CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Story of Mormon Crossing
“Ever hear of Sun Mountain?” It was evening, after dinner. They were all sitting in front of the big stone fireplace, dead-tired, but determined to hear Joe’s story at last.
“Don’t think I have,” Hank rumbled. Nobody else answered.
“Sun Mountain,” Joe went on, “is a fancy name for one of the ugliest hunks of rock in the West.”
“Where is it?”
“In western Nevada, right near the California border.” Joe paused and looked over at Hank. “You don’t have a map by any chance, do you?”
“I think so.” Hank got up and plucked a dog-eared atlas down from a nearby shelf. “This do?”
“Sure.” Joe leafed through the pages until he came to a map of the northwest United States. “Here,” he said as the others crowded around, “is the place I’m talking about. Back in the days of the gold rush, Sun Mountain was important for only one reason. Wagon trains coming west used it as a guide. Right behind the mountain, you see, was a pass that took them over the Sierras into California.”
“It was the last jumping-off point before the gold fields,” Sandy remarked.
“Right,” Joe said. “But aside from that, nobody was interested in it. It was a lonely, miserable place. Sweltering hot in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. It didn’t have much in the way of trees or any kind of growth because all the water around there was next door to being poisonous.”