Mary Sabin Powell's Story ... continued

page 15

In the mountains we lost an old man. He had lain himself down and fallen asleep. We had to stop four days to find him. The delay alarmed our captain. He was anxious to keep ahead of the McArthur company.

Once in a while we stopped half a day to wash clothes. While the clothes were drying the men mended handcarts.

One night the McArthur company overtook us in the mountains. However, they had to wait for some cause or other. We therefore continued to move on ahead.

It was easy to make our way over Green River for the crossing had already been prepared. It did us good to view Green River Valley. It was almost like taking a rest.

At Fort Bridger we stopped all night. The men killed a beef. This was our first meat since leaving the buffalo on the prairies. At Fort Bridger we met Bro. Parley P. Pratt. He was then starting on his last mission.

When within one day's journey of Salt Lake City we ran out of provisions. Two men who had joined us at the fort were on their way to Salt Lake City.
"What word shall we take from you?" said they to the captain.
"Tell them we haven't a bite of food left in camp," said Captain Ellsworth.

A relief party met us with food before we arrived in Salt Lake City. How enchanting it was to enter Echo Canyon to call and have the echo answer.

The night we were encamped on Little Mountain the McArthur company again overtook us. There was a general rejoicing in all hearts. Early the next morning bread, beef and coffee arrived from Salt Lake City.

That very morning we passed a wagon company that had said goodbye to us in Iowa. I had acquaintances in this company who had said, "We will beat you into Salt Lake City." I now had the pleasure of passing them. The men took off their hats and cheered.

There was a lazy man in camp who had a wife and a baby. For the sake of the wife and child, I had often helped pull his cart. Now we were nearing our journey's end and I made up my mind to let him do his own pulling. We were passing down a slope, he was on the bottom so I simply let his cart go rolling down the slope. "Catch it! Catch it!" I cried. He sprang forward and caught it in the nick of time. Everybody laughed.
That afternoon the same man climbed into a wagon of soap to ride a while. We had been better provided with soap than food it seems. Coming down a rough place the wagon partly tipped over. Our friend was almost buried in soap to the amusement of the rest of us.

back 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 next