After leaving Reno, Rose and Daffodil wandered for several weeks. They got off the bus in Carson City, but not seeing anything to keep them there, moved on the following day. Reno itself had been at a high elevation, and thus much cooler and more pleasant than the desert, but after leaving they soon found themselves in the Nevada desert, which was hotter, drier, and more barren than the western California desert had been.
It was this that convinced them to turn back west, knowing that the desert went on for hundreds of miles to the east and was often sparsely populated. It was much harder to find food, water, and work in the Nevada desert, and their efforts at all three were far too often unsuccessful. Had they been more familiar with the land and its residents, they might have had an easier time, but neither was prepared to brave the desert that had been sparsely populated even before settlement.
They were also much farther to the north than they had been before, and were well aware that fall was not far away. It was early August when they turned west again, wanting to leave the desert but also hoping to avoid the Sierras, to which fall came early.
Fortunately, they found it easier to hitch rides on the lonely stretches of interstate highway leading back toward California. First a trucker picked them up and took them as far as the base of the eastern Sierras, and then a Midwestern teacher traveling to a new job in California gave them a ride as far as Bear Valley in the western Sierras.
Daffodil was leery of stopping in a town so high in the mountains, especially since the first signs of fall were in the air, but they didn’t really have a choice. Tourists were still thick in the town, so they found work again washing cars, carrying luggage, and for Rose, singing. She learned several new songs from a couple with an interest in traditional American music, and even sang with them one night before the couple left for home.
Both were surprised when they were rewarded for a search-and-rescue effort. A child had wandered off into the surrounding mountains, and since both knew a fair amount about searching, they volunteered to help find him.
They searched through the surrounding area, along with people who knew the area itself, and finally found the seven-year-old boy beside a spring three miles from the outskirts of town. He was cold and damp from a dip in the spring, but otherwise unharmed. However, he was also furious that they had found him, since he hadn’t wandered off but had run away, and had no desire to be returned to his parents. It had taken a great deal of struggle before Rose and Daffodil had been able to drag him back to town.
The boy’s mother had been very relieved, telling them that he often ran off with the aspiration to live in the woods, and insisted upon paying them for their efforts. Rose and Daffodil refused—they hadn’t searched for him with money in mind—but when their backs were turned she slipped a hundred dollar bill into each of their bags. By the time they discovered the money, the family had already left, and they couldn’t return it.
With the nights growing ever longer and colder, they decided not to take the chance of being stranded homeless in the Sierras during the winter and took a bus north, finally making their way to a green, wooded campground in western Oregon.