Manly found himself wandering the desert owing to a series of unfortunate decisions. Three months earlier, he and some five hundred other argonauts had assembled in Salt Lake City, planning to journey together to gold country, in northern California. They’d arrived in Salt Lake too late in the season to take the most direct route, over the Sierras, and so, to avoid getting snowed in, they’d jogged to the south, along a pack trail, toward Los Angeles.
