Part 9

"Yes, Ellie, I bring word to Aunt Clara that she and you must be ready to start tomorrow morning for the South. Dian, your folks are to go tomorrow also. We didn't expect to go for another week, but the government is going to send some peace commissioners out to the Territory, and they may be as dangerous to our welfare as the peacemakers at Carthage. So we shall get away tomorrow, as many as can, and as fast as we can. 'Boil and bubble; toil and trouble,'" quoted Charlie, mournfully.

"Aunt Clara, if that is the case, I must hurry home and help Rachel; she may need me; and you and Ellen can get along without me," said Diantha.

"Oh, I shall be frightened, Dian. Just Aunt Clara and me here all this dreadful night," cried out Ellen.

"Hush, child! Why should we be frightened? No one wants anything of us. Go right on, Dian; you are needed at home. No doubt my sister will be here before long," expostulated Aunt Clara.

Ellen was fain to be comforted; her heart yearned for the presence of her dear friend Dian in this hour of common peril and distress. Yet she had Aunt Clara, and she must be content.

As Dian left the door, Charlie stood beside her and she whispered:

"Go back, Charlie, and stay with Aunt Clara awhile. I am not a bit afraid to run over home alone."

"Dian, let me come with you. I will come back to Aunt Clara; but I can't bear to see you or any of our girls out alone on the streets."

"Why, we always go out on the streets alone, when we have any occasion to; why should we be afraid now?"

But the young man was walking by her side even as she protested. As they reached Dian's gate he put a detaining hand upon her arm and said, earnestly:

"I have to go back to camp in Echo Canyon tomorrow; Dian, will you miss me?"

The dim darkened new moon was shining down upon the young people with the tender radiance of spring folly; they were young; Dian's heart was very sore with the quivering emotions wrought up in the last twenty-four hours. She liked Charlie Rose, for he was as wholesome and pure as he was honest, and he was always bright and gay. The night was very lonely.

"Of course, we shall miss you, Charlie. All the boys, even to Tom Allen, are out in the canyons. It is very lonely."

"You have Henry Boyle left," said her companion, somewhat maliciously.

"Pooh!" contemptuously. "He is almost ready to apostatize; he is scared to death over this army business. He has asked Governor Cumming to let him go out of the Territory under the protection of the soldiers."

"Can that be true, Dian? I would not have thought him a traitor as well as a coward."

"Are not all cowards traitors?"

"Hardly, Dian. That's too sweeping. But I am surprised about Henry. He cut quite a shine here for months."

The girl began to open her gate; she knew that her brother did not approve of young people standing at the gate in the late evenings.

"Dian, listen just one moment; here, wear this ring for me while I am gone; won't you?" As he spoke he drew a pretty ring from his finger, evidently an heirloom in his family. Rings were rare in those days, and Dian's eyes sparkled. She knew that she was not in love with Charlie; but neither was she with anyone else. Why should she not wear a ring?

"I will wear it awhile, Charlie, but I won't keep it. You must give it to the girl you are going to marry."

"That's what I'm doing, Dian."

The tone of his voice startled her with its intensity; she drew away from him, half frightened.

"Here, Charlie, take your ring; I do not want to wear it."

But with instant comprehension of his rashness, the young man said with a light laugh:

"Oh, pshaw, Dian! Oblige me by wearing my ring until I find the girl I am to marry. Then I will come to you for it."

Pacified, the girl pushed the ring back on her finger, and then at once turned into the gate, saying as she did so:

"I shall not forget you nor any of the boys in my prayers, Charlie. Goodnight and goodby."

And the young man was fain to be content with this general parting wish.

XIV.

"TO YOUR TENTS, O ISRAEL."

"To your tents, O Israel!"

What a picture of quiet despair melting into calm resignation those spring months presented! In April there had begun that wondrous move into the unknown which had been the inspiration and yet the dread of President Brigham Young. Only a patriot such as he could appreciate the love of home and country which had forced this people ten years before into a trackless wilderness; no one but a patriot could guess what these new sacrifices must mean to the hunted and driven people. Ten years of peace! Ten years of hardest labor ever performed by any people, at any period; and now to start out into the wilderness again! Who could tell the suffering, the anguish of a people whose hearthstones were their altars, and whose religion was a home!

