on of the year, the probabilities were in favour of the southern
route; but it depended on whether the emigrants intended to proceed at
once across the plains, or wait for the return of spring. I knew,
moreover, that the Mormons had their own "trains," and ways of
travelling; and that several new routes or "trails" had been discovered
during the preceding year, by military explorers, emigrants for Oregon
and California, and by the Mormons themselves. This knowledge only
complicated the question, leaving us in hopeless doubt and indecision.
Thus unresolved, it would have been absurd to proceed further. Our only
hope lay in returning to Swampville. And whence this hope? What was to
be expected in Swampville? Who was there in that village of golden
dreams to guide me upon the track of my lost love? No one--no human
being. The index of my expectation was not a living thing, but a
letter! Assuredly, I had not forgotten that promise, so simply yet
sweetly expressed: "If I thought you would like to know where we are
gone, I would write to you;" and again: "If you will allow me, I will
send a letter to Swampville, _from the first place we come to_, to tell
you where we are going." Oh! that I could have told her how much I
"would like to know," and how freely she had my permission to write!
Alas! that was impossible. But the contingencies troubled me not much;
I was full of hope that she would waive them. Communicating this hope
to my companion, we rode back to Swampville: with the design of laying
siege to the post-office, until it should surrender up to us the
promised epistle.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

THE PROMISED EPISTLE.

Under any circumstances, a return to Swampville would have been
necessary: certain pecuniary requirements called me back to that
interesting village. A journey, even across the desert, cannot be made
without money; and the hundred dollars I had paid to Holt, with hotel
and other incidental outlays, had left me with a very light purse. It
would have taken three times as much as I was master of, to provide us
with the scantiest equipment required for a prairie journey; and toward
this the young hunter, willing to give his all, was able to contribute
nothing. He would cheerfully have parted with his patrimony--as I with
my purchase--for a very slender consideration; but, at that crisis, the
Californian speculation demanded all the specie in circulation; and
neither his clearing nor mine wo