name of "The Devil's Gate." Wherever the walls of the canon recede from
the river's brink, and leave a space of cultivable land, there the
industrious Mormons have built log or adobe cabins, and converted the
circumscribed domain into farms, gardens, and orchards. In one of these
isolated settlements I seek shelter from a passing shower at the house
of a "three-ply Mormon " (a Mormon with three wives), and am introduced
to his three separate and distinct better-halves; or, rather, one should
say, " better-quarters," for how can anything have three halves. A
noticeable feature at all these farms is the universal plurality of women
around the house, and sometimes in the field. A familiar scene in any
farming community is a woman out in the field, visiting her husband, or,
perchance, assisting him in his labors. The same thing is observable at
the Mormon settlements along the Weber River - only, instead of one woman,
there are generally two or three, and perhaps yet another standing in
the door of the house. Passing through two tunnels that burrow through
rocky spurs stretching across the canon, as though to obstruct farther
progress, across the river, to the right, is the "Devil's Slide" - two
perpendicular walls of rock, looking strangely like man's handiwork,
stretching in parallel lines almost from base to summit of a sloping,
grass-covered mountain. The walls are but a dozen feet apart. It is a
curious phenomenon, but only one among many that are scattered at intervals
all through here. A short distance farther, and I pass the famous
"Thousand-mile Tree" - a rugged pine, that stands between the railroad and
the river, and which has won renown by springing up just one thousand
miles from Omaha. This tree is having a tough struggle for its life these
days; one side of its honored trunk is smitten as with the leprosy. The
fate of the Thousand-mile Tree is plainly sealed. It is unfortunate in
being the most conspicuous target on the line for the fe-ro-ci-ous youth
who comes West with a revolver in his pocket and shoots at things from
the car-window. Judging from the amount of cold lead contained in that