As the wagon driven by Aunt Clara's own delicate hands turned into the State Road on the morning of the 12th of May, 1858, she saw a long, straggling trail of wagons ahead of her; old and weather-worn most of them were, having crossed the plains many times in the last twelve years. There were crowds of little children packed in many of the wagons, and in some there groaned and writhed the sick and helpless. But all faces wore the expression of exalted determination borne only by a people whose devotion could help them to bid adieu to comfort and ease when duty or inspiration gave the ringing cry:

"To your tents, O Israel!"

Ah, how often in their broken and turbulent history as a people had that clarion cry sounded in their ears!

And now, once again, Israel was on the march!

The usual chatter of women, the laugh of children, the merry exchange of field and farm gossip from the men, these common features of their communal life were almost hushed in the common sorrow which gripped the vitals of every wanderer in that straggling train which was conveying twenty thousand souls from Great Salt Lake City alone, and thousands more from the northern towns, to the mountains! From the Eagle Gate clear to the "Point of the Mountain"--that longest straight street in all the world--the whole length of that twenty miles of road, straight as engineering skill could plant--was one moving mass of wagons, with and without covers; some with quilts over the wagon boxes, and some without boxes or covers; driven by men, by women, and by little boys. Great oxen on some of them lumbered heavily along; horses, mules, and even patient cows were harnessed in the procession. The dust was blinding; the day began to be hot. Out in the western horizon shone the silvered edge of the Great Salt Lake, glistening, diamond-bright, under the ardent sun.

At Dr. Dunyon's place at the Point of the Mountain the wagons of the Winthrop family drew alongside the slower mule team driven by Aunt Clara's slender but capable hands; and the voice of Ellen Tyler called out from under the dusty wagon cover:

"Rachel, where's Dian? I have been looking for her all the morning."

"She is just behind in the last wagon. She thought she could help grandmother if she stayed in that wagon. You get out and ride with her; there's plenty of room in there;" and Rachel halted to chat awhile with Aunt Clara.

Ellen quickly accepted this welcome invitation, and hurried back to her friend.

She found Diantha sitting uncomfortably on a high box, leaving the spring seat to be occupied by the old lady who was showing signs of great weariness.

"Oh, Ellie, I am so glad you have come. Help me to unroll this bedding and get a place fixed for grandma to lie down. I was sure she could not ride on the spring seat, but she wanted to try it to save trouble."

The girls quickly unfastened the huge roll of bedding, and with the aid of the lad who was driving the team, they made a fairly comfortable bed on the boxes inside the wagon.

"Now, grandma, you try to sleep a little; you have not slept a wink all night."

"Who could sleep, dearie?" answered the plaintive voice of the old lady.

The girls covered her feet with her shawl, and then both of them crowded into the spring seat with the driver.

"Say, Dian, whose ring are you wearing? It looks like Charlie's," said the quick voice of Ellen.

"Whose ring but my own, silly? Should I be wearing other people's rings?"

Ellen was abashed with the little rebuff. She was too proud to ask for confidence not willingly shared, yet she was sure the ring belonged to her friend Charlie; she hastily turned the talk into safe, impersonal channels.

"Don't you wonder where we are going, Dian?"

"My brother Appleton says we are to stop in Provo for awhile, until we know what the army is going to do."

"And where do you think we will go after that?"

"No one seems to know. I guess President Young knows; he knows everything. But he is too wise to tell anybody what he thinks, till the time comes for action."

"I have heard Aunt Clara speak as if we were bound for a place in Mexico, called Sonora."

"Well, I am sure I don't care where we go. We have had to pick up and leave our beloved homes again, driven by those who hate us for our religion. Aunt Clara says that not all of these men in Washington are so cruel; Col. Haines told her that Captain Van Arden was our true friend. And there are doubtless others."

