Brother Dowdle rose, and, after saying that “he didn't feel like saying much, begged to remind all hands, that dancing was solemn like, to be done with proper devotion, and not with laughing and talking, of which he hoped to hear little or none; that joy was to be in their hearts, and not on their lips; that they danced for the glory of the Lord, and not their own amusement, as did the Gentiles.” After saying thus, he called upon brother Ezra to “strike up:” sundry couples stood forth, and the ball commenced.
Ezra of the violin was a tall, shambling Missourian, with a pair of “homespun” pantaloons thrust into the legs of his heavy boots. Nodding his head in time with the music, he occasionally gave instructions to such of the dancers as were at fault, singing them to the tune he was playing, in a dismal nasal tone,—
“Down the centre—hands across,”
“You, Jake Herring—thump it,”
“Now, you all go right ahead—
Every one of you hump it.
Every one of you—hump it.”
The last words being the signal that all should clap the steam on, which they did con amore, and with comical seriousness.
A mountaineer, Rube Herring, whom we have more than once met in the course of this narrative, became a convert to the Mormon creed, and held forth its wonderful doctrines to such of the incredulous trappers as he could induce to listen to him. Old Rube stood nearly six feet six in height, and was spare and bony in make. He had picked up a most extraordinary cloth coat amongst the Mormons, which had belonged to some one his equal in stature. This coat, which was of a snuff-brown colour, had its waist about a hand's span from the nape of Rube's neck, or about a yard above its proper position, and the skirts reached to his ancles. A slouching felt-hat covered his head, from which long black hair escaped, hanging in flakes over his lantern-jaws. His pantaloons of buckskin were shrunk with wet, and reached midway between his knees and ancles, and his huge feet were encased in moccasins of buffalo-cow skin.
Rube was never without the book of Mormon in his hand, and his sonorous voice might be heard, at all hours of the day and night, reading passages from its wonderful pages. He stood the badgering of the hunters with most perfect good humour, and said there never was such a book as that ever before printed; that the Mormons were the “biggest kind” of prophets, and theirs the best faith ever man believed in.