There was actually a system of wagon-trains regularly hauling freight from the Missouri to the Pacific; there was a stage-route bringing passengers and mail from Babylon; even Horace Greeley had been publicly entertained in Zion,--accorded honour in the Lord's stronghold.

There was talk, too, of a pony-express, to bring them mail from the Missouri in six days; and a few visionaries were prophesying that a railroad would one day come by them.

The desert was being peopled all about them, and neighbours were forcing a way up to their mountain retreat.
It seemed they were never to weld into one vast chain the broken links of the fated house of Abraham; never to be free from Gentile contamination.

He groaned in spirit as he went--walking well ahead of his wagon.
But he had taken up a new cross and he had his reward.

The first night after they reached home he took the little Bible from its hiding-place and opened it with trembling hands.