"Did he say that of Captain Van Arden?" asked Ellie, her eyes aflame with some pleasant recollection of the gallant captain's visit.

"Indeed he did. And he, together with Colonel Haines has persuaded President Buchanan to send some peace commissioners out here to try and fix up this awful blunder made by Buchanan himself. I wonder how it is that men are so easily prejudiced against our people?"

Ellen was not given to general reflections; to her, life was an extremely personal affair. So she began a running chatter about the news they had received of John Stevens.

"Did you know that John is now one of the chief officers in the Utah militia?"

Dian turned the ring round and round on her finger and said nothing in reply to Ellen's chatter. She was not a bit interested in John Stevens, nor was she prepared to open her own thoughts for the keen eyes of her loving friend. There are some things that are too hazy in a girl's mind for analysis; and Dian was content to listen while she idly dreamed of Charlie Rose and what he would do about the ring, when he really fell in love with a girl. And what would John Stevens think about her wearing Charlie's ring? But the hours dragged along, night came, and the weary travelers camped wherever water and wood could be found. Next morning's sun found most of the mighty host once more on the dusty highway, faces to the South, and with uplifted hearts to a Providence that had never forgotten Zion.

"To your tents, O Israel!"

Israel was on the march! The high road of Destiny might be dusty with blinding prejudice, and hot with men's hate and scorn. But Israel was just a band of loyal men and women who trusted God and feared no man. And so they went forth, this modern Israel, singing hymns while the issues of life and death wove themselves into intricate patterns on the web and woof of the mysterious future!

The evening shades of the second day found our friends halted on the Provo river bottoms, a part of that temporary encampment which made the small city a veritable summer pioneer metropolis.

The long, tiresome journey was at last completed, and the Winthrops and Tylers could find no better place in all Provo than a low adobe hut, which was then used as a bear den by the family who had built themselves a new house further up the street. Mr. Bruin was taken summarily out of his quarters, the boys and children spent several hours cleaning out the hut, while the women cooked their frugal supper over the campfire, and then all retired at a late hour, weary with the long two days' travel.

XV.

I'M A MORMON DYED IN THE WOOL.

Meanwhile, the men on the frontier in Weber Canyon were uneasy and as full of vague forebodings of the future as were the women and children left in the safer shelter of the lower valleys. To be sure, the army had been kept out of the Valley for the whole winter; and spring had come, and they were still outside the confines of the Territory.

On the morning of May 28th, Colonel Lot Smith was ordered to the headquarters of the Utah militia. He was closeted with the General for an hour. When he emerged, he went at once to the tent of John Stevens.

"Captain Stevens, get Corporal Rose and a squad of six men and meet me outside of the lines in half an hour; you have an important duty ahead."

The order was instantly obeyed, and soon the little squad was riding out towards Camp Scott.

Arrived there, after hours of hard riding, they showed their passports to the pickets, and were at last allowed to enter the lines. As the little squad rode rapidly up towards the camp of the army, in the near distance, the mountaineers noted with interest the picture of tented life, now grown so familiar to Stevens, but so novel to the eyes of the other young Utahns. The white Sibley tents, now brown and rusty with the winter's use, were planted about the log and wooden structures in regular form in the center of the encampment, while blue-coated soldiers could be seen through the outer motley fringe of the camp's usual followers, pacing in sentry duty, or moving to and fro on other duty. The great white city rested on the brown and pale green landscape of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains like pinioned birdwings, brooding over the nest of mighty enterprises.

John turned to his companions and said:

"Corporal Rose, I shall leave you and the men here to rest quietly until my return. Remain in your saddles and prepare for quick action."

"Do you anticipate any trouble, Captain Stevens?"

"Soldiers do not anticipate. They prepare. I may not go armed into the presence of civil and military authorities on a message of peace. Hold my weapons and my horse until my return."

