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Show Page 148 when burned - a welcome change from the excremental fuel provided by the buffalo. And there were always the mountains, the Wind River range like icy bones in the northwest; a glittering view especially to Orson, who well understood their significance. They were coming to the "divide," the boundary between the Atlantic and the Pacific worlds. Excited he pushed ahead of the main party with Heber C. Kimball for companionship. Climbing imperceptibly toward the top of the continent, he reached South Pass on June 26. It was cold, and overcoats became "a necessary appendage," as Orson rode around the broad, snow-banked plain to find the exact elevation of the divide. At length he decided on two prominences separated by a half-mile-wide basin, designating this the "dividing point of land which separates the waters of the Atlantic from those of the Pacific." Here, too, they crossed the non-descript border of "Oregon Territory," organized less than a year under exclusive United States hegemony. When Orson pulled his carriage over the seven-thousand-foot level, he nestled into the meadow camp of Pacific Spring at the legendary headwater of the ocean. Here Orson encountered another legend, this time in human form. A man conducting some eastering travelers to this campground was introduced as Moses "Black" Harris, a veteran "mountain man" who had gone into the business of guiding wagon trains. The dusky old trapper had a great deal of advice for the Saints, along with a California newspaper printed by Brannan at San Francisco. Orson tented with him that night and heard his judgment of the Salt Lake Valley - a desolate, stagnating sink, a timber- 32 less wasteland, he was told. The next day Brigham Young came up to the pass and listened to Harris most of the day, buying furs but not counsel. His determination held for the Salt Lake Valley, and they continued on with good speed to the Little |