This company differed from the pioneers. The latter was made up of able-bodied men, excepting three women--none were helpless. They had the best of teams, and if they failed in finding a place of settlement they could return to the place of starting. Meantime their families were not endangered. They were secure at Winter Quarters. Not so with the Pratt and Taylor company. They had their all upon the altar, including their wives and children, who must share their hardships and their fate. They knew not their destination, they entrusted all on a single venture, from which there was no chance of retreat. If they should fail to find a suitable location and raise a crop the first season, there was no getting provisions to them, nor them to provisions. They must succeed, or perish in the wilderness to which they had started. With a faith that has never been surpassed, they placed themselves under the guidance and protection of their God, and we shall see in the sequel that they trusted not in vain.
Usually on the journey this great camp traveled in sections of one hundred wagons each. The company in which Apostle Pratt traveled took the lead, and the one in which Elder Taylor traveled followed next, and then the others in their order. Between the hundreds in which Elders Taylor and Pratt traveled was a company of artillery, commanded by Charles C. Rich. When feed for the cattle was scarce, or roads bad, or water not abundant, then they traveled fifty wagons in a section, but always sufficiently near each other to readily unite for protection in case of an assault from the Indians. When the prairies were wide and the ground unbroken, two companies often traveled abreast. Crossing the level plains that now form the state of Nebraska, they came in contact with immense herds of buffalo, which supplied them with plenty of beef. Public prayer was offered up daily in the camps. Sunday was observed as a day of rest, religious services were held in each camp, and the stillness of the great wilderness of the west was broken by Saints singing the songs of Zion.
Thus day after day, week after week, the sections of the great company drew their slow length along, until the wide spreading plains of La Platte are behind them, they enter the Black Hills and at last approach the Rocky Mountains.