At a distance of perhaps twenty miles he found the desired
water, and hastened to return to the train. Meantime there was intense
suffering in the party. Cattle were giving out and lying down helplessly
on the burning sand, or frenzied with thirst were straying away into the
desert. Having made preparations for only fifty miles of desert, several
persons came near perishing of thirst, and cattle were utterly powerless
to draw the heavy wagons. Reed was gone some twenty hours. During this
time his teamsters had done the wisest thing possible, unhitched the
oxen and started to drive them ahead until water was reached. It was
their intention, of course, to return and get the three wagons and the
family, which they had necessarily abandoned on the desert. Reed passed
his teamsters during the night, and hastened to the relief of his
deserted family. One of his teamster's horses gave out before morning
and lay down, and while the man's companions were attempting to raise
him, the oxen, rendered unmanageable by their great thirst, disappeared
in the desert. There were eighteen of these oxen. It is probable they
scented water, and with the instincts of their nature started out to
search for it. They never were found, and Reed and his family,
consisting of nine persons, were left destitute in the midst of the
desert, eight hundred miles from California.
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