operty. Any sales were made on a basis of the first cost plus the
value of the improvement. A community admirable in almost every way was
improvised as though by magic. Among themselves the Mormons were sober,
industrious, God-fearing, peaceful. Their difficulties with the nation
were yet to come.

Throughout the year, 1848, the weather was propitious for ploughing and
sowing. Before the crops could be gathered, however, provisions ran so
low that the large community was in actual danger of starvation. Men
were reduced to eating skins of slaughtered animals, the raw hides from
the roofs of houses, and even a wild root dug by the miserable Ute
Indians. To cap the climax, when finally the crops ripened, they were
attacked by an army of crickets that threatened to destroy them utterly.
Prayers of desperation were miraculously answered by a flight of white
sea-gulls that destroyed the invader and saved the crop. Since then this
miracle has been many times repeated.

It was in August, 1849, that the first gold rush began. Some of
Brannan's company from California had already arrived with samples of
gold-dust. Brigham Young was too shrewd not to discourage all mining
desires on the part of his people, and he managed to hold them. The
Mormons never did indulge in gold-mining. But the samples served to
inflame the ardor of the immigrants from the east. Their one desire at
once became to lighten their loads so that they could get to the
diggings in the shortest possible time. Then the Mormons began to reap
their harvest. Animals worth only twenty-five or thirty dollars would
bring two hundred dollars in exchange for goods brought in by the
travelers. For a light wagon the immigrants did not hesitate to offer
three or four heavy ones, and sometimes a yoke of oxen to boot. Such
very desirable things to a new community as sheeting, or spades and
shovels, since the miners were overstocked, could be had for almost
nothing. Indeed, everything, except coffee and sugar, was about half the
wholesale rate in the East. The profit to the Mormons from this
migration was even greater in 1850. The gold-seeker sometimes paid as
high as a dollar a pound for flour; and, conversely, as many of the
wayfarers started out with heavy loads of mining machinery and
miscellaneous goods, as is the habit of the tenderfoot camper even unto
this day, they had to sell at the buyers' prices. Some of the
enterprising miners had even brought large amounts of go