Copyright 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHAPTER 14

ACROSS THE DESERT

JOHN FISKE headed his chapter on early explorations in America with the truthful and alluring title, "Strange Coasts." But even Fiske did not recognize how wide was the application of the enchanting legend. The tale he told of Balboa and the Cabots and Frobisher and Magellan was true in some degree even to his own day. For three and a half centuries, each generation of dwellers on American soil sent forth a portion of its sons to explore strange coasts; to seek for "something lost behind the ranges"; to push back a little farther the edge of the wilderness, and found new cities or find new graves as fate might decree. Each year the field of exploration dwindled, but until a generation ago something of it endured; and with it endured the spirit of romance and adventure.

The Mormons were now to take their turn at exploring strange coasts, and adventuring into new lands. Much information -- most of it untrue -- had been brought back by earlier travellers concerning the western country. Little of this knowledge was accessible to the Mormons, and less dealt with things they needed to know. Beyond the Missouri lay the short grass country, beyond that the mountains, farther yet were awesome deserts and still more rugged hills; and after these the coastlands and the sea. Less than nothing was known of the agricultural possibilities of the land, even in California; less than nothing of the chances of finding a place where the Latter Day Saints might build a new Zion, and dwell in prosperous aloofness from the world.

The first and last recorded revelation of Brigham Young -- quoted in the last chapter -- was given January 14, 1847. Therein is outlined the general plan of the expedition; a pioneer company was to go ahead to spy out the land and plant spring crops, either at the final destination or at some convenient point by the way. Other companies were to follow as they could on the trail blazed by the pioneers. Some were expected to remain at least another season at Winter Quarters, and these would be occupied in reaping the grain left planted for them by the brethren of the advance. From the time the revelation was given, more active and detailed preparations for the move went forward; and by conference time in the spring, the first company was nearly ready to start.

Brigham was to lead this pioneer company. He had made every preparation for the trip that could be made with the limited means at his command, including one oblation that was all his own. The Greeks offered sacrifice when setting out on a distant journey. The mediaeval Catholic offered vows; the Puritan offered prayers; but Brigham Young offered marriage. He had added five stars to his celestial crown before starting on the trip from Nauvoo; now, in March, 1847, he conferred on two more women the fractional joys of his husbandship. One of these -- what need to write it? -- was another widow of the martyred Joseph. She was the last of that sorrowing sisterhood to be comforted on the broad bosom of the prophet's successor.

On April 6, 1847, the seventeenth anniversary of the founding of the church, general conference was held at Winter Quarters. The day before, Heber Kimball had taken cattle and wagons and established a camp some miles west on the Elkhorn river, whence the start was to be made. Immediately after the conference, chosen pioneers began to gather at the rendezvous; but Brigham delayed to hear news of the Saints in Britain. Parley P. Pratt was first of the returning missionaries to reach the Missouri, bringing word that some brethren whose peculations had disgraced the church were excommunicated, and that the affairs of Zion were once more prosperous in England. A couple of days later, John Taylor came in, bringing $2,250 in gold contributed by English members of the church. It arrived too late to be of use in outfitting the leading company; but at least it sent them off with good news ringing in their ears.

April 4 1847, the pioneer squadron got away. One hundred and forty-three men -- three of whom were negroes -- were included in this company. They had seventy-two wagons, ninety-three horses, fifty-two mules, sixty-six oxen, nineteen cows, seventeen dogs, an indeterminate number of chickens -- and a sixpound cannon. The company had been picked to include blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, and several of those handy jacks-of-all-trades whom settled industrialism professes to despise but on whom a pioneer community leans as on a staff. Brigham Young, as commander of the expedition, rejoiced in the title of lieutenant-general; and from this elevation the titles graduated down through captains of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens to the captain of artillery, who was also chief blacksmith. Two historians, Willard Richards and William Clayton, were chosen to preserve for future generations the story of the Great Trek.

There were three women and two children in the party. Brigham, his brother Lorenzo, and his friend and lieutenant, Heber Kimball, each brought a selected spouse. Brigham, strange to say, did not choose one of his most recent acquisitions for a travelling helpmate. He took Clara Decker Young, who was No. 6 in his collection, a beautiful girl who had married him at Nauvoo three years before when only sixteen years old. Her mother, Harriet Young (formerly the Widow Decker), secured permission to accompany the leader's brother, Lorenzo; and Heber Kimball brought along one of his wives, Ellen Sanders Kimball. Not least strange among the experiences of these good women on the journey was that of being for a time an only wife. The children were the son and stepson of Lorenzo Young.

