_May 18th._—A sharp frosty morning; very cold, sleeping in the open air. Get away soon after sun-up. Leave the flat grassy valley, and ascend the timbered slopes of the Sis-ky-oue mountains. Follow a bad Indian trail, through barren gorges, and along rocky ledges, for twenty miles; observe lots of deer-tracks, but no deer. Descend the northern slope, arrive at the Emigrant’s Ford, and come plump upon a large encampment of Sis-ky-oue Indians. Fifteen miles to the next water; the sun rapidly sinking; men and mules tired. At all risks, I camp near the redskins. The Emigrant Ford is a wide lake-like expanse of the Klamath river, that spreads out over a level plateau on emerging from a basaltic gorge, through which the river finds its way for some distance. The walls of rock shutting it in being deep and almost vertical, reaching the water in the cañon is an impossibility. As the river widens out it shallows sufficiently for ox-teams and waggons to get through it; and, being almost the only fordable place, was always chosen by emigrant trains coming to Oregon and California. The remains of half-burnt waggons and human bones still bleaching in the sun, makes one shudder to think of the terrible fate of the weary wanderer, cut off at this fatal spot by the Indians. Their plan was to remain concealed until the trains were all safely through, then to swoop down upon them, while scattered and disordered by crossing, cut loose the oxen, kill the men, carry off the women and children, if girls, burn the waggons, and secure all that suited them in the shape of plunder. The Indians near my camp were fishing in a small mountain-stream, if baling out fish by the bucketful could be called fishing. Round-fish (_Coregomis quadrilateralis_) and brook-trout (_Fario stellatus_) were in such masses (I cannot find a better word) that we dipped out, with baskets and our hands, in ten minutes, enough fish to fill two large iron pails that we carried with us. How such hosts of fish obtain food, or where they find room to deposit their ova, are mysteries. The Indians were splitting and drying them in the sun strung on long peeled rods. _May 19th._—Had no trouble with these Indians. Hire two of them to aid me in again crossing the Klamath river, where it runs from the upper into the lower Klamath lake. For the first four miles we ascend a steep mountain, rather thickly timbered. Killed a grey deer, and saw a splendid herd of wapiti; but the bell frightened them, so I did not get a shot. Cross the ridge, and descend on an open grassy flat, surrounding the lower Klamath lake, which I should say, at a rough guess, is thirty miles in circumference. It is in reality more like a huge swamp than a lake; simply patches of open water, peeping out from a rank growth of rushes at least twelve feet in height.