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Show Page 142 subsequent experiences on the winter steppes showed that he had not underestimated the savagery of this country. 23 Near Grand Island the pioneer camp fronted the brawny Platte, which they called the "Nebraska," for the first time. Orson remarked that the river was very "soily," muddy, like the Missouri; indeed, among the emigrants the Platte was called "too thick to drink, too thin to plow." A wide and stagnant effluent, treacherous with quicksands and oozing salty lime, the river nevertheless served as a convenient road west. The old Oregon Trail paralleled the river on the south side, and emigrant trains were frequently seen on both sides - the Mormons elected to remain on the north to avoid the treachery of ford and the rival emigrants, many of whom were Missourians. And the Saints had no desire to mix with them. In fact, the Oregon Trail was not yet cold with the trail of Governor Lilburn Boggs, the Missouri chief executive who had nearly destroyed the Mormon people in '39. The Mormon nemesis, a frontiersman at heart, had scurried to California during the emigration the year previous, coming very close to joining the ill-fated Donner-Reed expedition. Many other old enemies of the Saints were pushing upriver as well, and there were more than a few anxious protests to the federal authorities about the well-armed disciplined army of Mormons moving like the cloud of the Lord up 24 the Oregon Trail. Orson noted, nevertheless, that the north bank road was very good, level, somewhat sandy, but easily passable. The trail was not exactly smooth, though. High winds and fires sparked by the Indians to destroy old grass menaced the pioneers - feed was difficult to find in the parched and burnt prairie; however, the native wisdom resulted in a growth of yellowspring clover that the pioneers later thanked them for. For the being, the prairie was black, with only scattered patches of green. Rumbling into view came tens of |