The trip through the coulee, once made, would never be forgotten. Immediately at the entrance of the funnel like gorge, with its precipitous walls of stone towering in heights from a few hundred to two thousand feet, the way seemed blocked by a lake several miles in length. Clear and cool it lay, constantly lashed into fury by the strong current of air rushing from the chasm above. The white, foam crested waves, spending their force upon the sandy shore at the lower end, retreating after each attack, leaving behind a deposit of white frothy foam that was picked up by the wind and scattered far beyond the reach of the next incoming wave, there to be dried by the sun, and the residue, a white crystal, powdered salts, left sparkling in the sunlight. Nothing in the way of vegetation except a species of harsh quackgrass grew within the radius covered by this deposit. The waters of this lake possessed strong mineral properties that were fatal to plant life, also rendering it extremely nauseating and unfit for drinking. Owing to this fact, it had been known to the Indians of Chief Moses' tribe as "Poison Water." Yet cool and sparkling it lay, a gem in the barren gulch, relieving the eye of those who chanced to pass that way, but often proving a sad disappointment to both the travel worn man and beast, who, unacquainted with its peculiar qualities, upon first beholding its rippling surface, hastened to its brink to appease a desert born thirst. As the lake was approached by the party, the members of which had previously heard of its existence and the nature of its waters, no stop was made. A passage around it was sought and soon discovered in a well worn trail that followed a dry ravine which led down to the lake, and extending around its head, reentered the coulee some miles above. They continued their journey along this ravine, the route being marked at intervals by the bleached bones of animals which had perished of thirst within a short distance of abundance of cool dear water that a caprice of nature had rendered, like fools gold, alluring, but of no value. For fifteen or twenty miles the road ran tortuously among the huge boulders that had fallen from the crest of the solid walls that arose hundreds of feet on either side, the crevices and nooks of which were the haunts of the rattlesnake and lizard. The projecting ledges that occasionally occurred showed signs of being the nesting place of hundreds of hawks that circled in an aimless manner at dizzy heights above this giant crevice. Limpid pools of alkaline water lay teeming beneath the blistering suns rays, their white salty rim unmarked by the footprints of any living thing, accursed by nature and abhorred by all God's creatures, wasting their contents by evaporation during the summer, and replenished by the torrents that rushed through this abandoned water course during the annual spring thaw.