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Show 176 friendship and giving him food, the desert native showed the explorers that water could be obtained by digging holes in a dry wash nearby. The thirsty party quickly dug a test hole two feet deep, and, true to the Indian's word, a little water seeped into it. The men hurried back to the main camp with the good news, arriving after dark. On the morning of tbe 5th, the Southern Exploring Company moved up to tbe "dry" wash and commenced digging holes. The place was appropriately named Desert Spring Wells. Twenty holes were dug in the sand-one for each wagon mess of three men. The men worked in shifts dipping the precious water out of the wells. All day long they laid by their wells with a spoon and tin cup in band and a bucket by their side. "When enough water was collected to fill the spoon, it was emptied into the cup, and when at last the cup was filled, it was poured into the pail; but it took a long time to fill a pail," wrote Martineau. Nine hours were spent filling the water casks. Even then, "the horses had not half enough" to drink.1^ It appears that Brigham Young's reasoning may have been correct. It would be very difficult to get a large army with animals through this country. While contemplating Young's strategy, Martineau was quick to point this out. "Was Brigham Young's reasoning correct?" he asked. Yes, surely. Here were but sixty men and sixty [one hundred] animals spending two days and a night [since leaving Bennett's Springs) in getting a drink around. How would it have been with six hundred or six thousand? They must all perish but a miserable few; and the greater the number of men the more certain their death.1 4 While the men were moving up to the wells, Dame, Martineau, Johnson, and George W. Sirrine were piloted to another small spring two miles north of the main camp. It was a "beautiful little spring holding about a tub ful of water, |