaster, and in the meantime we will
dry a few hundred pounds of trout, and carry them with us as a
precautionary measure against starvation. At all of our camps for the
past three days, and along the line of travel between them, we have
blazed the trees as a guide for Mr. Everts, and have left a small supply
of provisions at each place, securely cached, with notices directing Mr.
Everts to the places of concealment. The soldiers' rations issued for
thirty days' service will barely hold out for their own use, and we have
little chance of borrowing from them. We left Helena with thirty days'
rations, expecting to be absent but twenty-five days. We have already
been journeying twenty-seven days, and are still a long way from home.

A few nights ago I became ravenously hungry while on guard, and ate a
small loaf of bread, one of five loaves that I found in a pan by the
campfire. I was not aware at the time that these loaves were a part of
the soldiers' breakfast rations, nor did I know that in th