My thirst grew insupportable; it seemed as if a live crab was gnawing and rending my stomach with his claws and nippers. I made several attempts to get off the table, but wherever I put my leg the burning-hot steam came like a flame against it, and there was not sufficient room to stand betwixt the table and the partition of my steam-prison. I called louder and louder; my reasoning powers were growing feeble, my presence of mind was rapidly abandoning me, and a thousand wild fancies passed through my brain; I had given up all hope, when I saw a gleam of light. I have a vague remembrance of being dragged out, plunged into cold water, and savagely rubbed with a kind of hempen rasp. As I became quite conscious of what was going on, I was partly dressed, and lying on the grass, the Doctor and the Major standing close by, the bathers rubbing my hands and feet; whilst Aunty, squatted on a log, was holding a cup containing some steaming mixture. ‘O Doctor!’ I said, as well as I could articulate, ‘a little more, and you would have had to bury me; I was nearly gone!’ ‘Waal, Cap’en, I kind of guess you must have had a near shave for life, but it warn’t meant nohow. You see the Major and me just strolled up to take a peep at the mustangs, and the darned brutes stampeded, breaking clean out of the “corral,” and went past the bath-house like mad. The boys see ’em, and hearin’ us a-hollerin’, made tracks right after ’em, and never thought about your bein’ a-steamin’. Old Aunty, by sheer luck, heard you a-screamin’ and a-snortin’, and it mighty nigh skeert the old woman to death, for she thought “Old Hoof” was a-bilin’ himself. Up she came a-tearin’ and a-shriekin’ that somethin’ unearthly was in the steamroom. “Thunder and grizzlys,” says the Major, “the boys have forgot the Cap’en, and gone right after the mustangs!” You’d better believe we soon had you out, and you ain’t none the worse for it, thank Providence!’ The combined powers of Aunty’s mixture and the Major’s whisky-flask rapidly restored me. The villainous mustangs—the cause of my mishap—were caught and saddled. Danger past is lightly thought of and we enjoyed a hearty laugh as the Major quaintly told the story at the Bluffs of the Cap’en’s bath at the Tuscan Springs. CHAPTER X. THE START FROM RED BLUFFS—MISHAPS BY THE WAY—DEVIL’S POCKET—ADVENTURE AT YREKA—FIELD-CRICKETS—THE CALIFORNIAN QUAIL—SINGULAR NESTING OF BULLOCK’S ORIOLE. _April 28th._—My pack-train is completed, my provisions arranged for packing on the mules. I have eighty-one mules and a bell-horse. To manage mules without a horse carrying a bell round its neck is perfectly impossible. The bell-horse is always ridden ahead, and wherever it goes the mules follow in single file. (But of this and packing I shall have more to say further on.) _April 29th._—Sunday.