I was glad enough to see the day break over the eastern mountains, and light up the vast barren country I could see on every hand around me.

When the sun was fairly up I took a good survey of the situation, and it seemed as if pretty near all creation was in sight.

North and west was a level plain, fully one hundred miles wide it seemed, and from anything I could see it would not afford a traveler a single drink in the whole distance or give a poor ox many mouthfuls of grass.

On the western edge it was bounded by a low, black and rocky range extending nearly north and south for a long distance and no pass though it which I could see, and beyond this range still another one apparently parallel to it.

In a due west course from me was the high peak we had been looking at for a month, and lowest place was on the north side, which we had named Martin's Pass and had been trying so long to reach.