by a rude inscription cut on a pole or a board. And even these
narrow lodgings had not been left inviolate; the wolves of the
plains had too often succeeded in unearthing and rending the
bodies. Every company thus made the course the plainer; each of
them added to the silent population of the desert; sometimes half
a score were interred at one camp, and of one company over a
fourth were thus left beside the prairie road. Now we traverse
the self-same track in a day and a night, reclining on luxurious
cushions of ease, covering fifty miles while dining in luxury;
and we avert the ennui of the journey by berating the railway
company for lack of speed.

Relief trains were continually on the way between the valley of
the Salt Lake and the Missouri; and the remnants of many a
company were saved from what appeared to be certain destruction
by the opportune arrival of these rescuing parties. Such relief
came from those who were themselves destitute and almost
starving. Brigham Young with a few of the chief officials of the
Church, and aids, returned eastward on such an errand of rescue
within a few weeks after first reaching the valley. The region
to which the early settlers came was in no wise a typical land of
promise; it did not flow spontaneously with milk and honey.

Drought and unseasonable frosts made the first year's farming
experiments but doubtful successes, and in the succeeding spring
the land was visited by the devastating plague of the Rocky
Mountain crickets. They swarmed down in innumerable hordes upon
the fields, destroying the growing crops as they advanced,
devouring all before them, leaving the land a desert in their
track. The people scarcely knew how to withstand the assault of