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Show Page 128 CHAPTER IV THE SPIRES OF THE MOUNTAINS Orson Pratt left his new brick homestead in a carriage the wintry morning of February 14, 1846 - his belongings staggered the dray of a hired teamster, Mr. William Higginbotham, while the eight who crowded Orson's livery drove slowly to the Mississippi wharf in the middle of a storm. The ferries, as reported, were not running because of the wind - but Orson was determined to cross. Nearly a mile of churning gray water and the hostile ferrymen huddled around their fire faced the family - and beyond that, a thousand miles of frozen wilderness. In his poverty and distress, however, Orson knew that he confronted an unparalleled adventure, theologically analogous to the Biblical Exodus, which would strain his navigational abilities and instruments, but would aos nourish his curious soul with a continent of discoveries. In his bags he carried the quadrant and artificial horizon of mercury which enabled him to scan the stars from the celestial observatory that was the Nauvoo temple which, even at this point still furiously under construction, must be left behind. But the instruments would guide the whole people of the Latter-day Saints, as the cloud had led the Israelites, across the inhospitable desert. The family had not planned to cross into Iowa until the spring, when grass would be available and the season would comfort instead of torment them. Rumors that the federal army would try to stop the emigration fevered the Saints into panicked preparations all through January and a |