deep snow; whilst the long night through the storm continued, and in fearful eddies from above, before, behind, drove the falling and drifting snow.

Meanwhile the animals were driven once more across the stream to the base of a granite ridge which faced the storm, but where there was no grass.  They refused to eat, the mules huddling together and moaning piteously, while some of the horses broke away from the guard and went back to the ford.  The next day better camping-ground was reached ten miles farther on.  On the morning of the 8th the thermometer marked forty-four degrees below freezing point; but in this weather and through deep snow the men made eighteen miles, and the following day nineteen miles, to the next camping-grounds on Bitter Creek, and in the valley of Sweetwater.  On the 10th matters were still worse.  Herders left to bring up the rear with stray mules could not force them from the valley, and there three-fourths of them were left to perish.  Nine horses were also abandoned.  At night the thermometer marked twenty-five degrees below zero; nearly all the tent-pins were broken, and nearly forty soldiers and teamsters were on the sick list, most of them being frost-bitten.  “The earth,” writes the colonel, “has no more lifeless, treeless, grassless desert; it contains scarcely a wolf to glut itself on the hundreds of dead and frozen animals which for thirty miles nearly block the road.”

At length the army arrived at Fort Bridger—­to find that the buildings in and around it, together with those at Fort Supply, twelve miles distant, had been burnt to the ground by Mormons, and the grain and other provisions removed or destroyed.  All that remained were two enclosures surrounded by walls of cobblestone cemented with mortar, the larger one being a hundred feet square.  This was appropriated for supplies, while on the smaller one lunettes were built and mounted with cannon.  A sufficient garrison was stationed at this point; the cattle were sent for the winter to Henry Fork in charge of Colonel Cooke and six companies of the Second Dragoons, and about the end of November the remainder of the troops went into winter quarters on Black Fork of the Green River, two or three miles beyond Fort Bridger, and a hundred and fifteen from Salt Lake City.  The site, to which was given the name of Fort Scott, was sheltered by bluffs rising abruptly at a few hundred yards from the bed of the stream.  Near by were clumps of cottonwood which the Mormons had attempted to burn; but the wood being green and damp, the fire had merely scorched the bark.

Though most of the beef cattle had been carried off by the Mormons or Indians, a sufficient number of draught animals remained to furnish meat for seven months during six days of the week, while of bacon there was enough for one day in the week, and by reducing the ration of flour, coffee, and other articles, they might also be made to last until the first of June.  Parties were at once sent to Oregon and New Mexico to procure cattle and remounts for the cavalry.  Meantime shambles were built, to which the starved animals at Fort Henry were driven, and butchered as soon as they had gathered a little flesh, their meat being jerked and stored for future use.