Long before daylight one morning, we filled every available water carrier not filled the night before, and trailed off through the weird darkness, the only time but one that we broke camp before daylight. We were starting across a desert, seventy miles without water. In two days we were to cross, thirty-five miles a day, fifteen miles farther than our average distance. It was to be two long and terrible drives for horses as worn and thin as ours. Only a bit of grass, mowed and carried with us, we had to feed them those two days. Out upon the lava beds we rumbled, the hollow, echoing, metallic roar sounding as if we were upon a great bridge. At daylight there lay around us a gray and desolate waste.
"Did ever horses go so fast?" Florence gasped as we ran breathlessly along the rocky road trying to overtake the teams. We had tried walking but could not keep up with the horses.
"I don't believe they ever did," I answered. "We never drove like this before." At last a wagon waited for us and Uncle Isaac told us to stay in it. On no other days did they ever drive the horses at a trot.
Many skulls of big-horned sheep lay about on the lava bed. It must have been a good hunting ground, for no place else did we ever see many. Here and there we saw them set on piles of rocks and often names were written on them. They made wild-looking landmarks.
The road, though winding around hummocks, was in the main nearly straight. At noon we stopped but a few minutes for lunch, gave the horses a handful of the dried grass and a swallow of water, and then hastened on. We camped late that night, worn out from the long drive, but were up again before daylight. They were hard days, those two.
The following night, after dark, we reached water. At the foot of a mountain was a little trickling stream. The captain ordered the water vessels filled before the horses drank. It was necessary to hoard that water; there was so little there. The next good spring was 15 miles away. Very carefully the water was guarded to leave the stream clear for the cattle train, the bushwhackers who were following behind us.
After our camps were made and the horses watered, the cattle train arrived. We left the spring to them. Instead of using care with the water they immediately turned the oxen loose to drink. Three hundred or more cattle trampled and fought over the water and far into the night their bellowing was hideous. Neither the people nor the cattle had much use of that spring. I don't know what they would have done had not Mr. Daily set a guard over a tiny hill that trickled down the hillside above where the cattle could climb. All the drinking water they had they got there. It was well for us that Mr. Daily had told us to fill our water casks.
Fifteen miles of travel the next day took us to another spring. Here we rested for the remainder of the day. The cattle train passed us and we hoped once more that we were rid of them.