| OCR Text |
Show 174 WESTERN WILDS. that every stranger who took that route got lost, as it led among some sand- hills, where the trail would not hold, and only direction could guide one; but the sand- hills shut off the view and left one with-out direction. My best plan, he thought, was to follow down the old Overland, guided by the telegraph polos where the sand had obliter-ated the track, nine miles to Simpson Springs, where I would find the last water, thence nine miles to River Bed, and just beyond that a trait led straight across, and only twelve miles long to the foot of Dugway Mountains, and into a rich, green canon, where I would find water. Thence it was only twelve miles around the foot of the mount-ains to the mines. But, he added, " if you get lost or don't find the water, start back immediately, for if your horse goes more than a day without water, you're a goner." I set out gayly on a cool May morning, and took in liquid supplies ( a canteen- full) at Simpson Springs. Thence it is fifty- five miles on the stage road to the next water, at Deep Creek, where is an oasis large enough to support twenty Mormon families. Until 1874, they were as completely isolated as if on an island in mid- ocean ; but now a new mining district is opened near them. Deep Creek Range is so high that its summits, capped with snow throughout the year, can be seen, a hundred miles away. Dugway Range is over thirty miles in length, north and south. At the north end five or ten miles of desert intervene between it and Granite Range, which trends north- west, and is so full of heavy galena mines that they are literally of no account. That is, no locator can sell one of them, for any man who can handle a pick can go there, and find a mine for himself in a week. The mountain is literally full of lead ; but it is a new district, and a hun-dred miles from the railroad, and time and capital are required for development. Nine miles from Simpson Springs I descended into River Bed, the strangest phenomenon of this strange country. For nearly three hun-dred miles all the way from Sevier Lake to the western shore of Great Salt Lake runs an immense dry river- bed. Once the channel of a stream as large, apparently, as the Ohio, it is now a channel of the purest white sand. It is scarcely possible for the stranger nearing it to resist the illusion that he is approaching an immense stream. There are the bold bluifs, the gentle slope, which looks as though it ought to be clothed with blue- grass, and is scantily clad with cactus and greasewood ; the broken bank and the sandy bed from half to three- quarters of a mile wide. If the Ohio ten miles below Cincinnati should suddenly dry up, and every green thing on its banks perish, it |
