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of quail and so tame that they were caught with their hands by women and children and this way they lived until teams and wagons were sent to bring them to Council Bluffs where the main camp of the Saints was. To-day we broke camp and marched about 23 miles and camped without wood and water. W e saw hundreds of wild animals, buffalo, antelope and wolves. Two buffalo came running near our line when 30 or more muskets were fired at them, breaking the leg of one, the other escaped without a hole being made in his robe for aught I know. To-day men suffered for water and also the next day. Many gave out and had to be hauled to camp in wagons. We passed a small pond of water filled with the droppings of buffalo and all other wild animals. This we did not seem to mind. The weather for the season was warm but we drank freely this filthy water and felt refreshed but Oh gracious how sick it made us. Along here water was so scarce we had to dig for it and when we got it, it was so impregnated with some kind of mineral that neither man nor beast would hardly drink it. Here Colonel Smith reduced us to two-thirds rations. This brings to my mind what has since been told me by Lisbon Lamb of Company D that when the battalion overtook Colonel Sterling Price at the crossing of the Arkansas, Colonel Smith being short of provisions, sent his quartermaster to ask Price to share provisions with him. Price said he did not haul provisions for the Mormons. This intelligence raised Colonel Smith's ire and he sent word back to Price that if he did not let the provisions come that he would let loose! the Mormons and come down on him with his artillery, when this on the part of Colonel Smith, produced the desired effect. Here I will say that Colonel Price was in command of a company of mob militia at Far West and sanctioned the shootings of Joseph the Prophet and others on the public square in 1838 and this Colonel Smith may have known and thought that the "Mormons" had but little love for him, hence the threat to come down on him by letting loose the Mormons, etc. Friday, Sept. 25th. We reached what is called the Big Cold Spring, where, for the first time since leaving the Arkansas ten days ago, we saw timber. Our fuel has been dry "buffalo chips" (dung). Yesterday I counted the skull bones of 81 mules, said by our guide to have perished a year ago during an equinoctial storm. The guide said there were 160 mules perished and most of the men with them; they were fur traders I believe. On the 3rd of October we were met by an express from General Kearney, that if the battalion was not in Santa Fe by the tenth, it would be rejected. It was decided (though opposed
