ate supper and the weak went to bed, thus ending a somewhat fatiguing day.
On this line there are two kinds of stations—the mail station, where there is an agent in charge of five or six "boys," and the express station—every second—where there is only a master and an express rider. The boss receives $50—$75 per mensem, the boy $35. It is a hard life, setting aside the chance of death—no less than three murders have been committed by the Indians during this year—the work is severe; the diet is sometimes reduced to wolf-mutton, or a little boiled wheat and rye, and the drink to brackish water; a pound of tea comes occasionally, but the droughty souls are always "out" of whisky and tobacco. At "Fish Springs," where there is little danger of savages, two men had charge of the ten horses and mules; one of these was a German Swiss from near Schaffhausen, who had been digging for gold to little purpose in California.
A clear cool morning succeeding the cold night aroused us betimes. Nature had provided an ample supply of warm water, though slightly sulphury, in the neighboring pot-holes, and at a little distance from the station was one conveniently cool. The fish from which the formation derives its name is a perch-like species, easily caught on a cloudy day. The men, like the citizens of Suez, accustom themselves to the "rotten water," as strangers call it, and hardly relish the purer supplies of Simpson's Springs or Willow Springs: they might have built the station about one mile north, near a natural well of good cool water, but apparently they prefer the warm bad.
The saleratus valley looked more curious in daylight than in moonlight. The vegetation was in regular scale; smallest, the rich bunch-grass on the benches; then the greasewood and the artemisia, where the latter can grow; and largest of all, the dwarf cedar. All was of lively hue, the herbage bright red, yellow, and sometimes green, the shrubs were gray and glaucous, the cedars almost black, and the rim of hills blue-brown and blue. We had ample time to contemplate these curiosities, for Kennedy, whose wits, like those of Hiranyaka, the mouse, were mightily sharpened by the possession of wealth, had sat up all night, and wanted a longer sleep in the morning. After a breakfast which the water rendered truly detestable, we hitched up about 10 A.M., and set out en route for Willow Springs.
About an hour after our departure we met the party commanded by Lieutenant Weed, two subaltern officers, ninety dragoons, and ten wagons; they had been in the field since May, and had done good service against the Gosh Yutas. We halted and "liquored up," and, after American fashion, talked politics in the wilderness. Half an hour then led us to what we christened "Kennedy's Hole," another circular bowl, girt with grass and
