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Show Page 218 given name but also his intellectual voracity, had been one of his intimate friends: "It pained my heart," he wrote. "I loved him, he was 18 a man of God..." A rare emotional tribute from the spare apostle of science. In April 1856, Brigham decided it was time to send Orson out again. The British Mission needed a new presiding authority, and Orson needed the stimulation of another venture into the climate of the Old World. His final words to the general conference echo with a tinge of feeling against colleagues who devalued his "philosophical" (and therefore unrealistic) strivings: "There are those around me here who are better qualified to teach you in relation to your every day duties...." 19 Within two weeks he had bidden good-bye to seven wives and brother Parley, who seemed sick unto death when he left. The two must have parted in some pain - Parley felt himself that the end was imminent - but it was appropriate, for although Parley recovered and lived another 20 year, the two brothers would never meet again in the flesh. Winter did not end that year. The hills blazed with snow as Orson's eastering company broke through the passes under high Rocky skies of flat blue. It was impossible to keep warm, and the stock had to snuffle through drifts for the scanty spring grass. Never had the overland journey taken such a toll on the brethren. In their poverty, they faced Indian country with two Colt revolvers and fifteen rounds among them, and just beyond Fort Bridger they girded themselves with buffalo robes and harnessed themselves to the teams, for the snow blasted them on the plains with a fury none of them had ever experienced. Face into the storm, Orson Pratt shouted encouragement to the others as they fought their way through this hurricane, until the poisonous blue of the sky showed again the morning of May 6. When they awoke, everything was white. The badlands stretched before |