The next morning we arose and started for Bear Creek, reaching it just at sunset. Wishing to give our team as much range as possible without leaving them entirely free (and having no hobbles), we took a picket-rope about thirty feet long and tied one end around each horse’s neck. We thought they would hardly stray far from camp; and after watching them for a while, and discovering that they never both took a notion to go the same way, we felt that they were secure, and after supper lay down for the night. The weather was warm, the evening was beautiful, and our sleep was sweet. At daylight I arose to look for the horses. I went among the hills and upon the highest bluffs, and peered in every direction; but there was not a horse in sight. We tried to track them, but they had no _shoes_ on, and their tracks could not be distinguished from those of the wild herds. After hunting among the hills and down the ravines until noon, we concluded that they must have gone back to the railroad to tell the fellow who took his doors. We had left the riding ponies at the camp upon the Cimaron, and we were now left afoot. We had turned them upon the north side of the creek, and not being able to find where they had crossed over to the south, our suspicion was strengthened; and taking a few biscuits in our pockets, with compass in hand, we struck northward across the thirty-mile stretch of dry plains for Butte Creek. We had nothing to carry water in, and a pint of brandy was all we took to drink. The afternoon was very warm, and the sand was burning hot. The brandy tasted like _sugar-water_, and was gone before we had traveled five miles. We became very dry when we were about midway; but the dwellings and shade trees were very scarce in that country, and we were compelled to stand it. One of my boots rubbed a great blister upon my heel, and I pulled the boot off and went barefooted. The foot soon became sore upon the scorching sand, and tearing a sleeve from my hunting-coat I tied it around my foot for a moccasin. All animals range along the _water_, feeding out from five to eight miles; and there were several miles of our journey upon which there was not an animal or insect, and the country was level as a floor. We sat down now and then to rest; but it was a rather _uncomfortable_ rest. We were compelled to walk very _rapidly_ to reach water that night; and as we rushed along, the bright sun and the heat that curled from the hot sand almost blinded us. Once, while we were sitting down, we saw something that looked like horses far to the north, and taking our glass we fully convinced ourselves that we were right; for we could plainly see them walking along tied together. We kept our eyes upon them, and in two hundred yards we came upon two old _buffalo bones_, which the _mirage_ had loomed up into large objects. We then saw how mirage could deceive, especially when aided by imagination.