To tell the truth, Will always was teasing us, but if he crooked his finger at us we would bawl. We bawled and squalled from morning till night. Yet we fairly worshiped him, and cried harder when he went away than when he was home.
CHAPTER VII. — INDIAN ENCOUNTER AND SCHOOL-DAY INCIDENTS.
WILL was not long at home. The Mormons, who were settled in Utah, rebelled when the government, objecting to the quality of justice meted out by Brigham Young, sent a federal judge to the territory. Troops, under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, were dispatched to quell the insurrection, and Russell, Majors & Waddell contracted to transport stores and beef cattle to the army massing against the Mormons in the fall of 1857. The train was a large one, better prepared against such an attack as routed the McCarthy brothers earlier in the summer; yet its fate was the same.
Will was assigned to duty as "extra" under Lew Simpson, an experienced wagon-master, and was subject to his orders only. There was the double danger of Mormons and Indians, so the pay was good. Forty dollars a month in gold looked like a large sum to an eleven-year-old.
Will's second departure was quite as tragic as the first. We girls, as before, were loud in our wailings, and offered to forgive him the depredations in the doll-house and all his teasings, if only he would not go away and be scalped by the Indians. Mother said little, but her anxious look, as she recalled the perils of the former trip, spoke volumes. He carried with him the memory of the open-mouthed admiration of little Charlie, to whom "Brother Will" was the greatest hero in the world. Turk's grief at the parting was not a whit less than ours, and the faithful old fellow seemed to realize that in Will's absence the duty of the family protector devolved on him; so he made no attempt to follow Will beyond the gate.
The train made good progress, and more than half the journey to Fort Bridger was accomplished without a setback. When the Rockies were reached, a noon halt was made near Green River, and here the men were surrounded and overcome by a large force of Danites, the "Avenging Angels" of the Mormon Church, who had "stolen the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in." These were responsible for the atrocious Mountain Meadow Massacre, in June of this same year, though the wily "Saints" had planned to place the odium of an unprovoked murder of innocent women and children upon the Indians, who had enough to answer for, and in this instance were but the tools of the Mormon Church. Brigham Young repudiated his accomplice, and allowed John D. Lee to become the scapegoat. The dying statement of this man is as pathetic as Cardinal Wolsey's arraignment of Henry VIII.
"A victim must be had," said he, "and I am that victim. For thirty years I studied to make Brigham Young's will my law. See now what I have come to this day. I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner. I do not fear death. I cannot go to a worse place than I am now in."
John D. Lee deserved his fate, but Brigham Young was none the less a coward.
The Danites spared the lives of the trainmen, but they made sad havoc of the supplies. These they knew to be intended for the use of the army opposed to Brigham Young. They carried off all the stores they could handle, drove with them or stampeded the cattle, and burned the wagons. The trainmen were permitted to retain one wagon and team, with just enough supplies to last them to army headquarters.