Tuesday, 14th. Traveled about 25 miles and stopped about 9 o’clock at night, in the middle of a dry plain, destitute of water.

They were able to get water during the day, but couldn’t find any at the end of the day. Jimmy John noted:

We started early this morning. Passed a number of good springs. Took dinner at one of them. We traveled on the border of the salt plain until night.

By dinner he means their mid-day meal. Wagon trains typically stopped in the middle of the day for two or three hours — they called it “nooning” — to eat a meal and give their animals time to rest and graze.

This drawing by Daniel Jenks shows the Nevada desert as Jenks saw it when he traveled the California Trail in 1859.