There was a trickling stream of water coming out of the scrubby wood patch, and the campers who had preceded me had dug a hole about two feet deep and thirty inches across for the water to run into. It was full at this time, so I was assured of this and a camp-fire. I was very tired and quite hungry. There was an empty Pierre Lorillard tobacco-box here which the campers had left. This I used for a head-rest, and in a reclining position before my fire I began to think of ways and means. I finally decided to retrace my steps and get back to the Mexican camp. So I folded my hat, tied a handkerchief around my head, placed the hat on the tobacco-box for a pillow, stretched out and went to sleep. Three times during the night I was awakened by the cold. Then I would get up, replenish the fire, get warm, lie down and sleep again. My last awakening was at daylight, and the sky was overcast with murky clouds; and here I must say that I, for the first time, became somewhat doubtful about making, or finding my way back to the camp I had left. But the trail I had been following was plain, and could be followed no matter how cloudy it might get. I have been asked many times by various plainsmen, why, from this camp, I did not go north to the Canadian river, take up the south side of it to the mouth of Blue Water, then up Blue Water to the Mexican camp. This thought did occur to me; but what if that camp should be moved? Might I not get so weak from hunger that I would perish before I could reach it? So I took the trail I turned back on the night before, and traveled over it for about six miles, when it suddenly turned to the right and headed nearly due south. By this time the clouds had grown thicker, the atmosphere warmer and damp. I had not gone to exceed a hundred yards farther when I came to a cross-trail, and noticed that one wagon had turned off into it and followed it in a northeast direction. I dropped down on the grass and pondered in my mind the pros and cons of my predicament; and I reasoned that this one wagon had been the one that I had followed the morning before, and had at all times been on my right; that it had intercepted the trail somewhere along the route from where I had discovered the keg, and while walking along rapidly, looking more ahead than otherwise, I had not noticed it when it came into the one I was on. And as if by impulse I arose to my feet and followed it. After walking about eight miles, I suddenly came to the breaks of the South Canadian, and walking down a long, gradual draw, gently sloping on each side, I came to the river, and saw that the trail crossed it and that the main channel was hard against the south bank. I got a sounding-stick and noted that the water was about three feet deep ten feet from where the trail entered it. A few rods below I noticed a sandbar projecting far out into the stream, which at this place was about one hundred and twenty-five yards wide from bank to bank.