By this time the rest of our train had crossed the river and were with the man and his horses. When they learned just what had happened, they became very indignant because the man had apparently abandoned his wife and children to the mercies of the river, while he exerted himself to save his team. Quicker than I can tell it, the tongue of the man's wagon was set up on end, and hasty preparations being made to hang the man from the end of it. Almost frantic with what she saw, the wife again threw herself at my feet and begged me to save her husband. Her tears and entreaties, probably more than all I said, finally quieted the men, although some of them were still in favor of throwing him in the river. We eventually helped them get their wagon together, when we moved on and left them. At this place the river runs down into a canon, where we had to ford it four times in ten miles, the stream changing that many times from one side of the rocky walls to the other. We made the last ford about middle afternoon, and as it was Sunday, we put out for the day and night. "Up with my tent, here will I lie to-night. But where to-morrow? Well, all's well for that." CHAPTER X. BOOTS AND SADDLES CALL. [Illustration: Music] In nearly all lifetimes and in nearly all undertakings, there will occur seasons which severally try not merely one's faith and courage, but one's power of physical endurance as well; seasons when one's spirits are fagged and stand in need of a reveille, or "Boots and Saddles" call. The march of our little company during these mid-July days, with their privations and sufferings, could scarcely have been maintained, but for the notes of cheer which, by memory's route, came to us from out the silent places of the past, or, on the wings of hope, alighted among us from off the heights of the future. The Humboldt River, which by this time had become to us quite a memorable stream, was winding and crooked after coming out of the canon, and could be traced through the desert only by the willows that grew along its banks and around its shallow pools. Our route lay on the left bank all the way down to the "sink." It was the middle of July, with never a cloud in the sky, not a tree or shade of any kind. The ground was heated like an oven and covered more or less by an alkali sand, which parched our lips while the sun was blistering our noses. The river from here down to its sink is like all desert streams in the dry season. It does not have a continuous current, but the water lies in pools, alternating with places where the bed is dry and bare. In its windings it averaged about twenty-five miles from one bend to another, the trail leading a straight line like a railroad from one point to another. These points were our camping-places. As it was useless to stop between them we had to make the river or perish.