I sent, therefore, for Mr.Stuart, and told him to put up ten weeks provisions for four men,--to warn Morgan and Mack that I should require them to attend me when I again left the camp,--and to hold himself and them in readiness to commence the journey the day but one following; as I felt the horses required the rest I should myself otherwise have rejected.
I then sent for Mr.Browne, and told him that I proposed leaving the stockade in two days, by which time I hoped the horses would in some measure have recovered from their fatigues,--that as he could not attend me, I should take Mr.Stuart with two fresh men,--that in making my arrangements I found that I should be obliged to take all the horses but two, the one he rode and a weaker animal; to this, however, he would by no means consent--entreating me to take his horse also, as he felt assured I should want all the strength I could get.
No rain had as yet fallen, but every day the heat was increasing: the thermometer rising, even thus early in the season, to 98 degrees and 100 degrees in the shade, and the wind keeping steadily to the E.S.E.

The country was so dry, and the largest pools of water had so diminished in quantity, that I doubted whether or not I should be able to get on, since as it was I should have to travel the first 86 miles without water, there being none in any other direction to the north of us.

Even the large sheet in the first creek, to which I proposed going, had fearfully shrunk.

But what gave me most uneasiness, was the reduced state of water on which the men and animals depended.

From a fine broad sheet it was now confined within the limits of its own narrow channel, and I felt satisfied that if I should be absent many weeks, Mr.Browne would be obliged to abandon his position.