around.

As we were about to leave I told him we would come back, next day and
bring him some clothes if we could find any to spare, and then we
shouldered our guns and went back toward the wagons, looking over our
shoulders occasionally to see if we were followed. We walked fast down
the hill and reached the camp about dark to find it a most unhappy one
indeed. Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Arcane were in heart-rending distress. The
four children were crying for water but there was not a drop to give
them, and none could be reached before some time next day. The mothers
were nearly crazy, for they expected the children would choke with
thirst and die in their arms, and would rather perish themselves than
suffer the agony of seeing their little ones gasp and slowly die. They
reproached themselves as being the cause of all this trouble. For the
love of gold they had left homes where hunger had never come, and often
in sleep dreamed of the bounteous tables of their old homes only to be
woefully disappointed in the morning. There was great gladness when John
Rogers and I appeared in the camp and gave the mothers full canteens of
water for themselves and little ones, and there was tears of joy and
thankfulness upon their cheeks as they blessed us over and over again.

The oxen fared very hard. The ground was made up of broken stone, and
all that grew was a dry and stunted brush not more than six inches high,
of which the poor animals took an occasional dainty bite, and seemed
hardly able to drag along.

It was only seven or eight miles to the warm spring and all felt better
to know for a certainty that we would soon be safe again. We started
early, even the women walked, so as to favor the poor oxen all we could.
When within two miles of the water some of the oxen lay down and refused
to rise again, so we had to leave them and a wagon, while the rest
pushed on and reached the spring soon after noon. We took water and went
back to the oxen left behind, and gave them some to drink. They were
somewhat rested and got up, and we tried to drive them in without the
wagons, but they were not inclined to travel without the yoke, so we put
it on them and hitched to the wagon again. The yoke and the wagon seemed
to brace them up a good deal, and they went along thus much better than
when alone and scattered about, with nothing to lean upon.

The warm spring was quite large and ran a hundred yards or more before
the water sank down into the