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Show 24 PERILOUS ESCAPE. These kind providences, with strict economy, enabled me to make a start for Utah with the company of Aaron Johnson, in the spring of 1850, as I had desired. I joined the camp, to travel over a thousand miles of desert, with nine in family, one small wagon, one yoke of oxen and two cows. While crossing the ferry over the Missouri river, with a boat load of cattle, they crowded to one side of the boat and capsized it. Some of the people on board saved themselves by getting on to the bottom of the boat, others by holding on to planks. I made an effort to swim to the landing, below which was some three miles of perpendicular river bank, and the water along the bank was full of whirlpools and eddies. Despite my efforts, the current took me past the landing. As I was almost carried under by a strong eddy, I began to despair of saving myself. Fortunately, I discovered where a path had been cut through the bank to the water's edge. I succeeded in getting so near the top of the bank, that a woman who was near, and had discovered my situation, managed to get hold of my hand, and, with a great effort, I was saved from the surging waters. In traveling up the Platte river on our way to the moun-tains, we found the road side, in places, strewn with human bones. The discovery of gold in California and the excite-ment it had created, had induced many of the Missouri mobocrats, the year previous, to leave their homes in search of the god of this world. The cholera had raged among them to such an extent, that the dead were buried without coffins, and with but a slight covering of earth. The wolves had dug up and feasted upon their carcasses, and their bones lay bleaching on the desert. There were days of travel in which human skeletons were usually in sight. We saw the literal fulfillment of the predictions of Joseph the Prophet, during the persecutions of the Saints in Mis-souri. He said that those who took an active part in driving them from their homes, should themselves die away from home without a decent burial ; that their flesh should be devoured |