After filling our barrels with water and looking at the railroad track and section house, we felt we were safe for the time being at least. Then it was we thought of Knowles and his advice to stick by the railroad track and if we could not pull through the sand to drive on the railroad track. Should we try it? There seemed to be no other alternative. It was about twenty-three miles to Kelso and our team was tired out. The last day and a half had taken all the life out of them. Our feed was running short and we couldn’t possibly get to the next water station unless we did try it.
Up we went, and an odd sight we must have presented driving over the ties, bumping along at a snail’s pace, but at that we managed to make about five miles when we came to a few bunches of Grama grass growing in the sand, and we promptly drove off the track. We had two reasons for doing this. One was on account of the feed this afforded the horses, and the other was that we figured the train we had been told of was due about this time, as it went up to Las Vegas at night and back in the morning, and we had to pick out a favorable place to get off the track, which was more desirable than being pushed off by the cars.
Here we turned our horses loose for the first time, thinking they were too tired and hungry to leave the bunch grass, and we were right. They didn’t leave that grass, and when it came time to turn in I just hobbled Dixie to be on the safe side. After this we hardly ever tied up our horses unless we were near a town or in a stock country where they might be enticed away by other horses, but before our trip was over even this was unnecessary, as we found they could not be driven very far away from the wagon. In fact, any horse we were not using would follow the wagon like a dog.
Our camp was in sight of three immense sand hills in a section of the desert called the Devil’s Playground. We were told these hills moved about and that sand storms were of frequent occurrence here. After supper, although it was nearly as light as day, the wind sprung up and we were doubtful about the advisability of turning in, but finally did so.
The heavens were a wonderful sight. The stars seemed to hang low and were more brilliant than usual. A comet with a long tail was plainly seen in the west, and the moon was rising over the sand hills. We began to speculate on the comet and, as the moon got above the sand hills and the wind freshened, the most remarkable thing happened--the sand hill began to move toward us! It kept getting closer, obscuring the moon, until it had moved up far enough to shut the moon from our sight entirely. We jumped up and each one of us was about to take a horse and ride for his life, when the Doctor laughed and said, “It is an eclipse of the moon. Don’t you see it’s coming out on the lower side again?” and we rolled over laughing at our fright, each claiming that he had known it was an eclipse all the time.