Page:History of Utah.djvu/308

 e fort.

weeks to build ferry-boats and recruit their animals. Grass was now plentiful; most of the brethren de- pended upon their rifles for food, and after having prepared sufficient dried meat for the rest of the jour- ney, they continued on their way.

No sooner had they crossed the river than a horse- man, who had followed their trail from Laramie, rode up and begged them to halt, as near by was a large company bound for Oregon, for which he asked con- veyance over the stream. The pioneers consented, stipulating that they should receive payment in pro- visions. Other parties following, the larder of the saints was replenished.^

Travelling rapidly, and a little to the south of what was known as the Oregon track,^ the Mormons ar- rived at South Pass in the latter part of June, about the time when the tide of emigration usually passed the Missouri. Thence skirting the Colorado desert and reaching the Green River country, the monotony was broken. Here the brethren were met by Elder Brannan, who had sailed from New York for Califor- nia in the ship Brooklyn, the previous February, with 238 saints, as before mentioned. He reported that they were all busy making farms and raising grain on the San Joaquin River. ^'^ As several of the present

We paid him $15 for the use of his ferry-boat. Mr Bordeaux said that this was the most civil and best- behaved company that had ever passed the fort. ' Id., MS., 1847,91.

8 Snow, in Utah Pioneers, 44. ' Capt. Grover and eight others of the pion- eers were left at North Platte ferry and ford to ferry the companies that should arrive, and especially to ferry the emigration from Winter Quarters.' Hist. B. Yoinuj, MS., 1847.

^ ' Making a new road for a majority of more than one thousand miles westward, they arrived at the great basin in the latter part of July.' General Epistle of the Twelve, in Millennial Star, x. 82. 'He [Brigham] and the com- pany arrived on the 24th of July, having sought out and made a new road G.^O miles, and followed a trapper's trail nearly 400 miles. Smith's Bise, Prog- ress, and Travds, 16; see also Tidlidge's Life of Young, 161. Ilemysays that an odometer was attached to a wheel of one of the wagons, and careful notes taken of the distances. Jour, to O. S. L. City, i. 433-4. 'As I remember, there was no trail after leaving Laramie, going over the Black Hills, except very rarely. For a short distance before reaching the Sweetwater, we saw a wagon track; it was a great surprise and a great curiosity.' Hist. B. Young, MS., 1848, 7. *^

^"^ Hist. B. Young, MS., 1847, 95; Tnllidge's Life of Young, 166.