a whole army of the hated Gentiles.

The hardest part of their journey was still before them. Their road had
now to be made as they went, lying wholly among the mountains. Lofty
hills, deep ravines with jagged sides, forbidding canons, all but
impassable streams, rock-bound and brush-choked,--up and down, through
or over all these obstacles they had now to force a passage, cutting
here, digging there; now double-locking the wheels of their wagons to
prevent their crashing down some steep incline; now putting five teams
to one load to haul it up the rock-strewn side of some water-way.

From Echo Canon they went down the Weber, then toward East Canon, a
dozen of the bearded host going forward with spades and axes as sappers.
Sometimes they made a mile in five hours; sometimes they were less
lucky. But at length they were fighting their way up the choked East
Canon, starting fierce gray wolves from their lairs in the rocks and
hearing at every rod of their hard-fought way the swift and unnerving
song of the coiled rattlesnake.

Eight fearful miles they toiled through this gash in the mountain; then
over another summit,--Big Mountain; down this dangerous slide, all
wheels double-locked, on to the summit of another lofty hill,--Little
Mountain; and abruptly down again into the rocky gorge afterwards to
become historic as Immigration Canon.

Following down this gorge, never doubting they should come at last to
their haven, they found its mouth to be impassable. Rocks, brush, and
timber choked the way. Crossing to the south side, they went sheerly up
the steep hill--so steep that it was all but impossible for the
straining animals to drag up the heavy wagons, and so narrow that a
false step might have dashed wagon and team half a thousand feet on to
the rocks below.

But at last they stood on the summit,--and broke into shouts of rapture
as they looked. For the wilderness home of Israel had been found. Far
and wide below them stretched their promised land,--a broad, open
valley hemmed in by high mountains that lay cold and far and still in
the blue haze. Some of these had slept since the world began under their
canopies of snow, and these flashed a sunlit glory into the eager eyes
of the pilgrims. Others reared bare, scathed peaks above slopes that
were shaggy with timber. And out in front lay the wondrous lake,--a
shield of deepest glittering turquois held to the dull, gray breast of
the valley.

Again and again they