Gee--Whoa--Haw

Midsummer in the desert. The road now, but for the shifting of the
sands, would have been marked by the bodies of dead cattle, in death
scarcely more bone and parchment than for days they had been while
alive. The horned toad, the cactus, the rattlesnake long since had
replaced the prairie dogs of the grassy floor of the eastern Plains. A
scourge of great black crickets appeared, crackling loathsomely under
the wheels. Sagebrush and sand took the place of trees and grass as they
left the river valley and crossed a succession of ridges or plateaus. At
last they reached vast black basaltic masses and lava fields, proof of
former subterranean fires which seemingly had forever dried out the life
of the earth's surface. The very vastness of the views might have had
charm but for the tempering feeling of awe, of doubt, of fear.

They had followed the trail over the immemorial tribal crossings over
heights of land lying between the heads of streams. From the Green
River, which finds the great cañons of the Colorado, they came into the
vast horseshoe valley of the Bear, almost circumventing the Great Salt
Lake, but unable to forsake it at last. West and south now rose bold
mountains around whose northern extremity the river had felt its way,
and back of these lay fold on fold of lofty ridges, now softened by the
distances. Of all the splendid landscapes of the Oregon Trail, this one
had few rivals. But they must leave this and cross to yet another though
less inviting vast river valley of the series which led them across the
continent.