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Show CHAP. XIII. ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER.-"DRY CREEK." 483 raise its age to that of man: it is much feared in Utah Territory. We were also cautioned against the poison oak, which is worse than the poison vine east of the Mississippi. It is a dwarf bush with quercine leaves, dark colored and prickly like those of the holly: the effect of a sting, of a touch, or, it is said, in sensitives of its proximity, is a painful itching, followed by a rash that lasts three weeks, and other highly inconvenient consequences. Strong brine was recommended to us by our prairie doctor. Among the employes of the station was an intelligent young mechanic from Pennsylvania, who, threatened with consumption, had sought and soon found health in the pure regions of the Rocky Mountains. He looked forward to revisiting civilization, where comforts were attainable. In these wilds little luxuries like tea and coffee are often unprocurable; a dudeen or a cutty pipe sells for a dollar, consequently a hollowed potato or corn-cob with a reed tube is often rendered necessary; and tobacco must be mixed with a myrtaceous leaf called by the natives " timaya," and by the mountaineers "larb"-possibly a corruption of "l'herbe" or " la yerba." Newspapers and magazines arrive sometimes twice a year, when they have weathered the dangers of the way. Economy has deprived the stations of their gardens, and the shrinking of emigration, which now dribbles eastward, instead of flowing in full stream westward, leaves the exiles to amuse themselves. To Dry Creek. 11th October. We arose early, and found that it had not " frosted;" that flies were busy in the station-house; and that the snow, though thick on the northern faces, had melted from the southern shoulders of the hills-these were so many indices of the St. Martin's, or Indian summer, the last warm glow of life before the cold and pallid death of the year. At 6 A.M. we entered the ambulance, and followed a good road across the remains of the long, broad Shea-wit Valley. After twelve miles we came upon a water surrounded by willows, with dwarf artemisia beyond-it grows better on the benches, where the subsoil is damper, than in the bottoms- and there we found our lazy boys, who, as Jim Gilston said, had been last night " on a drunk." Resuming^our way, after three miles we reached some wells whose alkalind waters chap the skm. Twenty miles farther led to the west end of the Sheawit Valley, where we found the station on a grassy bench at the foot of low rolling hills. It was a mere shell, with a substantial stone corral behind, and the inmates were speculating upon the possibility of roofing themselves in before the winter. Water is found in tolerable quantities below the station, but the place deserved its name, " Dry Creek." . A fraternal recognition took place between Long Jim andnis brother, who discovered each other by the merest accident. Gilston, the employi, was an intelligent man: at San Francisco he |
