As I was weary with hard riding and want of sleep, I hurried them on after the emigrants, while I traveled more slowly. I instructed these men to make every possible effort to save the company and their effects, and to save their lives at all hazards.
They overtook the company one hundred and fifty-six miles from Cedar City, on Muddy Creek, in the heart of the Indian country. They found a large body of excited Indians preparing to attack and destroy them.
Finding it altogether impossible to control the Indians, they compromised the matter. The Indians agreed to only take the loose stock of the company, and not meddle with the teams and wagons, and not make any effort to take their lives.
The Indians took the loose stock, amounting to four hundred and eighty head, on the fifty-mile desert beyond the Muddy.
The brethren remained with the company, determined to assist in its defense, should the Indians attempt anything more than they had agreed.
The company continued their journey safely to California. Brothers Knight and Leavitt returned to the Santa Clara.
As soon as possible, I talked with the principal Indians engaged in this affair, and they agreed that the stock not killed should be given up. I wrote to the owners in California, and they sent their agent, Mr. Lane, with whom I went to the Muddy, and the stock was delivered to him as the Indians had agreed.
CHAPTER VII
In the winter season, my family usually lived at the Santa Clara settlement, thirty miles south of the Mountain Meadows, to which place they moved in the spring, to keep stock during the summer.