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·~XII~·· Beyond the Desert THEY WERE HOMEWARD BOUND, but that was the only good thing any of the men could say about the journey that faced them. Everything before them was strange and out of place after their stay in the Great Valley. Beyond the desert, past the horizon that vanished in the heat of day, there was the promise of plenty and of easier traveling. The key problem was to endure, to survive long enough to stumble out of the inferno and crawl beyond the wasteland . If they were lucky, if they were careful about the dangers to man and beast, if they carried enough water from one spring or muddy creek to last to another, the day would arrive when the high snowcapped peaks of the Rocky Mountains would be within sight. They were a strange cavalcade, almost grotesque in appearance. Around the campfires at night, four or five languages were heard at the same time. The men were all armed; their dress varied from Indian to Spanish to American to fur-trapper buckskins; and they moved along the trail with more than a hundred half-wild horses and mules. Our march was sort of a procession. Scouts ahead, and on the Banks; a front and rear division; the pack animals, baggage, and homed cattle, in the centre; and the whole stretching a quarter of a mile along our dreary path. In this form we journeyed; looking more like we belonged to Asia than to the United States of America.1 The vaquero continued to guide them until April 17. On that day he had reached the point where he would have to head southward to Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana, that great cattle-raising mission that now stands in the heart of a city, near Sepulveda Boulevard just a little over a mile from heavily populated San Fernando Valley. On this day in 1844 the mission was in the country, and the vaquero had plenty of work in helping take care of the range cattle since the discovery of gold on the mission rancho in 1842. Taking time to make sure that they knew what he was trying to tell them, he pointed to a trail that was hardly visible unless a roan knew where to look. BEYOND THE DESERT Once he was certain that they realized that here was the camino, he "pointed out a black butte on the plain at the foot of the mountain. . . ."2 There, they would find water for their next camp. Fremont thanked him for his help, gave him a present of some knives and scarlet doth, and shook hands. With that, the unexpected guide departed. The day the guide rode out of sight, none of the men were certain about the way ahead. While the faint trace was supposed to be the trail, it hardly appeared to be the main artery between Pueblo de los Angeles and Santa Fe. That night they camped next to a small stream of cold water at the base of the ridge. There was hardly any grass for their large herd of horses, mules, and cattle. They wondered if there had been some misunderstanding, if the vaquero's instructions had been different than they had thought, or if they had taken a wrong turn. As all the possibilities were considered, one thing became quite clear: things had to change for the better, or the chances of survival were not worth much. But there was nothing wrong with the vaquero's instructions. All the difficulty was their own fault. They had not reached the camping site until nightfall. In the darkness, the men were not able to locate any forage. The next day things were different. Camp was set up before sundo_vn in an area where there was enough grass to feed the hungry animals. Still, one thing continued to bother the lieutenant. The trail they were following had not seen much use. He wondered whether they were on the correct path or whether they were headed away from the main artery of travel. On the morning of April I9 the men began to see very rough ground, sagebrush, crippled trees, and scattered clumps of bunch grass. As they pushed ahead, the trace of the trail became fainter, and Fremont was concerned that he and his men might have wandered into the barren reaches the vaquero had warned them about. For eighteen miles they were unusually silent as they stared at the endless wasteland around...

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