At Moncaupie Wash we ran into a sandstorm. The horses turned
their backs to it, and bowed their heads patiently. The Mormons
covered themselves. I wrapped a blanket round my head and hid
behind a sage bush. The wind, carrying the sand, made a strange
hollow roar. All was enveloped in a weird yellow opacity. The
sand seeped through the sage bush and swept by with a soft,
rustling sound, not unlike the wind in the rye. From time to time
I raised a corner of my blanket and peeped out. Where my feet had
stretched was an enormous mound of sand. I felt the blanket,
weighted down, slowly settle over me.

Suddenly as it had come, the sandstorm passed. It left a changed
world for us. The trail was covered; the wheels hub-deep in sand;
the horses, walking sand dunes. I could not close my teeth
without grating harshly on sand.

We journeyed onward, and passed long lines of petrified trees,
some a hundred feet in length, lying as they had fallen,
thousands of years before. White ants crawled among the ruins.
Slowly climbing the sandy trail, we circled a great red bluff
with jagged peaks, that had seemed an interminable obstacle. A
scant growth of cedar and sage again made its appearance. Here we
halted to pass another night. Under a cedar I heard the
plaintive, piteous bleat of an animal. I searched, and presently
found a little black and white lamb, scarcely able to stand. It
came readily to me, and I carried it to the wagon.

"That's a Navajo lamb," said Emmett. "It's lost. There are Navajo
Indians close by."