212 LIFE IN THE FAE WEST. 



Once again they fled, as they themselves term it, before the 

 persecutions of the ungodly I But this time their migration was 

 far beyond the reach of their enemies, and their intention was to 

 place between them the impassable barrier of the Rocky Mount- 

 ains, and to seek a home and resting-place in the remote regions 

 of the Far West. 



This, the most extraordinary migration of modern times, com- 

 menced in the year 1845 ; but it was not till the following year 

 that the great body of the Mormons turned their backs upon the 

 settlements of the United States, and launched boldly out into the 

 vast and barren prairies, without any fixed destination as a goal 

 to their endless journey. For many months, long strings of Pitts- 

 burg and Conostaga wagons, with herds of horses and domestic 

 cattle, wound their way toward the Indian frontier, with the in- 

 tention of rendezvousing at Council Bluffs on the Upper Missouri. 

 Here thousands of wagons w^re congregated, with their tens of 

 thousands of men, women, and children, anxiously waiting the 

 route from the elders of the church, who on their parts scarcely 

 knew whither to direct the steps of the vast crowd they had set in 

 motion. At length the indefinite destination of Oregon and Cali- 

 fornia was proclaimed, and the long train of emigrants took up the 

 line of march. It was believed the Indian tribes would immedi- 

 ately fraternize with the Mormons, on their approaching their 

 country ; but the Pawnees quickly undeceived them by running 

 off with their stock on every opportunity. Besides these losses, at 

 every camp, horses, sheep, and oxen strayed away and were not 

 recovered, and numbers died from fatigue and want of provender ; 

 £0 that, before they had been many weeks on their journey, nearly 

 all their cattle, which they had brought to stock th,eir new country, 

 were dead or missing, and those that were left were in most miser- 

 able condition. 



They had started so late in the season, that the greater part 

 were compelled to winter on the Platte, on Grand Island, and in 



