But the enduring of all this toil, exposure and hardship had for its inspiration the buoyant hope of something good just beyond, something that was believed to be worthy of the privation and effort it was costing. The ardor of that hope was too intense to be discouraged by anything that human strength could overcome. The memories of those strenuous experiences are held as all but sacred, and you never meet one of these early overland emigrants who does not like to sit by your fireside and tell you about it. He forgets, for the moment, how hard it was, and dwells upon it, telling it over and over again, with the same pride and sense of noble achievement that the old soldier feels when recounting the battles and the camp life and the hard marches of the war, when he was young, away back in the sixties. One crossing this country by present-day conveyances, in richly appointed railroad trains, with all the comforts obtainable in modern sleeping, dining and parlor cars, can hardly be expected to conceive what it was to cover the same course under the conditions described; when there was not even a poor wagon road, and the utmost speed did not equal in a day the distance traveled in half an hour by the present mode. Any person who rides in a cumbrous and heavily laden wagon, behind a team whose pace never exceeds a slow walk; over dusty ground, in hot weather, will, before one day is passed, feel that endurance requires utmost fortitude. Consider what patience must be his if the journey continues for four, five or six long months! It is worthy of mention that there was no dissension among our people, nor even unpleasantness, during the entire trip, nor did we observe any among others. We were fortunate in having no "grouches" among us. Harmony, cheerfulness, a disposition to be jolly, even to the degree of hilarity, was the prevailing spirit. That, too, under circumstances often so trying that they might have thrown a sensitive disposition out of balance. All this in the wilds of an unorganized territory, where there was no law to govern, other than the character and natural bent of individuals. Such lack of established authority we had thought might lead to recklessness or aggressive conduct, but it did not.