“Amen to that, stranger, and ef you had seen and knew as much as I do you would say it with your hull heart.”
“What can be done to save her Waltermyer? She is my only child—all that is left to me. You will help a father in his worst troubles? Go with me—help me and name your price—any thing, all, I possess shall be yours, if you save her.”
“Stranger, I will go. Thar’s my hand on it, and though I say it who shouldn’t, it’s just as honest a hand as thar is on the frontier, and never yet took money for a kindness.”
“I know it—I believe it.”
“Then don’t talk to me of pay. Kirk Waltermyer ain’t no Digger Indian, or yaller greaser to take blood-money. If thar is any thing, stranger, that would have kept me from lendin’ you a helpin’ hand it is that same offer to pay.”
“Forgive me and forget. Trouble—this terrible trouble, should outweigh my mistake.”
“And so it does. Besides, you didn’t know any better. You men who are brought up in cities and have your souls cramped up between brick walls—who buy and sell one another like horses, don’t know what it is to live out human freedom on the perarers—to enjoy life—to be MEN! But we are losin’ time. Let half a dozen of your best men mount their swiftest horses, arm themselves to the teeth and follow me. La Moine, you stay, guide the train to Fort Bridger and wait thar until you hear from me. Every hour we can gain now is worth a day to us. Come, stranger, don’t get downhearted. Kirk Waltermyer will see your girl righted or thar shall be more howlin’ and prayin’ in Salt Lake than Brigham Young ever got up at one of his powows.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he had whistled his horse to his side, saddled and bridled him, flung himself on his back, and was dashing away with the perfect grace and horsemanship of an Arapahoe. Rude as he was in speech and manner—unlettered and unrefined—a purer diamond never yet was concealed in any man’s breast than the heart of Waltermyer.
CHAPTER III.
THE APOSTLE.
The followers of Joseph Smith, the martyr to his own fanaticism, were traveling slowly, like the Israelites of old, from their ruined homes in Illinois to the far-off Salt Lake. On the night in which our story deals with them, they had pitched their tents for the night on the grassy banks of the Sweet Water river. Before them loomed up Independence Rock, like some castellated tower of feudal times—grand, hoary, grim and picturesque. Beyond was the “Devil’s Gate,” through which they would soon have to pass. A strikingly appropriate name this for the passage that was to usher them to the valley of the “Saints” beyond! He who named it must have been gifted with prophetic wisdom with regard to the people who were to travel it in after days.