The fourth day
after leaving Virginia City I came to the foot of the main divide,
and up to this time I did not have to use my snow shoes. Where I
camped that night the snow was two feet deep, and the next morning
there was a crust on it strong enough to bear me up until I went
six or seven miles farther on, when I commenced to break through.
Then I put on my snow-shoes, and in a short time I was at the
summit of the mountain. After reaching the top, the country being
open and all down hill, I had fine traveling while the snow
lasted, making a distance of about forty miles that day. Then I
abandoned my snowshoes, and in two days more I was in camp on the
river bottom where the stock had been wintered.
The wagon-master informed me that he had lost about one-third of
the oxen, which had stampeded and ran off in a storm; also my two
saddle horses, and his one and only saddle horse had gone with the
cattle. He said they had been gone about six weeks, so I struck
out to Fort Hall to try and buy a horse to ride to hunt up the
lost stock.
I succeeded in buying a very poor excuse of a horse for a hundred
dollars, that under any other circumstances I would not have
accepted as a gracious gift. But it was "Hopkins' choice," that or
none. Mounting my crow-bait, I struck out in a westerly direction
to look for the stock.
Three days' ride from the fort I struck plenty of cattle sign.
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