If they camped by a river they drew the wagons into a semicircle with the river at its base.

Other times the wagons made a circle, a fore-wheel of one touching a rear wheel of the next, thus providing a corral for the stock.

In such manner was the wisdom of the Lord concerning this hegira supplemented in detail by the worldly forethought of his servant Brigham.
They started along the north bank of the Platte River under the auspicious shine of an April sun.

A better route was along the south bank where grass was more plentiful and the Indians less troublesome.
But along the south bank parties of migrating Gentiles might also be met, and these sons of perdition were to be avoided at any cost--"at least for the present," said Brigham, in tones of sage significance.
And so for two hundred miles they broke a new way over the plains, to be known years after as "the old Mormon trail," to be broadened later by the gold-seekers of forty-nine, and still later to be shod with steel, when the miracle of a railway was worked in the desert.
To Joel Rae, Elder after the order of Melchisedek, unsullied product of the temple priesthood, it was a time of wondrous soul-growth.

In that mysterious realm of pathless deserts, of illimitable prairies and boundless plains, of nameless rivers and colossal hills, a land of dreams, of romance, of marvellous adventure, he felt strange powers growing within him.