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Show CHAPTER IV ABOVE THE VALLEY THE next morning Lucy joined me in our accustomed place at the rear, and we had the rare comfort of each other's company. Chilcott did not come back to frown at the girl for her disobedience. Like Waller and all the other rescuers, he was labouring far too hard at the task of keepmg the tram on the trail to give thought to those who could still help themselves. It was not alone a question of the exhausted people. The draught ammals were as far gone as their owners. Numbers of oxen died while straining up the long ascent of Prospect Hill. Yet somehow the trai~ was kept creeping along, day after day. At Devil s Gate other relief parties began to reach us from the west. The handcarts were abandoned, and wagon-room was found for everyone who could not walk. Yet all was far from well with our ill-starred company. Ascending the Sweetwater the weather set in bitterly cold. Many of the scantily clad handcart people were frost-bitten and several cited. Nor was there relief from our sufferings until we at last crossed the summit of South Pass and descended to the warmer levels of the western slope of the Rockies. Still other parties of helpers continued to meet us. By the time we crossed the Green River we were plentifully supplied with food. Beyond Fort Bndger no one was required to walk. The brethren of the Valley could not have been more generous and could not have toiled harder to comfort and assist 40 THE MORMON LION 41 us had we been their blood kindred. They insisted, however, upon attributing our rescue to the energy and personal generosity of Brigham. But we still had many weary miles to travel through the wild snow-drifted canyons of the Wahsalch Mountains, and our every camp-site was marked with one or more graves of our fellows. Out of the six hundred members of our train who started from Florence so full of faith and hope, one in every four perished during that fearful journey. Not until the morning of the first clay of December did we catch our first view of the land of promise for which we had come up out of Babylon through great tribulations. At the time Lucy and a number of the other girls and women were with me in my own wagon. Camp had been made that night well up the east slope of Big .Mountain. At daylight our helpers began to haul us up the steep rocky ascent, driving three or four teams to each wagon and returning for others as fast as the panting beasts recovered from the first climb. When at last our turn came, everyone in my wagon was keyed up with joyous expectancy. We were all buoyant with returning health and strength, and we had been told that from the summit of the pass, eight thousand feet above sea level, we could look down into the Valley. All the way up the steep ascent before us our fellow travellers were singing their old marching hymns with renewed spirit and enthusiasm. Lucy and I joined in with the others, and for the first lime since the Joss of her parents the dear girl forgot her grief in the religious fervour of the moment. Her checks, though still pitiably thin, became tinged with exquisite pink, and her blue eyes beamed with ecstasy. Though her voice lacked volume, it was as sweet and pure as a song thrush's. So intent was I upon her rich notes and my efforts to carry my bass part creditably to them that I lost |
