I have since learned that such stones are found at many points, and that they are called geodes.
We came out at the river again at the mouth of Deer Creek, and as there was some pretty good coal there quite easy to get, we made camp one day to try to tighten our wagon tires, John Rogers acting as blacksmith.
This was my first chance to reconnoiter, and so I took my gun and went up the creek, a wide, treeless bottom.

In the ravines on the south side were beautiful groves of small fir trees and some thick brush, wild rose bushes I think.

I found here a good many heads and horns of elk, and I could not decide whether they had been killed in winter during the deep snow, or had starved to death.
There was a ferry here to cross the river and go up along north side.
Mr.Dallas bought the whole outfit for a small sum and when we were safely over he took with him such ropes as he wanted and tied the boat to the bank The road on this side was very sandy and led over and among some rolling hills.

In talking with the men of the U.S.troops in whose company we still were, I gathered much information concerning our road further west.

They said we were entirely too late to get through to California, on account of crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains, which, they said would be covered with snow by November, or even earlier, and that we would be compelled to winter at Salt Lake.