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Show CHAP. XII. "GENTLE ANNIE."- "YOU BET." 457 termined Yankee, far advanced in years, was equally remarkable. He had $90 in his pocket. He shivered for want of a blanket, and he lived on hard bread, bacon, and tea, of which no man was ever seen to partake. Such were the seven "free men," the independent traders- of the company. There were also six "broths of boys," who paid small sums up to $40 for the benefit of our escort, and who were expected to drive and to do general work. Traveling soon makes friends. No illusions of amicitia, however, could blind my eyes to the danger of entering an Indian country with such an escort. Untried men for the most part, they would have discharged their weapons in the air and fled at the whoop of an Indian, all of them, including Jake the Shoshonee, who had been permitted to accompany us as guide, and excepting our stanch ones, Howard, " Billy" the colt, and " Brandy" the dog. The station was thrown somewhat into confusion by the presence of a petticoat, an article which in these regions never fails to attract presents of revolvers and sides of bacon. " Gentle Annie," attended by three followers, was passing in an ambulance from California to Denver City, where her " friend" was. To most of my companions' inquiries about old acquaintances in California, she replied, in Western phrase, that the individual subject of their solicitude had "got to git up and git," which means that he had found change of air and scene advisable. Most of her sentences ended with a " you bet," even under circumstances where such operation would have been quite uncalled for. So it is related that when Dr. P , of Camp Floyd, was attending Mrs. A. B. C. at a most critical time, he asked her tenderly, "Do you suffer much, Mrs. C. ?" to which the new matron replied, "You bet I" We set out about noon, on a day hot as midsummer by contrast with the preceding nights, for a long spell of nearly fifty miles. Shortly after leaving the station the road forks. The left-hand path leads to a grassy spring in a dwarf kanyon near the southern or upper part of a river bottom, where emigrants are fond of camping. The hills scattered around the basin were of a dark metallic stone, sunburnt to chocolate. The strata were highly tilted up and the water-lines distinctly drawn. After eight miles we descended into the yellow silty bed of a bald and barren fiumara, which was not less than a mile broad. The good judge sighed when he contrasted it with Monongahela, the " river of the falling banks." It flows northward, and sinks near the western edge of the lake. At times it runs three feet of water. The hills around are white-capped throughout the winter, but snow seldom lies more than a week in the bottoms. After twenty miles over the barren plain we reached, about sunset, the station at the foot of the Dugway. It was a mere " dug-out"-a hole four feet deep, roofed over with split cedar trunks, and provided with a rude adobe chimney. The tenants were two rough young fellows-station-master and express rider |
