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Show 462 THE C I T Y OF THE SAINTS. CHAP. XH. are gathering their pine-nut harvest, and are driven by destitution to beg at the stations, to which one meal a week will attach them, are now comparatively peaceful: when the emigration season recommences they are expected to be troublesome, and their numbers -' the Pa Yutas can bring 12,000 warriors into the field - render them formidable. "Jake," the Shoshonee, who had followed us from Lost Springs, still considered his life in danger; he was as unwilling to wend his way alone as an Arab Bedouin or an African negro in their respective interiors. With regard to ourselves, Lieutenant Weed had declared that there was no danger; the station people thought, on the contrary, that the snake, which had been scotched, not killed, would recover after the departure of the soldiers, and that the work of destruction had not been carried on with sufficient vigor. At 6 A.M. the thermometer showed 45° F . ; we waited two hours, till the world had time to warm. After six miles we reached " Mountain Springs," a water-sink below the bench-land, tufted round with cotton-wood, willow, rose, cane, and grass. On our right, or eastward, lay Granite Rock, which we had well-nigh rounded, and through a gap we saw Lost-Springs Station, distant apparently but a few hours' canter. Between us, however, lay the horrible salt plain-a continuation of the low lands bounding the western edge of the Great Salt Lake-which the drainage of the hills over which we were traveling inundates till June. After twelve miles over the bench we passed a dark rock, which protects a water called Reading's Springs, and we halted to form up at the mouth of Deep-Creek Kanyon. This is a dangerous gorge, some nine miles long, formed by a water-course which sheds into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Here I rode forward with " Jim," a young express rider from the last station, who volunteered much information upon the subject of Indians. He carried two Colt's revolvers, of the dragoon or largest size, considering all others too small. I asked him what he would do if a Gosh Yuta appeared. He replied that if the fellow were civil he might shake hands with him, if surly he would shoot him; and, at all events, when riding away, that he would keep a "stirrup eye" upon him: that he was in the habit of looking round corners to see if any one was taking aim, in which case he would throw himself from the saddle, or rush on, so as to spoil the shooting-the Indians, when charged, becoming excited, fire without effect. He mentioned four Red Men who could " draw a bead" against any white; usually, however, they take a minute to load; they require a long aim, and they stint their powder. He pointed out a place where Miller, one of the express riders, had lately been badly wounded, and lost his horse. Nothing, certainly, could be better fitted for an ambuscade than this gorge, with its caves and holes in snow-cuts, earth-drops, and lines of strata, like walls of rudely-piled stone; in one place we saw the ashes |
