on some tin pails, and there were also some pots with potatoes and
corn. The owner of all this was not at home; but the atmosphere was
American, not Mexican. I had evidently come upon an outpost of one
of the Mormon colonies.

Throughout January the days continued to be fine, though at times a
southerly cold wind was blowing; but at night it was cold and the
water in our buckets was often frozen. Then we felt what a real
comfort a large camp-fire is. Before sundown we would gather the
fallen trees and such sorts of wood, and roaring fires were built
in front of each tent. The smoke, to be sure, blackened our faces,
but the fire made the tents wonderfully comfortable, filling them
with light and warmth. For beds we used fragrant pine boughs.

We also had several falls of snow, the heaviest two and a half inches,
and on the coldest night, on January 10th, the thermometer went down
to 6° F. As the rays of the sun partly melted the snow in the course
of the day, the animals could at least get a meagre meal. On January
15th a cup of water froze inside of my tent, but during the day we
had 57° F.

We soon found out that in the river Gabilan, some four miles south of
our camp, there were immense quantities of fish, which had come up to
spawn. No one ever interfered with them, and their number was simply
overwhelming. As the task of feeding thirty men in these wild regions
was by no means a trifling one, I resolved to procure as many fish as
possible, and to this end resorted to the cruel but effective device
of killing them by dynamite. I trust that the scarcity of provisions
in the camp will serve as my excuse to sportsmen for the method I
employed. We used a stick of dynamite six inches long, and it raised a