Death Valley in 49 | Page 9

and the trail went along
the margin, and in some places the ground was quite a boggy marsh,
and the trail had been fixed up to make it passably good walking.
Next day the neighbors were notified, and asked to assist, and although
they were in the midst of wheat harvest, a great many laid down the
cradle and rake and went out to help search. On the third day the whole
county became excited and quite an army of searchers turned out,
coming from the whole country miles around.
Mr. Filley was much excited and quite worn out an beside himself with
fatigue and loss of sleep. He could not eat. Yielding to entreaty he

would sit at the table, and suddenly rise up, saying he heard Willie
calling, and go out to search for the supposed voice, but it was all
fruitless, and the whole people were sorry indeed for the poor father
and mother.
The people then formed a plan for a thorough search. They were to
form in a line so near each other that they could touch hands and were
to march thus turning out for nothing except in passable lakes, and thus
we marched, fairly sweeping the county in search of a sign. I was with
this party and we marched south and kept close watch for a bit of
clothing, a foot print or even bones, or anything which would indicate
that he had been destroyed by some wild animal. Thus we marched all
day with no success, and the next went north in the same careful
manner, but with no better result. Most of the people now abandoned
the search, but some of the neighbors kept it up for a long time.
Some expressed themselves quite strongly that Miss Mount knew
where the boy was, saying that she might have had some trouble with
him and in seeking to correct him had accidentally killed him and then
hidden the body away--perhaps in the deep mire of the swamp or in the
muddy waters on the margin of the lake. Search was made with this
idea foremost, but nothing was discovered. Rain now set in, and the
grain, from neglect grew in the head as it stood, and many a settler ate
poor bread all winter in consequence of his neighborly kindness in the
midst of harvest. The bread would not rise, and to make it into
pancakes was the best way it could be used.
Still no tidings ever came of the lost boy. Many things were whispered,
about Mr. Mount's dishonesty of character and there were many
suspicions about him, but no real facts could be shown to account for
the boy. The neighbors said he never worked like the rest of them, and
that his patch of cultivated land was altogether too small to support his
family, a wife and two daughters, grown. He was a very smooth and
affable talker, and had lots of acquaintances. A few years afterwards
Mr. Mount was convicted of a crime which sent him to the Jackson
State Prison, where he died before his term expired. I visited the Filley
family in 1870, and from them heard the facts anew and that no trace of

the lost boy had ever been discovered.
CHAPTER V.
The second year of sickness and I was affected with the rest, though it
was not generally so bad as the first year. I suffered a great deal and felt
so miserable that I began to think I had rather live on the top of the
Rocky Mountains and catch chipmuncks for a living than to live here
and be sick, and I began to have very serious thoughts of trying some
other country. In the winter of 1839 and 1840 I went to a neighboring
school for three months, where I studied reading, writing and spelling,
getting as far as Rule of Three in Daboll's arithmetic. When school was
out I chopped and split rails for Wm. Hanna till I had paid my winter's
board. After this, myself and a young man named Orrin Henry, with
whom I had become acquainted, worked awhile scoring timber to be
used in building the Michigan Central Railroad which had just then
begun to be built. They laid down the ties first (sometimes a mudsill
under them) and then put down four by eight wooden rails with a strips
of band iron half an inch thick spiked on top. I scored the timber and
Henry used the broad axe after me. It was pretty hard work and the
hours as long as we could see, our wages being $13 per month, half
cash.
In thinking over our prospect it seemed more and more as if I had better
look out for my own fortune in