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522
gathered enough of our own cattle to make a herd and we went along with them. We sold this herd to Colonel Myers and delivered them on the Solomon River in Kansas, from where I took them to Salt Lake City for him. On this trip we had a great many hardships. Snow fell so deep that it covered the grass and our cattle and horses froze to death right in camp, and many of our cattle died. The old wild beeves became as gentle as work oxen, and we could handle them easily enough, but the extreme cold caused us much suffering. Our oxen would bog down in the snow just the same as if it was mud, and we frequently were compelled to ram snow into their nostrils to make them get up and move. We had to walk about three hundred miles through the snow, for we could make no headway on horseback. We could not night herd because we were afoot, and it took us six weeks to make the trip, and when we arrived at the place of delivery the parties who had contracted for the cattle refused to receive them until the weather moderated, because they wanted to wait and see how many would die from the effects of the weather. It may have been good business on their part, but it gave us boys the devil to hold the herd still longer after all we had gone through to get them there.
On one of the trips I made I recall what a drytime we had when we got up in a region where the water was full of alkali. We were all very thirsty, and came to a beautiful stream of clear water. A spring was flowing out of the side of a mountain, and inviting us to partake freely, but all things that look: good do not prove to be good. That was the saltiest water I ever tasted—we could not drink it at all. We had passed a spring a few miles back on the trail, and it was good water, so an Irishman said if we would give him three dollars he would go back and bring us five gallons of water from that good spring. Well, he got the money and we got the water, and while I have drank some good liquor in