Discipline of the pioneer company was strict and practical. The bugle blew at five in the morning, when all were to rise, assemble for prayers, feed the cattle, and get breakfast. At seven o'clock the second bugle gave signal for starting. Wherever practical, two wagons moved abreast; and in case an Indian attack was threatened, they were to move five or six abreast. Each man was required to walk beside his wagon, loaded gun in hand, and never to leave the wagon nor lay down the gun without permission of his captain. If his musket had a cap-lock, he was required to remove the cap and cover the point with a leather casing to protect it from dust and the weather; if a flintlock, care of equal measure but different nature was enjoined. At half-past eight in the evening, another bugle sent every man to his wagon for prayers, and at nine o'clock all save the sentries were to be in bed. There were two watches each night. Early in the journey, after an exciting day, some of the unpractised sentinels slept at their posts -- to have their hats and guns taken away from them by their more wakeful comrades. The ridicule thus pointed helped to tighten the reins of discipline; it was reinforced by the voice of the chief, and the offence was not repeated.

They were enlisted for no light adventure. Other pioneers had crossed the plains before, bound even on longer journeys than the Saints were destined to make. But other pioneers took time for preparation, moved when they were ready, and unless they thought their equipment was sufficient, did not move at all. The Mormons timed their journey by the law of grim necessity, and their equipment was anything which harried exiles could save from the wreck of their Nauvoo fortunes, or collect from more fortunate brethren during the sojourn at Winter Quarters. Other pioneers came as the mere, overflow of an adventurous community. The Mormons were preparing to migrate, not their surplus, but their entire population. They had no permanent base of supplies, no way open for retreat in case of disaster -- save at the price of giving up the church organization which they had come to value more than their lives. They believed -- and with some show of reason -- that every man's hand was against them. They feared the Missourians who were trekking toward Oregon on the south side of the Platte. They feared the Indians who roamed over rather than occupied the plains. Both terrors were in a large measure groundless; but the Mormons could learn this only by experience; and until that experience was gained, the pioneer company was more heavily freighted with apprehensions than with provisions.

There was another peculiar feature of the Mormon migration. They did not know where they were going. Some had talked of California and some of Oregon, and all had recalled Smith's prophecy that his people would be driven beyond the Rocky Muntains. They meant to make that prophecy true; but further than that, their destination was sealed. Brigham gave no information; he possessed none. They were going to build a new Zion in a new land, he said; just where he did not know; but he would know the right place when he came to it.

Mormon piety has construed this to mean that Brigham had seen the destination of his people in a vision, and that he meant to travel until the place of that vision was reached. Critical history may hesitate at this pious interpretation; but it must accord Brigham a control of his people more wonderful than many clairvoyant trances. Joseph would have described the appointed place in a series of revelations; and had another series to explain the Lord's change of plan if the first visions became impracticable. Brigham engaged in no claptrap. He simply said: "Follow me, and I will lead you to a place where you will be safe" -- and they followed.

They moved by slow stages at first, until men and cattle should be hardened to the trail. Camp was made by the usual plains formula of drawing up the wagons in a circle or oval, tongues pointing outward, with a hind wheel of each wagon locked to the fore wheel of its neighbour to the rear. When camp was made by a stream, the wagons were formed in a semicircle, resting on the water. One or two openings usually were left in the cordon to drive stock in and out.

April 21, a week after starting, the emigrants had the pleasure of feeding a visiting troop of Pawnees. Considering the capacity of the Indian commissary department and the scantiness of Mormon supplies, this was quite a task; but the Mormons were glad to come through it without bloodshed. They expected an attack that night, but it did not come. As already intimated, the Indians were a source of awe, rather than of danger. They had had little experience with the white man as yet, and did not view him with any great animosity. They coveted his horses and guns, and their socialistic ideas of property were liable to become active at night -- particularly in the dark of the moon; but they had no special desire for paleface scalps. Some years later, when hoodlums en route for California gold-fields tried to prove the white man's superior civilization by shooting an inoffensive squaw, there was serious trouble.

Nine days after the visit of the Pawnees the Mormons had their first interview with buffaloes. A herd of sixty-five animals was sighted near Grand Island, and an impromptu hunting party killed eleven with little difficulty. Instead of selecting the young and tender beasts, as they learned to do later, these amateur sportsmen took anything from a sucking calf to a patriarchal bull whose flesh would test the jaws of a hyena. Some even tried to kill the old bulls by shooting them in the forehead. A modern rifle would drive a steel-jacketed ball through even a buffalo's head, but the soft lead bullets of that day, fired with a small charge of black powder, simply recoiled from the matted hair and iron skulls. Ever suspicious of marvels, the Mormons were inclined to look for some black magic in this, but when a bull was brought down by a shot in some more vulnerable portion of his anatomy, the explanation was clear.

