t entirely. In this way we escaped the dust, the rough talk,
and the temptations; now and again obtained a modicum of forage in the
shape of coarse weedy grasses at the borders of sinks.

But it was a cruel country on men and beasts. Our teamsters who had been
through by the Overland Trail said that the Bitter Creek desert was yet
worse: drier, barer, dustier and uglier. Nevertheless this was our daily
program:

To rise after a shivery night, into the crisp dawn which once or twice
glinted upon a film of ice formed in the water buckets; to herd the
stiffened animals and place them convenient; to swallow our hot coffee and
our pork and beans, and flapjacks when the cooks were in the humor; to
hook the teams to the wagons and break corral, and amidst cracking of
lashes stretch out into column, then to lurch and groan onward, at snail's
pace, through the constantly increasing day until soon we also were wrung
and parched by a relentless heat succeeding the frosty night.

The sleeping beauties of the realm were ever farther removed. In the
distances they awaited, luring with promise of magic-invested azure
battlements, languid reds and yellows like tapestry, and patches of liquid
blue and dazzling snowy white, canopied by a soft, luxurious sky. But when
we arrived, near spent, the battlements were only isolated sandstone
outcrops inhabited by rattlesnakes, the reds and yellows were sun-baked
soil as hard, the liquid blue was poisonous, stagnant sinks, the snow
patches were soda and bitter alkali, the luxurious sky was the same old
white-hot dome, reflecting the blazing sun upon the fuming earth.

Then at sunset we made corral; against theft, when near the grade; against
Indians and pillage when out from the grade, with the animals under herd
guard. There were fires, there was singing at the Mormon camp, there was
the heavy sleep beneath blanket and buffalo robe, through the biting chill
of a breezeless night, the ground a welcomed bed, the stars vigilant from
horizon to horizon, the wolves stalking and bickering like avid ghouls.

So we dulled to the falsity of the desert and the drudgery of the trail;
and as the grading camps became less frequent the men grew riper for any
diversion. That My Lady and Daniel and I were to furnish it seemed to be
generally accepted. Here were the time-old elements: two men, one
woman--elements so constituted that in other situation they might have
brought comedy but upon such a trail must