{"collection":"mor","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/mor/tfd/chap08.htm","path":"mor/tfd/chap08.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/mor/tfd/chap08.htm","text":"\"Now let us sing, Long live the King,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And Gilpin, long live he; \nAnd when he next doth ride abroad,\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 May I be there to see!\"\nCowper\nNEXT day we pushed our slow way up Spanish Fork Canyon. Some faint tradition \nof the early Spaniards, the conquistadores of the days of Iberian rule, having reached \nas far north as this section, riveted the name upon this great gap in the mountains.\nThere is no doubt those hardy men almost demons in a way did dare the extreme both \nin perils and distance. Some of them may have gazed with their fierce eyes set in \nbearded bronzed faces upon these very hills and vales.\nThey were too far afield for them to put more than the stamp of their name on this \nregion, so when the Mormons came, the Redmen, the Piutes and the Utes, were the \nsole possessors of the soil. It was an up-hill and rocky road with the heat of mid-day \nreflecting from the granite rocks lining the canyon sides and producing much perspiration, \nboth for drivers and their steed.\nYet the evening drawing nigh, the characteristic wind-blast down this rocky tube \nchilled us to the bone, a quick change from the noon's torrid heat. \"I know of a \ngood spring hereabouts,\" said Mac, \"one of my liberal friends of Mount Pleasant \ncomes this way at times, and always camps by it; and he told me to be sure to sample \nits waters.\"\nThis was refreshing news to me, for our last drink had been from a muddied and shallow \nirrigation ditch. Round point after point, we slowly toiled, still ascending and \nlooking for this spring that never appeared. It was about two hours later that we \ncaught the odor of rotten eggs, and knew that our spring was a sulphur and therapeutic \none. Our liberal friend had his joke on Mac, when the latter stood at this actively \nboiling spring, with no desire to drink.\nYet at this writing a costly sanitarium occupies the ground, people come from afar \nto spend both time and money for their health at this evil-smelling spring. Pure \nwater is a prize when difficult to obtain, and at that particular moment having \nno foresight of the future business value of this sulphur spring, we would have \nexchanged it for a few gallons of the cold article.\nWe pushed on with dry tongues, and toward evening we entered Thistle Valley, now \nalive with the coal industry and the overland railroad, but then a wild, remote, \nupland plain.\nHere we found water in a little rill oozing out of the rocks, clear and cold as \na Kentucky spring.\n\"Why not camp out here? Plenty of wood around for a fire. It will be dark soon!\"\n\"No. Not here. Let us push on,\" said Mac. \"I know a valley rancher at no great distance. \nHe is what is called a 'Jack' Mormon and favors our work for the liberals.\"\nI grumbled, for I had no great liking for Mac's \"little\" distances, as I remembered \nthat his eye was lacking in accuracy when it came to his remembering mileage by \nthe road.\nOn again we went making a long day of it. I expected the poor horse to strike, not \nfor pay, but for shorter hours; but the good animal had more grit than his appearance \nsuggested. The miles were Irish ones, if not Russian, such as make the Siberian \nVersts such a weary terror to the traveller. We passed curve after curve in the \nroad; crossed land-draws without number, expecting\nevery moment to sight the rancher's roof. It realized a modern war-song:\n\"It's a long, long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go.\"\nIt began to look as though Mac had been sold again as to this ranch house; as he \nhad been with reference to the sulphur spring which he had been urged to sample.\nWe broke another tug, just by way of diversion and use of a little more time which \nwe could not spare. I used the old rope again and, of course, being tired I had \nto say something about buckskin, as an essential part of an \"experienced\" traveller's \noutfit, the same being lacking with us.\nThe moon rose. Her silvery face shone above the hills before us and made the uneven \nroad visible, but the chaparral on either hand looked all the blacker. My imagination \nbegan to work concerning the Indians, who were off the reservation, trailing us \nin these dark places; or those white bandits, of worse blood, who often waylaid \ntravellers at such an uphill disadvantage as was ours.