The Mormons were travelling up the left, or north, bank of the Platte. The Oregon trail lay south of the river; a well-broken route for those days, on which good pasture and company for protection from the Indians were assured. But south of the river, also, were companies of their old enemies of Missouri, and Brigham feared it would not be well for the Saints of the Lord and the sinners of Governor Boggs to come together. He decided that the Mormons would keep north of the Platte, at least until they reached Fort Laramie. They were a peculiar people, seeking a place to build a peculiar Zion, and they would go by their own peculiar trail. Thus it came that Brigham broke the "Old Mormon Road" -- now followed mile after mile by the Union Pacific Railroad.

For many days after their first hunt, the Mormons moved among the herds of buffalo. Often the stupid, shaggy brutes were so numerous and close that horsemen had to be sent in advance to scare them out of the path of the wagons. The men feasted in such surroundings, but Brigham forbade needless killing. Coyotes followed the buffalo herd, waiting for a chance to hamstring a calf; and on May 4, the Mormons encountered other pensioners of the bison -- the Indians. A band of four hundred was reported to be in the trail ahead, and manifesting warlike intent. The party advanced with wagons five abreast and every one on the qui vive till a good camping-place was reached.

Double sentries were posted that night. Again their expectations of attack were disappointed, though had they been less cautious, the danger might have descended. The Indians contented themselves with setting fire to the prairie grass. Naturally, the Mormons believed this illumination was intended for their annoyance, but it was a well-known habit of both Pawnees and Sioux to burn the dry prairie in the spring, that the fresh grass which followed might attract the buffalo. A change of wind and a shower checked the flames and the party advanced next morning as usual. They met no opposition, but the wily Indians managed to steal some of their horses during the next few nights.

The party were breaking trail for those left behind at Winter Quarters, and much ingenuity was expended in conveying information to the host that should follow. Two of the pioneers had devised a cyclometer, which measured distances by the revolutions of the wheels of a wagon; and every ten miles they setup a guide post. The cyclometer was probably not very accurate, but its records were checked by solar observations. Sextants had been brought from England the winter before for this very purpose, and Orson Pratt attended to "taking the sun." Later, when the mountains were reached, he made many measurements of altitude. A large packet of letters was sent back to Winter Quarters by Charles Beaumont, a French furtrader who forded the Platte to visit the Mormon camp. Buffalo skulls were common along the route, and messages were marked on these, and left conspicuously on the trail. On May 10, the company went still farther in this line, and established the first of the "Mormon post-offices"; leaving a letter in a box fastened to a stout pole. This "post-office" was about three hundred miles from Winter Quarters.

They had experienced no serious danger, and the human members of the party were well fed, though on more of a meat diet than would be recommended by starvation specialists today. But draught animals cannot eat game, and during this month of May, it seemed as if there were little else to eat. The Indians had continued their prairie-burning tactics. Whether this was done to call the buffalo or to drive away the white man, its results were the same. What grass was left by the flames was eaten by buffaloes. Increased rations of grain were given the animals, than a part of the slender supply of crackers and breadstuffs; and still the oxen and horses lost flesh, and often the night would find them only five or six miles from their starting place. On June 1, when they lumbered into camp opposite Fort Laramie, it was clear that they would have to find a better trail, or their cattle would never carry them to the Rocky Mountains. Brigham and some elders ferried the river in a skin boat brought along for such uses, and were told by the commander of the fort that to travel farther on the north side of the Platte was well-nigh impossible. They were ready now to listen to the word. A ferryboat was procured, and the entire party crossed to the south side.

Even before crossing, however, they had received a band of reinforcements. A party of Mormons from Mississippi had gone west on the Santa Fe trail to Pueblo, where they passed the winter along with the invalids who had been left behind from the Mormon battalion. Seventeen of these Mississippians, most of them belonging to two families, had come to Fort Laramie, to intercept and join the general westward and emigration of the Saints. They brought word that members of the battalion expected to be ordered to California, though their term of enlistment would expire before they could reach the coast. As it happened, the order was not given. The invalided members of the Mormon battalion were already marching north to join their brethren.

Fort Laramie was a trading-post maintained by the American Fur Company; and naturally was commanded by a Frenchman. Fur companies must deal with natives on friendly terms, and that is an art the French learned from their coureurs de bois while our Puritan ancestors were burning Pequods in their camp in New England. Captain Bordeaux complimented the Mormons on the good behaviour of their party, and gave them information of the difficult route ahead. A halt was made to mend the wagons; but while this was going on, Brigham did a shrewd stroke of business for the necessitous Saints.

