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Show Page 135 Orson was persuaded that Louisa could not live - her speech failed at sundown and by half past ten she was dead. The women laid out her body in temple robes and prepared her for burial, while Orson quietly searched out a resting place for her near the east banks of the river. In her funeral the next day at noon one of the elders in camp spoke and prayed, her basswood coffin lying in a grave near a tree. When the mourners had gone, Orson took his knife and carved the initials of the lost young 12 woman in the tree's bark - "L.C.P- DIED JUN. 12, 1846." The Pratt carriage continued on its melancholy journey. Orson preached to the people: "We are under the Celestial Law and governed by the same •I Q God, Spirit, and Priesthood as the ancients were." The celestial law, as Orson was discovering, required the sacrifice of all he possessed, and the losses weighed heavily against an already overwhelming burden of suffering: "During this journey, many have suffered extremely with exposure and the want of necessary food. Some whose constitutions being feeble, were unable to endure, and sank and died...but their blood will be required at the hands of the nation who have looked on coldly..." 14 At the end of this day, one of the wagons fractured in the forward axletree. However, a surcease in the journey lay just ahead. After three days bridging the swollen forks of the Nishnabotna and watching with apprehension crowds of young Pottawatomie who gathered curiously, but apparently without hostility, along the route, Orson rolled his outfits into the main encampment of the Saints on a creek by the banks of Missouri. An irrepressible cheer . of relief swept through Orson's fifty as they gazed on the little Indian village which Brigham Young had made his headquarters - that night there was a band concert and much gaiety all around. Here the pioneers found the residence of the Indian agents and a certain Mr. Sarpee, the well-to-do representative of the American Fur |