Handing his musket to his companion, and striding steadily forward, Captain Stevens was soon within the outskirts of the great camp at Fort Scott. In the rough camp life of the hordes of camp followers were mingled shouts of drunken laughter, oaths of anger, and the shrill cries of ribald women. He entered the narrow streets of rude houses in the edge of the camp, which consisted of half shacks, half wigwams, and all of them altogether abandoned in their reckless atmosphere of rude frontier conviviality. The look on the face of the mountaineer as he walked hastily through this outer fringe of corruption to reach the inner city of white orderliness was grim and foreboding.

Passing one of the larger tents in the motley village, a drunken man suddenly emerged therefrom with his pistol swinging in his reckless grasp.

"Who are you?" he demanded of John, reeling up and cocking the pistol directly in the face of the mountaineer. The drunken eyes of the soldier noted the rude garb of the stranger and with drunken quickness of malicious wit, he shouted noisily:

"Are you a damned Mormon?"

With a terrible look in the flashing eyes which passed along the gun barrel and pierced the very marrow of his assailant, John Stevens answered, through his clenched teeth:

"Yes siree! I am a 'Mormon!' Dyed in the wool!"

With a shaking hand the pistol was lowered, and the soldier said unsteadily:

"Well, you're a damned good feller."

John Stevens turned away in disgust and yet with a quick gratitude for the speedy deliverance.

And now he reached the entrance to the real Camp Scott.

He showed his passports to the sentry, and passed quickly into the tented enclosure, where he was soon ushered into the presence of Governor Cumming and a group of officers, among whom were the Peace Commissioners, no doubt, whom John Stevens had come to seek.

Governor Cumming's countenance lighted as he met the flashing gaze of John Stevens.

"So, Captain Stevens, you are to be my escort into Great Salt Lake City this second time also?"

"If that is my duty, I shall perform it even more cheerfully than I did before, Governor Cumming."

"Spoken like a soldier. But, friend Stevens, I want you to enlighten these gentlemen. Excuse me, gentlemen, I desire Captain Stevens, who has so recently come from the Valley, to tell you officers how cordial and friendly his President is."

Stevens' smile was very grim as he answered:

"President Brigham Young is always cordial to his friends."

"And always generous, even to his enemies, hey, Stevens?"

"He is just to every one."

The Governor hastened to cover the slight confusion he felt at his failure to draw happy assurances of peace from the mountaineer. At that moment a slim, dark, handsome young officer, whom Stevens recognized with a flash of his keen eye and quick memory, stepped jauntily out of the group beside the Governor and said lightly:

"My good man, why does your rebel leader court death and extinction in this defiant fashion?"

John strode towards the insulting speaker, and at that moment the Governor of the new Territory realized that he had more than a war of two belligerent forces; he had a religious as well as a sociological problem on his hands. He felt his own powerlessness, even to prevent sudden conflict between these two rash youths.

Suddenly an orderly entered and after saluting he announced:

"Governor Powell and Major McCulloch."

The entrance of these two men made a diversion. But neither the soldier nor the mountaineer forgot his personal grievance.

"Major McCulloch, here is the leader of the escort which Governor Young has sent to convey the Peace Commissioners into the Valley. I trust you will be mutually benefited by your acquaintance. Stevens is a fearless soldier and a just man. Captain Stevens, Major McCulloch and Governor Powell of Kentucky are the two Peace Commissioners sent out here by our gracious executive, President Buchanan."

"Captain Stevens, were you one of that gallant band of boys who went to San Bernardino in the 'Mormon' Battalion?" asked Major McCulloch.

John signified that he was, and the bluff old soldier grasped his hand and shook it heartily.

"Well, sir, I may think your leaders a damned set of hypocrites, but you men, and the women too, as to that, sir, who undertook that most damnable and difficult march in the way you did, and carried it through so gloriously, sir, you have all my hearty admiration. I am glad to see you, sir."

John responded to this genuine outburst with mingled feelings; he could but acknowledge the genuineness of the man, but the strictures upon the leaders of his people stung John almost to the quick reply. Again Governor Cumming was to the rescue.

"Gentlemen, we have no time for reminiscence. We must to business! There is no time to lose."

