ated by the
difficulties it involved; and the ranks of the party were therefore
filled up with volunteers from among the most effective and responsible
members of the sect. They began their march in midwinter; and by the
beginning of February nearly all of them were on the road, many of their
wagons having crossed the Mississippi on the ice.

Under the most favoring circumstances, an expedition of this sort,
undertaken at such a season of the year, could scarcely fail to be
disastrous. But the pioneer company had to set out in haste, and were
very imperfectly supplied with necessaries. The cold was intense. They
moved in the teeth of keen-edged northwest winds, such as sweep down the
Iowa peninsula from the icebound regions of the timber-shaded Slave Lake
and Lake of the Woods. Along the scattered watercourses, where they
broke the thick ice to give their cattle drink, the annual autumn fires
had left but little firewood. To men, insufficiently furnished with
tents and other appliances of shelter, wood was almost a necessary of
life. After days of fatigue their nights were often passed in restless
efforts to prevent themselves from freezing. Their stock of food also
proved inadequate; and as their constitutions became more debilitated
their suffering from cold increased. Afflicted with catarrhal
affections, manacled by the fetters of dreadfully acute rheumatism, some
contrived for a while to get over the shortening day's march and drag
along some others. But the sign of an impaired circulation soon began to
show itself in the liability of all to be dreadfully frost-bitten. The
hardiest and strongest became helplessly crippled. About the same time
the strength of their draught animals began to fail. The small supply of
provender they could carry with them had given out. The winter-bleached
prairie straw proved devoid of nourishment; and they could only keep
them from starving by seeking for the "browse," as it is called, this
being the green bark and tender buds and branches of the cottonwood and
other stunted growths in the hollows.

To return to Nauvoo was apparently the only escape; but this would have
been to give occasion for fresh mistrust and so to bring new trouble to
those they had left there behind them. They resolved at least to hold
their ground, and to advance as they might, were it only by limping
through the deep snows a few slow miles a day. They found a sort of
comfort in comparing themselves to the exi