\nWe were nervously silent, but if a bear had crashed through the brush, a coyote \nhad yowled, or an owl had hooted, we might have shouted from fright, expectant of \nan attack from Indians or bandits.\nJust then a dog barked with a homelike sound, and before long we saw the outline \nof a corral fence lining the road; then a house loomed up all in the dark.\nWe drew up at the bars across the road and holloed. The tired rancher, waked out \nof his first sleep, came down to us in no gracious mood; but who could blame him \nat that midnight hour?\nWe were the victims of Mac's defective judgment of road distances. He had come this \nway once before with a fast road-team downgrade, and had expected as rapid return \nupgrade with one horse and a heavy load.\nWe squared this late call with our \"Jack\" Mormon host in the way which is usually \nacceptable to midnight landlords. We fed our horse and bedded him with straw, and \nthen climbed to an empty loft under the house roof, pillowing our weary heads on \nhay.\nThis Thistle Valley is known for its rich soil. The greasewood grows high and strongly, \na sure evidence of the depth of earth. It was sparsely settled in that day. At one \nend there was an Indian Reserve: a section of the great Uintah Reservation for the \nPiute nation.\nWe met a crowd of Indian horsemen the next morning. They were wild and saucy, mocking \nus and our outfit and racing around, whooping just to scare our horse by their antics; \nbut it was wasted effort. They did not know that our horse was a sedate Presbyterian \ncharger, whose charging days were long past. Our beast just looked at them in surprise, \nand plodded on.\nWe grinned at these red-painted horsemen and cried \"How!\" in return to their \"How!\", \nand so passed on.\nIt was right here that an emigrant tragedy occurred some twenty years earlier. The \nfoothills slope often into the valley with a long finger of lower hills that finally \nsink to the level of the valley road. Behind this projection, a war party of these \nsame Piutes or Utes lay in ambush for the overlanders to California.\nTwo wagons, the prairie schooner kind, with covers like an ark, and loaded to the \nguards with everything for the household, came crawling along this upgrade. Too \nindependent to travel with the majority, they had struck out by this shorter way \nto reach California by the road via Saint George and Arizona; thus avoiding the \nawful Nevada deserts.\nUnsuspecting and unprepared they here were attacked by the Indians, who made a dash \nfrom behind a low hill abutting the road. It ended in the usual way. After a sharp \nand gallant fight the strong white men fell, and all were slain, even to the babies. \nBlood and scalps and burning wagons, yelling Indians and dying men made the spot \nmemorable.\nWe looked at the scene and could almost see it enacted again; one of many such bloody \nhalts to the stream of gold seekers, where a family passed out of knowledge, and \nleft but a rumor to satisfy the anxiety and long waiting of friends left behind.\nAt last Thistle Valley opened into a larger one, the San Pete Valley, and from our \nhigh ground we could see, by the dark patches along the valley's sides, the sites \nof the various settlements in this remote region populated by Scandinavian converts \nto Mormonism.\nThe telephone, the rural delivery, the automobile of this favored day have brought \nall this section into the hustle of the world, since that quiet day when I first \nlooked upon this broad expanse of fertile land. The mountains, then so silent, now \nglow with the electric lights of great mining centers. The richest coal is found, \nand feeds the mountain freight engines of the railroad which, as the agent of modern \ncommerce, has invaded and captured this region of riches.\nOur good old horse, and I was really getting proud of his grit despite his disreputable \nlooks, brought us late in the day to the Liberal Hall fronting the Main street of \nMount Pleasant, a town of three thousand inhabitants.\nHere were the headquarters of the liberal element of the valley, and this also was \nour destination. In this Hall was the school, in embryo, for which the seats had \nbeen brought from afar so toilsomely. I laughed when they had been arranged in the \nlecture room of the Hall, to see one after another, the men, Liberals and Mormons, \nsit in them to test their strength. They did it so boyishly and with much evident \ninterest. These seats were then up-to-date, but by this time they are antiquated, \nand broken up for fuel.","title":"Chapter VIII: Through Spanish Fork Canyon and Thistle Valley","type":"page"}