At 12 45 P.M., traveling over the uneven barren, and in a burning sirocco, we reached Lodge-Pole Station, where we made our "noonin.” The hovel fronting the creek was built like an Irish shanty, or a Beloch hut, against a hill side, to save one wall, and it presented a fresh phase of squalor and wretchedness. The mud walls were partly papered with “Harper's Magazine," “Frank Leslie," and the "New York Illustrated News;" the ceiling was a fine festoon-work of soot, and the floor was much like the ground outside, only not nearly so clean. In a corner stood the usual "bunk," a mass of mingled rags and buffalo robes; the centre of the room was occupied by a rickety table, and boxes, turned up on their long sides, acted as chairs. The unescapable stove was there, filling the interior with the aroma of meat. As usual, the materials for ablution, a "dipper" or cup, a dingy tin skillet of scanty size, a bit of coarse gritty soap, and a public towel, like a rag of gunny bag, were deposited upon a rickety settle outside.

There being no "lady" at the station on Lodge-Pole Creek, milk was unprocurable. Here, however, began a course of antelope venison, which soon told upon us with damaging effect. I well knew the consequences of this heating and bilious diet in Asia and Africa; but thinking it safe to do at Rome as the Romans do, I followed in the wake of my companions, and suffered with them. Like other wild meats, bear, deer, elk, and even buffalo, antelope will disagree with a stranger; it is, however, juicy, fat, and well-flavored, especially when compared with the hard, dry, stringy stuff which the East affords; and the hunter and trapper, like the Indian, are loud in its praise.

[page 66-7] .....

At 3 P.M., after a preliminary ringing, intended to soothe the fears of Madame, we set out au grand galop, with a team that had never worked together before. They dashed down the cahues with a violence that tossed us as in a blanket, and nothing could induce them, while fresh, to keep the path. The yawing of the vehicle was ominous: fortunately, however, the road, though self-made, was excellent; the sides were smooth, and the whole country fit to be driven over.

[page 69]  ...

Descending into the bed of a broad “arroyo,”  at this season bone dry, we reached, at 5 45 P.M., Mud-Spring Station, which takes its name from a little run of clear water in a black miry hollow. A kind of cress grows in it abundantly, and the banks are bright with the “morning-glory” or convolvulus. The station-house was not unlike an Egyptian fellah’s hut. The material was sod, half peat with vegetable matter; it is taken up in large flakes after being furrowed with the plow, and is cut to proper lengths with a short-handled spade. Cedar timber,[9]  brought from the neighboring hills, formed the roof. The only accommodation was an open shed, with a sort of doorless dormitory by its side. We dined in the shed, and amused ourselves with feeding the little brown-speckled swamp-blackbirds that hopped about us tame and “peert’” as wrens, and when night drew near we sought shelter from the furious southern gale, and heard tales of Mormon suffering which made us think lightly of our little hardships.

[Page 70-1] ....

See 12th August. We cross the Platte. from The City of the Saints