A party of Missourians, among them no less a person than former Governor Boggs, had just passed Fort Laramie, on the Oregon trail. One hundred and twenty-four miles west of the fort, the trail crossed the river once more; and the stream was much too high to be forded. Since he must travel by the same route as the Gentiles, Brigham determined to turn the fact to account, and sent on a trusty party with the skin boat to the next crossing. Going light, the boat crew reached the crossing ahead of the Missouri party, and the Gentiles were glad to be ferried across. They paid for this service in provisions of flour, sugar, and bacon -- and at Missouri prices. Flour was worth $10 per hundred at Fort Laramie; but the ferrymen were paid in flour rated at $2.30 per hundred, with other provisions marked down on a similar scale.

"These supplies were as timely as they were totally unexpected," says the church historian, Whitney. "Their [the Mormons'] provisions were well-nigh exhausted, and to have their flour and meal bags replenished in this far-off region, and at the hands of their old enemies, the Missourians, was regarded by them as little less than a miracle. Apostle Woodruff compared it to the feeding of Israel with manna in the wilderness. "With the usual partiality of zealots, the Mormons thanked the Lord for this windfall, rather than the Missourians.

Amasa Lyman and three companions were sent on horseback to Pueblo to bring on the main body of the Mississippi Mormons, while the seventeen at Fort Laramie went forward with Brigham and his company. They started again June 4, and went by easy stages to allow their famished cattle to graze and pick up a little strength before reaching the mountains. It was June 19 before they had again crossed the Platte. The ferry had done such good work that nine men were left to keep it going until the next company of Saints came along, when the ferrymen were to leave their boat in other hands, and continue the march. It proved a profitable venture.

Now began the final climb up the Continental Divide to South Pass. The nights grew cool, and the trail was steep; but the tales which had been told them of deep snows proved untrue, and for days after leaving the Platte they had plenty of grass. On June 26, they crossed South Pass, and seemed surprised to find that instead of a steep, walled cleft, the famous pass was no more than a "quietly undulating plain, or prairie." Two days later, they reached the point where the Oregon and California trails separated, and taking the left-hand trail, they once more parted company with the road travelled by the migrating Missourians. That evening they met Colonel Tames Bridger, who maintained a "fort," or trading-post, of his own on Black's Fork, some hundred miles or more east of Salt Lake.

Brigham questioned the colonel about the Salt Lake country with a persistence indicating that he had already formed some notion of settling there. Bridger gave emphatic judgment that the region was of no agricultural use. Farther south, the country was more promising, he said; and if they would make slaves of the Indians instead of killing them, they might rub along somehow; but he would give $1,000 for the first ear of corn they raised in the Salt Lake valley.

Colonel Bridger was not much better as a geographical prophet and agricultural surveyor than Daniel Webster.

Travelling was hard, and sickness had begun to show in the company; but few days passed without some enlivening event. On July 1, they met Elder Samuel Brannan, who in February of the year before had led a party of two hundred and thirty-eight Mormons to California by sea. Things had not gone altogether well with these Saints on the Coast, Brannan reported, but he believed that California was the right place in which to build the new Zion, and had come eastward with a few companions to convert Brigham to the same opinion. That he did not succeed is perhaps due as much to the impossibility of moving the whole church across the continent to California as to Brigham's prophetic disinclination to go there.

July 4, the advance guard of thirteen members of the Mormon battalion from Pueblo came into camp reporting that the rest of the party, one hundred and forty in number, were not far behind. Three days later, the pioneers reached Fort Bridger. The post, famous across a continent, consisted of two incomparably dirty log-houses on one of the islands of Black's Fork. The Mormons camped a half mile beyond Bridger, and that night ice formed at their camp. They must have recalled the colonel's dismal prophecies as they gazed on this token of midsummer frosts.

Making slow progress when in motion and stopping frequently to shoe horses, repair wagons, and rest the sick, the party struggled forward. Bad as the roads were, sickness had now become their chief difficulty. They were in the grip of "mountain fever "; an unidentified malady whose name has since been applied to mild cases of typhoid occurring in those high altitudes. July 12, Young, who had been ailing for some days, was too sick to travel, and an advance guard of forty-three men and twenty-two wagons was sent ahead to break trail. Orson Pratt was put in command of this scouting party -- if the term scout can be applied to an explorer who travels with ox-teams.

They were now fairly engaged in the country of deep-cut canons and tumbled mountains. They crossed one creek thirteen times in going eight miles. Some days, though travelling light, they rested at night only four miles from their starting place. Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow climbed several elevations and explored in vain for a more promising trail.

At last, on July 19, Pratt and Snow caught a glimpse of the valley; and three days later their party was camped where now stands Salt Lake City. While still entangled in the mountains, a messenger from Brigham overtook them, telling them to halt and begin putting in a crop as soon as they reached the valley. When the sick chief joined them, July 24, quite a field had been irrigated, ploughed, and planted.

"This is the right place," he said when they halted on a summit to give him his first glimpse of the valley. "Drive on!"