Some of the wise-heads in the company were fearful that the cattle, on reaching the Truckee River, would drink too much. They detailed Luke Kidd and me to ride on our mules ahead of the foremost of the stock, and on reaching the river, permit none of the animals to drink more than a little water at a time. We went ahead during all that long morning, following what was surely, to us, the longest night that ever happened, before or since. Most of the other members of our party were in the wagons, and they, except the drivers, slept soundly; rocked gently, very gently, by the slow grinding of the wheels in the soft, deep sand. But Luke and I, on our little mules, must keep awake, and alert as possible, in readiness to hold back the cattle from taking too much water. From midnight to daybreak seemed a period amounting to entire days and nights; from dawn till sunrise, an epoch; and from sunrise to the time of reaching the river, as a period that would have no end. As the sun finally rose behind us, the faintest adumbration of the nearest ridges of the Sierras was discerned, in a dim, blue scroll across the western horizon, far ahead--how far it was useless to guess; and later, patches of snow about the peaks. The minutes were as hours; and their passing tantalized us: noting how the dim view grew so very slowly into hazy outlines of mountains, and finally of tree-tops. On we labored, overcoming distance inch by inch; nodding in our saddles; occasionally dismounting, to shake off the almost overpowering grasp of sleep. Half awake, we dreamed of water, green trees, and fragrant flowers. Rising hope, anon, took the place of long-deferred fruition, and we forgot for a moment how hard the pull was; till, with returning consciousness of thirst and painful drowsiness, we saw the landscape ahead presented still another, and another line of sand-dunes yet to be overcome. Luke and I reached the Truckee at nine o'clock in the forenoon, just ahead of the vanguard of cattle, and about three miles in advance of the foremost wagon. We tried to regulate the cattle's consumption of water, but did not prevent their drinking all they could hold. Ten men, on ten mules, could not have stopped one cow from plunging into that river, once she got sight of it, and remaining as long as she desired. We could not even prevent the mules we rode from rushing into it--that cold, rippling Truckee. Yet our elders had sent us two boys to hold back a hundred cattle, and make them drink in installments--in homeopathic doses, for their stomachs' sake. They dashed into the stream _en masse_; and seeing the futility of interfering, we gladly joined the cattle, in the first good, long, cool swallow of clear, clean water, within a period of six weeks.