This last night has been very stormy with heavy thunder, hail, rain
and wind. The thunder and lightning was very loud and the rain fell in
torrents. The weather continues cold and cloudy with some fine showers.
There appears some heavy rain in the east and north. Grass looks green
and the cattle have filled themselves well. We started about ten
o'clock and soon found that last night's rain had made the roads much
worse. After traveling about four miles we stopped to graze our teams,
being one o'clock. While resting Elders Taylor and Orson Pratt passed
on horseback. At three o'clock we started again and about four came to
the President's camp. He was just returning from an exploring tour to
find out better roads. His camp was on the east of a piece of timber.
He gave orders to move to the other side of the timber about a mile
from where he then was. We concluded to move on and finally camped on
the next ridge southwest of his. Our teams are tired and there is not
much grass. A number of the horses have been bitten by rattlesnakes
and one is dead. There are a great number of these snakes on these
prairies. The President says the road to the next timber is all ridges
and hollows and will be hard on teams. We got camped about 5:30 p.m.,
and before we got fixed a thunder storm came on with heavy rain but it
was soon over and the evening afterwards was fine.