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Midsu of the

sands, would have been marked by the bodies of dead cattle, in death

scarcely more bone and parchment than for days they had been while

alive The horned toad, the cactus, the rattlesnake long since had

replaced the prairie dogs of the grassy floor of the eastern Plains A

scourge of great black crickets appeared, crackling loathsoebrush and sand took the place of trees and grass as they

left the river valley and crossed a succession of ridges or plateaus At

last they reached vast black basaltic masses and lava fields, proof of

forly had forever dried out the life

of the earth's surface The very vastness of the viewsof awe, of doubt, of fear

They had followed the trail over the i between the heads of streareat cañons of the Colorado, they came into the

vast horseshoe valley of the Bear, al the Great Salt

Lake, but unable to forsake it at last West and south now rose bold

mountains around whose northern extremity the river had felt its way,

and back of these lay fold on fold of lofty ridges, now softened by the

distances Of all the splendid landscapes of the Oregon Trail, this one