There was nothing very dreadful to be seen on the first six miles of
the march, for then we were winding our way up the ridge, on the side
of which we had been encamped, and save for the fact that Ellen and I
were suffering from the cold, the journey was much the same as we had
already known.
Then we rode down the other side of the ridge, among stunted cedar
trees which looked as if they were dying from lack of water, and Eben
Jordan came past our wagon to say we had come upon Captain Frémont's
trail.
The fact that we were to follow in the footsteps of other human beings
gave me more courage and caused Ellen to appear almost cheerful.
We crossed a valley where nothing was growing save wild sage, and then
over rocky ridges which looked much like masses of dark green glass,
through a narrow gap which might have been cut by the hand of man in
the solid ledge, after which we saw spread out before us that vast
desert plain, white as a sea of milk and most desolate and forbidding
in appearance.