One of the Government teams set out to make the crossing at a point where it looked shallow enough, but before the lead mules reached the opposite shore, they lost their footing and were forced to swim.

Of course the wagon stopped and the team swung round and tangled up in a bad shape.

They were unhitched and the wagon pulled back, the load was somewhat dampened, for the water came into the wagon box about a foot.
We camped here and laid by one day, having thus quite a little chance to look around.
When we came to the first water that flowed toward the Pacific Coast at Pacific Springs, we drivers had quite a little talk about a new scheme.
We put a great many "ifs" together and they amounted to about this:--If this stream were large enough; if we had a boat; if we knew the way: if there were no falls or bad places; if we had plenty of provisions; if we were bold enough set out on such a trip, etc., we might come out at some point or other on the Pacific Ocean.

And now when we came to the first of the "ifs," a stream large enough to float a small boat; we began to think more strongly about the other "ifs".
In the course of our rambles we actually did run across the second "if" in the shape of a small ferry boat filled up with sand upon a bar, and it did not take very long to dig it out and put it into shape to use, for it was just large enough to hold one wagon at a time.

Our military escort intended to leave us at this point, as their route now bore off to the north of ours.