Only the primeval sun saw the birth of the mountains in that ancient time of orogeny on the northern continent of the Earth.
A compressive force of unimaginable power ushered in that age of mountain building. For a time span of millions of years, the crust of the continent was squeezed from the east and west, and the thick rock layers arched upward, bending until they stood at steep angles. In places the mighty force completely overturned the rocks so that they lay upside down. A giant range of mountains was formed, stretching some three thousand miles north to south and spanning the continent. Stony mountain peaks stabbed four, five miles high, wounding the sky in scores of places.
As the mountains rose, streams of a thousand sizes came to life and tumbled with awesome violence down from the high ramparts. The myriad currents cut and tore at the steep flanks of the mountains, grinding the rock to sand and silt and rushing away with it to the lowlands. Where the grade became less steep on the lower reaches of the streams, the currents slowed and wandered in meandering courses, dropping their load of eroded mountain debris. The valleys of the streams became choked with swamps and shallow lakes as thousands of cubic miles of sediment were spread in flat, ever-thickening layers.
Time ticked off the millennia, one after another, adding to millions of years. During the long epoch of erosion a broad plain grew at the base of the mountain range and extended toward the rising sun for many hundreds of miles.
So flat was the land surface that the larger animals could see each other for long distances, to the limits of their vision.
Far away at the extreme eastern edge of the plains, the streams coalesced to form a grand river. This stupendous flow poured in a never-ending current to the south, finally debauching into the salty brine of one of the great oceans of the world.
As time continued to whisper its passing, the climate of the Earth began to cool. Glaciers thousands of feet thick formed and advanced across the northern portion of the plains, each time to retreat and die. In the harsh, frozen part of the cycles, the land was buried under an unbelievably large expanse of ice and swept by hurricane winds that never ended. Wet, warm, pluvial times, the interglacial periods, melted the ice, creating torrents that scoured the mountains and plains and sped off to add their volume to the prodigious south-flowing river.
A dramatic change occurred in the climatic cycles of the Earth. The continental glacier retreated and the deluge came, but the next phase of the cycle did not arrive. Instead the land grew drier and drier. Broad forest died and the plains became a prairie, a sea of tall grass.
The great animals that had lived and thrived during the rugged glacial period, the woolly mammoth, the wide-horned bison, the saber-toothed tiger, and the vulture condor all died. However, the bison left a legacy, for in its genes there existed the potential for change. As the plains became ever more dry, each succeeding generation of the bison grew smaller and smaller, adapting to the changing climate and the decreased availability of food. It became a miniaturized replica of its ancestor, weighing a mere ton or less. This new breed of bison flourished by the millions on the grassy prairie.
In this warmer, drier time, a brown-skinned man came onto the plains and stalked the bison herds. The man was skilled and killed the animals he needed. Only the white buffalo wolf competed with the brown man as he journeyed where the buffalo journeyed and lived in harmony with the herds for twelve millennia.
Then a new clan of man, one with white skin, came onto the broad prairie. The quiet tread of the moccasined foot and the silent bow of the Indian were joined by the hobnailed boot and thunderous rifle of the white man.
The two clans of man became enemies and pursued each other across the prairie. They fought savage battles. The victor slew the vanquished without mercy.
The white man won most of the battles, relentlessly extending his domain. He began to build permanent villages on the eastern edge of the prairie.
A new sect of man, adhering to a religion never before seen upon the earth, came from many countries and gathered on the edge of the prairie at a place called St. Joseph. These people, formed into groups and held together by their religious faith, marched out almost totally unarmed from the border settlement and into the wilderness. They were searching for a place they called Zion.
This story takes place during the time of the migration of those religious men and women—Saints, they called themselves—of that latter-day religion.