Transcript

Transcript for Newman Bulkley, "Fifteen Months' Experience," Juvenile Instructor, 1 November 1882, 334

on the 24th, started from Los Angeles for Salt Lake Valley.

My outfit consisted of one Spanish, mare, one wild male, one hundred pounds of flour, a few beans, one pair of pants, two half-worn hickory shirts, the coat with which I left home, one pair of shoes, one blanket, my musket and acoutrements, including some twenty-five rounds of cartridges.

I had not traveled to exceed ten miles, when my pack saddle turned under my mule's belly, and she broke loose from me and ran away. I expected that would be the last I would see of her; but lucky for me, there chanced to be a Spanish boy near by, and I got him to bring her back, for which I paid him the last dollar I had.

I then passed on to Mr. Pecoe's ranch, where my companions made arrangements for forty-four head of wild four-year-old steers, for which we were to pay four dollars per head, with the intention of driving them along for beef. But this proved a failure; we were unable to manage them, and after two days' trial, we were obliged to shoot them all down and jerk the beef. While trying to drive these critters, my riding animal became crippled, and in a few days gave out, and I had to leave her, which left me on foot, to travel and keep up with pack animals, which was very hard to do, as I had to wade or swim all the streams, which, some days, kept me wet from morning till night.

However, I made the trip to Salt Lake, arriving there on the 16th day of October, 1847, after a journey of about fifteen hundred miles, having waded or swum all the streams in that distance, even wading the Truckee thirteen times in two days.