Then they drive away, and looking at the stars and stripes which float from the flag-staff of this camp bristling with cannon and Gatling guns—for Douglas, in those days, was held rather in the manner of a beleaguered fortress than in the easy method of a local garrison—the girl cannot help contrasting the columns of blue infantry she has just seen, and the vast and motley assemblage of men in the Tabernacle, who, at the word of their president, would turn upon and assault this camp and make war upon these United States of America. For the danger of Mormonism has been and will be, not in the feeling of animosity that its masses hold to this government, for they have but little, but in their blind, unthinking allegiance to a power they hold superior to it—that of their priesthood and the officers of their Church.
Then they come down the hill into the city again for supper at the Townsend House, which takes place in the evening, dinner in that primitive country being the midday meal. Finishing this, they are called upon by Mrs. Bussey, who insists upon their not omitting her ball.
During her visit she introduces to the Livingstons a number of Gentile ladies in the hotel and a few of the gentlemen engaged in speculation in the neighboring mines, who are quartered at the house, and they pass a quiet evening in the parlor, in conversation with their new-made acquaintances, whom Miss Travenion charms with a song or two.
These are mostly plaintive melodies, for thoughts of her father will run in the girl's brain and somehow make her sad. Being full of the subject now, she questions the mining operators that she meets if they know Ralph Travenion, and receives the usual answer that they have never heard of him; and her anxiety for tidings of him increases and would now be desperate, did not a few words she catches from one mining operator to another set her thinking of the man who has gone to Tintic.
"I am afraid Harry Lawrence has a hard row to hoe," remarks Jackson of the Bully Boy to Thomas of the Neptune. "He has got Tranyon and the Mormons against him. They will stop his sale to the English company if they do not get a goodly portion of his Mineral Hill."
"He has got one chance, however," says the other.
"Indeed! What is that?"
"Why, don't you know," replies Thomas of the Neptune, "that the prophet up there," he nods his head in the direction of Brigham Young's private residence, "and some of the other leaders of the Church are beginning to be afraid of Tranyon?"
"Afraid of his business talents?" asks the other. "He has got plenty of them."
"No, afraid of his steadfastness in the faith of Joe Smith; afraid that he will refuse to pay his tithing!" laughs Thomas. "They say he made a million last year, and he hates to give up a hundred thousand to the Church." Then he adds very seriously: "Godby has gone back on them, and the Walkers are no more to be relied upon for Church dues, and this time they feel they cannot stand another apostasy, and will take desperate measures to stop it."