It was very soon found that riding an ox was impracticable, and the women and older children had to walk. In a few days they were out of the valley, to which they had given the gruesome name, “Death Valley.” Their food consisted of soup made from the beans and flour boiled with some of the dried beef, some of which they also ate. When five days out, their stock of beans became entirely exhausted, but at the place where they were to camp for the night was the sack of whole wheat that Manley and Rodgers had buried. This they had hidden so well that they had considerable trouble locating it. When found, although it had been buried in the dry desert sand, it had absorbed enough moisture from it that it had swollen so that the bag was nearly at the bursting point. But it was sweet and quite fit for food. At this camp they had to kill an ox. They had had no water all day. Manley and Rodgers had gone on ahead and started a fire, and made what preparations they could to ease the hardship of the situation, selecting the best spots on which to sleep, spreading the blankets, and having the soup ready to serve, so that when the weary, bedraggled women and children arrived, they could at once lie down and be served with their share. The women declared that but for the children they would cheerfully lie down and die, rather than endure another such day. The distance from the last camp to this spring was longer and the trail much rougher than on any of the previous days. Near to this camp, too, they had to pass the place where the bodies of Mr. Fish and Mr. Isham lay, and which Manley and Rodgers had covered with sand. At this camp they had to make moccasins for themselves and also for the oxen, whose feet had become so lacerated and tender from tramping over knife-edged stones, it was feared that they might give out altogether. These moccasins they made from the hide of the ox they had just slaughtered. It was four days’ travel to the next water hole, and all the water they could have during that time was what they could carry in their canteens. This they did not dare use during the day, but must save for their soup; none but the children could have any water, and they only at long intervals, and after they had cried hard for it. The third night they had to make their soup with salt water which they found in a water hole; the next day they had no water at all for themselves or the oxen, only a little for the children, till they arrived at water holes at the base of a snow mountain. The oxen had to subsist on greasewood, a shrub resembling a currant bush. They were nine days from camp, their beans, flour and wheat all used up. They must now subsist on the beef obtained by killing their oxen. An ox yielded very little meat, and it was of the very poorest quality, giving very little nutrition; always they had to kill the poorest-conditioned one, so as to make sure the others could travel on, for they were now reduced to skin and bone.