An occasional ranch comes in sight, and along the old county road a waggon or two goes crawling by, and then we reach Mona, a pretty little rustic spot, but the civilizing radiance of corn-fields gradually dies away, and the relentless sage-brush supervenes, with here and there a lucid interval of ploughed ground in the midst of the demented desert. With water the whole valley would be superbly fertile, as we soon see, for there suddenly breaks in upon the monotony of the weed-growths a splendid succession of fields, long expanses of meadowland, large groves of orchards, and the thriving settlement of Nephi. Like all other prosperous places in Utah, it is almost entirely Mormon. There is one saloon, run by a Mormon, but patronized chiefly by the "outsiders"--for such is the name usually given to the "Gentiles" in the settlement--and no police. Local mills meet local requirements, and the "co-op." is the chief trading store of the place. There are no manufactures for export, but in grain and fruit there is a considerable trade. It is a quaint, straggling sort of place, and, like all these settlements, curiously primitive. The young men use the steps of the co-operative store as a lounge, and their ponies, burdened with huge Mexican saddles and stirrups that would do for dog-kennels, stand hitched to the palings all about. The train stops at the corner of the road to take up any passengers there may be. Deer are sometimes killed in the streets, and eagles still harry the chickens in the orchards. Wild-bird life is strangely abundant, and a flock of "canaries"--a very beautiful yellow siskin--had taken possession of my host's garden. "We do catch them sometimes," said his wife, "but they always starve themselves, and pine away till they are thin enough to get through the bars of the cage, and so we can never keep them." A neighbour who chanced in, was full of canary-lore, and I remember one incident that struck me as very pretty. He had caught a canary and caged it, but the bird refused to be tamed, and dashed itself about the cage in such a frantic way that out of sheer pity he let the wild thing go. A day or two later it came back, but with a mate, and when the cage was hung out the two birds went into captivity together, of their own free-will, and lived as happily as birds could live!