CHAPTER VII.

Pushing to the West--Overhearing a Conversation with Col. Cooke--The Colonel Fears the Men Will Starve--No Berries, not even Bark Of Trees, for Food--True State of Affairs as to the Outlook Kept from Most of the Troops--Hides, Intestines, and even soft Edges of Hoofs and Horns of Animals Eaten--"Bird's Eye Soup."--In a Snowstorm--Relics of Ancient Inhabitants--Camp without Water--Old Silver and Copper Mines--Hardest Day of the Journey--Men Appear as if Stricken with Death--The Writer so Ill as to be Unable to Travel Longer, and Expects to Die--Uncle Alexander Stephens Comes with Water and Revives Him--Awful Suffering in Camp--Reported Sick Next Morning--Brutal Dr. Sanderson Gives a Deadly Dose of Laudanum, but the Writer Vomits it After Being Made Fearfully Sick--In Terrible Distress for Days--Healed by the Laying on of Hands of the Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints