"John," said Aunt Clara, with a note of anxiety in her voice, "what is it now?"
"We are to meet and escort Governor Cumming into the Territory."
"Governor Cumming? Is Brigham Young no longer Governor of Utah then?" asked Charlie.
"I have this day delivered the official information that the President of the United States has appointed a new Governor for our unhappy Territory. It is for this reason, ostensibly, that the flower of the American army has come out into the wilderness of the West. Thousands of trained soldiers have been sent to install one man in a Territory of a few hundred pioneers." John spoke bitterly, but it was not his to question. He was but to obey.
"What is the name of this new Governor?" asked Dian with quick sarcasm in her tones.
"His name is Cumming, and so far as I am able to judge, he is not to blame for this blunder of Buchanan's. But, boys, meet me at the Eagle Gate at midnight."
"Oh, John, will the soldiers kill us all, or drive us from our homes?" asked Ellen, tearfully.
"Only God can answer that," replied John, solemnly.
The heart of every girl was thrilled with the sense of personal and communal danger. Yet, there mingled with it all a paradoxical and feminine joy in the intrepid character of the men who would protect them and their homes in life or in death.
Ellen ran up to Dian, and with her arms around her neck, begged her friend to "stay all night." Ellen felt suddenly a sense of coming disaster; her very heart was choking in her throat, and she felt that she must have many people near her. Dian was glad to stay; although her own thoughts were not busy with herself, but dwelt upon the larger interests of the starving army beyond the mountains, who were all human beings, even if enemies. Her soul bowed in prayer for Brigham Young and the other leaders of her people, whose judgment and wisdom must be supreme in this the people's most trying hour.