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Show 180 Bean's White Mountain company had encountered about forty of these Indians between Cedar Springs and Snake Creek before Bean returned to Provo to confer with President Young. It was not long before the force on Snake Creek began having trouble with the more treacherous Gosiutes and White Knives, both of the Western Shohoni group. Snake Valley was a part of the traditional range of these Indians. Despite the perfidious nature Of some of the more aggressive bands, the natives proved to be of far greater service than they were a problem to the White Mountain Expedition. Martineau told of numerous incidents in which the local Indians aided the company in finding water. In one instance the explorers happened upon an Indian with an antelope upon his shoulders which he had caught in a snare. "Having been without water for thirty-six hours, and none being in sight anywhere, we were naturally anxious to interview him," wrote the historian, "but he fled as soon as he saw us, still carrying his antelope." It took three horsemen two miles in pursuit to bring him down, and for over a mile he had run with his prize still on his shoulders. Much terrified and doubtless expecting death, he was pacified by a gift of food, and made to understand that water was wanted. He turned, beckoning our men to follow him down into a plain apparently perfectly devoid of water; but after going about a mile they suddenly came to a little brook about two feet wide and six inches deep, flowing in a channel five or six feet deep, and so narrow that its presence would be unsuspected a little dis- 25 tance away. ' Martineau recalled another incident in which the Indians came to the rescue of the desert explorers: Our party was suffering for water, when we had the good fortune to find an Indian, who promised for a supply of food, to show us some, pointing, as |
