Our trip of fifteen days, with the thermometer ranging from zero to twenty degrees below, was not unrelieved by occasional incidents which we recall with pleasure. Among these, of course, we cannot include the cold nights we were obliged to pass upon the frozen earth. But we found an inexhaustible store of amusement, not unmingled with admiration, in the character of our Mormon conductors. Simple-hearted, affable, and unsophisticated, with bigot faith in their creed, studious observance of its requirements, and constant reliance upon it both for assistance in difficulty and pastime, they afforded in all their actions a singular contrast as well to the unregenerate Gentiles, as to the believers among older sects. They were not only sincere in their belief, they were enthusiastic. It was the single element which governed their lives: they idolized it, and neither reason, which they at once rejected, nor ridicule, which they silently abhorred, could shake their religious credulity. We engaged in frequent discussions with them, prolonging the evening camp-fire sittings with arguments which broke like the waves of a summer sea upon the rock of simple faith. Theology with them was restricted to the revelations of Joseph Smith, and the counsels of Brigham Young. These contained the precious elements of their belief. While passing over one of the divides, I recited to Hauser with such marked emphasis as I could command, Milton’s description of “the meeting of Satan and Death at the gates of Hell.” The stirring passage immediately absorbed the attention of our Mormon driver. The serious cast of his features during the recitation attracted our attention; and soon after we had camped for the night, while supper was in the course of preparation, he was heard to remark to a brother teamster, “I tell you, the youngest of those men in my wagon, the one that always carries that double-barrelled shotgun, is a powerful talker. I heard him harangue t’other one to-day for half an hour, and he talked mighty fine. He can overlay Orson Hyde and Parley Pratt, both, and I rather think it would trouble Brigham Young to say nicer things. And after all, he had pretty much the same ideas that we have.” Evidently, the man had regarded the recitation and its delivery as an impromptu exercise.