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The winter-bleached
prairie straw proved devoid of nourishment; and they could only keep
them from starving by seeking for the "browse," as it is called, this
being the green bark and tender buds and branches of the cottonwood and
other stunted growths in the hollows.
To return to Nauvoo was apparently the only escape; but this would have
been to give occasion for fresh mistrust and so to bring new trouble to
those they had left there behind them. They resolved at least to hold
their ground, and to advance as they might, were it only by limping
through the deep snows a few slow miles a day. They found a sort of
comfort in comparing themselves to the exiles of Siberia, and sought
consolation in earnest prayers for the spring.
The spring came at last. It overtook them in the Sac and Fox country,
still on the naked prairie, not yet half way over the trail they were
following between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. But it brought
its own share of troubles with it. The months with which it opened
proved nearly as trying as the worst of winter.


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