Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/195

Rh and sheds into Black's Fork, the main drain of these parts. On the other side stood Millersville, a large ranch with a whole row of unused and condemned wagons drawn up on one side. We arrived at 5 15 P.M., having taken three hours and fifteen minutes to get over twenty miles. The tenement was made of the component parts of vehicles, the chairs had backs of yoke-bows, and the fences which surrounded the corral were of the same material. The station was kept by one Holmes, an American Mormon, and an individual completely the reverse of genial; he dispensed his words as if shelling out coin, and he was never—by us at least—seen to smile. His wife was a pretty young Englishwoman, who had spent the best part of her life between London and Portsmouth; when alone with me she took the opportunity of asking some few questions about old places, but this most innocent tête-à-tête was presently interrupted by the protrusion through the open door of a tête de mari au naturel, with a truly renfrogné and vinegarish aspect, which made him look like a calamity. After supplying us with a supper which was clean and neatly served, the pair set out for an evening ride, and toward night we heard the scraping of a violin, which reminded me of Tommaso Scarafaggio:

The "fiddle" was a favorite instrument with Mr. Joseph Smith, as the harp with David; the Mormons, therefore, at the instance of their prophet, are not a little addicted to the use of the bow. We spent a comfortable night at Millersville. After watching the young moon as she sailed through the depths of a firmament unstained by the least fleck of mist, we found some scattered volumes which rendered us independent of our unsocial Yankee host.

23d August. Fort Bridger. We breakfasted early the next morning, and gladly settled accounts with the surly Holmes, who had infected—probably by following the example of Mr. Caudle in later life—his pretty wife with his own surliness. Shortly after starting—at 8 30 A.M.—we saw a little clump of seven Indian lodges, which our experience soon taught us were the property of a white; the proprietor met us on the road, and was introduced with due ceremony by Mr. Macarthy. "Uncle Jack" (Robinson, really) is a well-known name between South Pass and Great Salt Lake City; he has spent thirty-four years in the mountains, and has saved some $70,000, which have been properly invested at St. Louis; as might be expected, he prefers the home of his adoption and his Indian spouse, who has made him the happy father of I know not how many children, to good society and bad air farther east.

Our road lay along the valley of Black's Fork, which here flows from the southwest to the northeast; the bottom produced in