President Young also looked upon the matter in the same light.
After this conversation, Brother Smith gave me a note from President Brigham Young, in which was a written request to raise a company of twenty men, and bring in what we could find of the remains of Brother George A. Smith, Jr. Winter having set in, I considered this a difficult task.
It was necessary to go to Parowan for men and supplies, a distance of some seventy miles. This accomplished, we were soon on our way.
Our route was a difficult one to travel in the winter season. The ford of the Colorado was deep and dangerous at any time, but especially when the ice was running. Sometimes there were steep rocks to climb, at other times the trail ran along the almost perpendicular sides of deep rock fissures, narrow, with frequent short turns, where a misstep might plunge us or our animals hundreds of feet below. Sometimes the precipitous rocks were covered with ice, which had to be hacked with our hatchets before we could feel any surety of a foothold.
At one time we waited until nearly midday for the sun to melt the frost and ice on a steep rock, that we might be able to get our animals out of a gulch on to the plain above. On this occasion my pack mule slipped and fell, then rolled and slid down to within about a yard of the edge of a chasm below. We fastened a long lariat to the animal, and saved it and the pack.
On arriving at the place where we had left the body of young Brother Smith, we found the head and some of the larger bones. We prepared them for carrying as well as we could.
At our last camp in going out, the chief who had led the hostile Navajos on our previous trip, came to us, accompanied by his wife, and said if he had known what he afterwards learned about us, he would have protected instead of injuring us.
Nothing of special interest took place in returning home. I went with the remains of George A. Smith, Jr., to Salt Lake City, and delivered them to his friends.
This completed one of the most trying series of circumstances of my life. That the misfortune was no greater is due to the kindly Providence of our Heavenly Father, and the faith in Him and confidence in each other, of the brethren involved in it.
President Young proffered to pay us for our trip. I replied that no one who went with me made any charge, and, as for myself, I was willing to wait for my pay until the resurrection of the just.