"In the evening of the second day we started to cross the great desert. We succeeded in crossing by midnight and reached the mountains on the other side. I was so tired I fell asleep beside the trail. The team passed me as I slept. I did not awaken until 2 in the morning. I followed the trail and found the team, a distance of four or five miles ahead of where I took the nap. On reaching camp, father and the company were anxiously awaiting me. We rested for the night. Next morning we started through a deep canyon which eventually opened into a beautiful valley where we saw houses made of adobe. The fields were covered with cattle. This was the first civilization we saw since leaving Salt Lake. Starvation had almost overtaken us and we besought the owner to sell us an ox and we had a feast and appeased our hunger. We had lost all accounting of time until we came here. We camped for the night, and next morning we started for Los Angeles. We arrived there November 18, 1849. The Spaniards had taken a strong liking toward father and wanted to make him their Alcalde, but he refused the honor and told them he had come to preach the gospel and had to go further. On his going they presented him with a fine horse and saddle as a token of their esteem for him. At that time Los Angeles had only a few adobe houses and a Catholic mission. Commodore Stockton had dug trenches around the place as a means of defense. We slowly wended our way for another month when we met a man who had bought a thousand head of cattle. He told father he could earn his way up the coast by helping drive the cattle, but he was not able to do this spirited work, so father and son exchanged places. Father turned the horse over to me and he drove the supply wagon. For the first time in my life I was a real cowboy.