A thirty-mile march brought us to a poor camp by a marshy stream. Man and beast showed the effects of the alkaline waters, which seemed to me more nasty every day. There is no doubt, however, that it is possible to become accustomed to their use, and no lands are more capable of cultivation than these if the water be sufficient for irrigation. The camp was enlivened by an adventure of the major's, which revenged for us his atrocious habit of rising at 3 A. M. and saying "Now, gentlemen!" as he stood relentless at the tent-doors. C. and I had found a canyon near by about one hundred feet deep and having a good bathing stream. As we returned toward it at evening we saw the gallant major standing barelegged on the edge of the canyon, gesticulating wildly, his saddle-bags and toilette matters far below beside the creek. Still suffering with the sunburn, he had been cooling his feet in the water preparatory to a bath, when, lo! a bear standing on his hind legs eating berries at a distance of only about fifteen feet! The major promptly availed himself of the shelter offered by the bank of the stream; but once there, how was he to escape unseen? The water was cold, the bear big, the major shoeless. Perhaps a bark simulative of a courageous dog might induce the bear to leave. No doubt, under such inspirations, it was well done. The bear, amazed at the resources of the army, fled--alas! not pursued by the happy major, who escaped up the canyon-wall, leaving his baggage to a generous foe, which took no advantage of comb or toothbrush. How the whole outfit turned out to hunt that bear, and how he was never found, I have not space to tell more fully. All of twelve hours the next day we rode on under a blinding sunlight, a cloudless sky, over dreary, rolling, dusty plains, where the only relief from dead grasses was the gray sage-brush and cactus, from the shelter of which, now and again, a warning rattle arose or a more timid snake fled swiftly through the dry grasses. Tinted cones of red and brown clays or toadstool forms of eroded sandstone added to the strange desolateness of the view; so that no sorrow was felt when, after forty miles of it, we came upon a picturesque band of Crows with two chiefs, Raw Hide and Tin Belly.