and await the escort of Brevet Colonel Smith, of the Tenth Infantry, who had started from the frontier in August with the two companies mentioned as having been left behind in Minnesota, and by rapid marches had already reached the Sweetwater.  The condition of affairs at this moment was indeed critical.  By the folly of Governor Walker’s movements in Kansas the expedition was deprived of its mounted force, and consisted entirely of infantry and artillery.  The Mormon marauding parties, on the contrary, which it now became evident were hovering on every side, were all well mounted and tolerably well armed.  The loss of three trains more would reduce the troops to the verge of starvation before spring, in case of inability to reach Salt Lake Valley.  Nothing was heard from General Harney, and in his absence no one possessed instructions adequate to the emergency.

To understand the movements which followed, it is necessary to describe briefly the topography of the country between Green River and the Great Salt Lake.  The entire interval, one hundred and fifty miles in breadth, is filled with groups and chains of mountains, the direct route through which to Salt Lake City lies along water-courses, following them through canons so narrow that little science is necessary to render the natural defences impregnable.  In this respect, and in the general character of the scenery, it bears much resemblance to the Tyrol.  In the narrowest of these gorges, Echo Canon, twenty-five miles in length, whose walls of rock often approach within a stone’s throw of each other, it became known that the Mormons were erecting breastworks and digging ditches, by means of which they expected to be able to submerge the road to the depth of several feet, for miles.  The only known mode of avoiding a passage through this gorge was by a circuitous route, following the eastern slope of the rim of the Great Basin northward, more than a hundred miles, to Soda Springs, at the northern bend of Bear River, the principal tributary of the Salt Lake,—­then crossing the rim along the course of the river, and pursuing its valley southward, and that of the Roseaux or Malade, into Salt Lake Valley.  The distance of Salt Lake City from the camp on Ham’s Fork was by this route nearly three hundred miles,—­while the distance by the road past Fort Bridger, through the canons, was less than one hundred and fifty miles.  At that fort, about twenty miles west from the encampment of the army, the Mormon marauding parties had their head-quarters and principal depot.  It was there that Colonel Alexander was ordered, about this time, by Brigham Young, to surrender his arms to the Mormon Quartermaster-General, on which condition and an agreement to depart eastward early the following spring, he and his troops should be fed during the winter; otherwise, Young added, they would perish from hunger and cold, and rot among the mountains.  In his perplexity, Colonel Alexander called a council