"Damn me, sir, I am not wasting time when I tell a man he is one of a body of heroes. Damn it, man, do you know anything about that tremendous march of half-clad, half-starved troops through a howling barren waste, over deserts and mountains, burying their dead, and nursing their sick, without one day's rest or pause? Damn it, man, you seem to be pretty ignorant of the greatest march undertaken by American or other soldiers. Do you know, sir, that that company of rough, untrained soldiers planted the first American flag on the soil of Lower California? Stevens, I am proud to take your hand. I saw your name on the muster roll and am glad to meet you."

Governor Cumming was nervously aware of the stare of contempt indulged in by more than one of the officers in the tent at this outburst of the peppery but generous major; but he was fain to wait till the soldier's tongue was tired, and then he hastily proceeded to outline the plan of action.

As the council proceeded, John Stevens perceived that, inadvertently perhaps, the Governor held out as a sort of peace-sop the picture of the comfortable homes down in the Valley below: the smiling farms, the young orchards and the fruitful gardens; these he hinted to the assembled officers would make life very endurable to all who might find shelter beneath the snowy peaks of the mountains towering above the lakes and valleys of that inhabited desert.

John was forced to listen in silence to the seeming bait which was held out to the weary soldiers who had wintered almost where Gen. Harney said they would--in "hell"--and "hell" it had been to those restless men in the frozen passes of the desert mountains.

"How can all this be true, Governor?" asked ex-Governor and Senator-elect Powell, the other member of the Peace Commission, "when it is hardly ten years since these people came into these barren wastes?"

"My dear sir, these 'Mormons' have done more marvelous things than ever did Moses. And they have even put the Pilgrim Fathers to the blush with their gigantic toil and its marvelous results. They call it the special providence of God; hey, Stevens?" to the young man whom he was anxious to placate and who was listening savagely to this somewhat indiscreet parley; "but the blossoming desert below may be called, in all reason, the result of energy and grit. Yankee grit! Why, sir, you will find that those people down there are mostly of pure New England descent. A very few English, and fewer Europeans. Yankees they are, most of them. And a very courageous lot of Yankees they all are. They are the peers of any in the matter of sobriety, courage and industry."

John could but feel that Governor Cumming was trying to be fair in his explanation, and that helped him the better to bear the insolent airs of some of the blue-coated officers, who gazed at him loftily. His manhood could hardly be insulted by such personalities.

As he waited without, after the conference had been broken up, and the Governor and Commissioners had withdrawn, he noted one of the officers, whom he had heard called Col. Saxey, trying to still the wild boasts of some of the younger men, who could not quite rid themselves of the prospective triumph over the "damned Mormons."

"This whole business," asserted Saxey, "is nothing but a scheme on the part of King Buchanan to get the flower of the Union troops out here just to further his own wily political ends. He is the king of blunderers, say I!"

John moved hastily away; he was aware of the few wise heads in that vast army of ten thousand, but he also knew that time and time again, the demons of mobocracy had broken over all civil and military control and had plundered and driven his poor and unhappy people. And now, behold, he was to escort the Peace Commissioners into the Valley! Well, he would do his full duty.

"I have sent a message to General Albert Sidney Johnston," said the Governor, after they rode out of camp under the protection of the "Mormon" squad, "charging him to remain here quietly until you gentlemen of the Peace Commission have done your work, and until it is quite safe and proper to debouch our army into the valleys below."

"And do you expect General Johnston to obey your orders?" asked Major McCulloch. "If he remains in camp one day after we leave it, it will be because he wishes to do so, not because you command it."

"What do you mean Major. Am I not the head of the government in this Territory? Who shall command, if not the representative of the United States government?" and the gentleman proudly swept his glance over the generous form of his companion.

"My dear fellow, that is a question that lies too deep for a soldier to answer. Which shall rule in this Territory? The civil or the military? Can you unriddle me the riddle, Governor Powell?"

That gentleman merely raised his eyebrows, as he sought to keep a steady seat on his fiercely trotting cayuse pony and said:

"Quien sabe?"