The
network of valleys and ravines alongside the fast-diminishing Humboldt
River made no sense; it ran here and there without rhyme or reason.
Sometimes the bed of the river was almost dry, or a mere series of
pools, strongly alkaline. The overhanging mountains seemed jumbled
together on the ashy plain.
Rumors
began to drift back along the line of wagons: there was no grass at the
Sink of the Humboldt, the place where the river died in desert sands.
And you began to hear of a desert, forty miles and more without water,
that lay beyond the Sink and ran to the foot of the mountain wall. To
those who had seen fail them, first wagon teams, then riding mules, and
who were now pressing along on foot under heavy packs, this was sad
news. Men clutched at straws; many of them followed a new road which
was said to avoid the desert by a northern passage of the Sierra.
The
water holes were not to be trusted. Abandoned cattle died while
drinking at them, fell in and polluted the water unless the wolves
pulled out the carcasses. But after the river turned southwest beyond
its big bend, there was something to be thankful for. The long, lush,
grass valley called Lassen's Meadows lay right in the path; better than
a thousand acres of grazing for the dead-beat cattle—and water—blessed
water—in the parched and burning valley! Every cask, keg and bucket was
filled in preparation for a hundred miles of hell before you could come
through Carson Canyon, over the roof of the Sierra, to El Dorado.
