cried out, "Hosanna to God and the Lamb!" and many
of the bearded host shed tears, for the hardships of the way had
weakened them.

Then Brigham came, lying pale and wasted in his wagon, and when they saw
him gaze long, and heard him finally say, "Enough--drive on!" they knew
that on this morning of July 24, 1847, they had found the spot where in
vision he had seen the tent of the Lord come down to earth.

Joel Rae had waited with a beating heart for Brigham's word of
confirmation, and when he heard it his soul was filled to overflowing.
He knew that here the open vision would enfold him; here the angel of
the Lord would come to him fetching his great Witness. Here he would
rise to immeasurable zeniths of spirituality. And here his people would
become a mighty people of the Lord. He foresaw the hundred unwalled
cities that Brigham was to found, and the green gardens that were to
make the now desert valley a fit setting for the temple of God. Here
was a stricken Rachel, a barren Sarah to be transformed by the touch of
the Saints to a mother of many children. Here would the lambs of the
Lord be safe at last from the Gentile wolves--safe for a time at least,
until so long as it might take the Lions of the Lord to come to their
growth. And that was to be no indefinite period; for had not Brigham
just said, with a snap of his great jaws and a cold flash of his blue
eyes, "Let us alone ten years here, and we'll ask no odds of Uncle Sam
or the Devil!"

There on the summit they knelt to entreat the mercy of God upon the
land. The next day, by their leader's direction, they consecrated the
valley to the Lord, and planted six acres of potatoes.

CHAPTER XI.

_Another Miracle and a Temptation in the Wilderness_

The floor of the valley was an arid waste, flat and treeless, a far
sweep of gray and gold, of sage-brush spangled with sunflowers, patched
here and there with glistening beds of salt and soda, or pools of the
deadly alkali. Here crawled the lizard and the rattlesnake; and there
was no music to the desolation save the petulant chirp of the cricket.
At the sides an occasional stream tumbled out of the mountains to be all
but drunk away at once by the thirsty sands. Along the banks of these
was the only green to be found, sparse fringes of willow and wild rose.
On the borders of the valley, where the steeps arose, were little
patches of purple and dusty brown, oak-bush, squaw-berry, a few dwarfed
cedars, and o