John was forced to listen in silence to the seeming bait which was held out to the weary soldiers who had wintered almost where Gen. Harney said they would—in "hell"—and "hell" it had been to those restless men in the frozen passes of the desert mountains.
"How can all this be true, Governor?" asked ex-Governor and Senator-elect Powell, the other member of the Peace Commission, "when it is hardly ten years since these people came into these barren wastes?"
"My dear sir, these 'Mormons' have done more marvelous things than ever did Moses. And they have even put the Pilgrim Fathers to the blush with their gigantic toil and its marvelous results. They call it the special providence of God; hey, Stevens?" to the young man whom he was anxious to placate and who was listening savagely to this somewhat indiscreet parley; "but the blossoming desert below may be called, in all reason, the result of energy and grit. Yankee grit! Why, sir, you will find that those people down there are mostly of pure New England descent. A very few English, and fewer Europeans. Yankees they are, most of them. And a very courageous lot of Yankees they all are. They are the peers of any in the matter of sobriety, courage and industry."
John could but feel that Governor Cumming was trying to be fair in his explanation, and that helped him the better to bear the insolent airs of some of the blue-coated officers, who gazed at him loftily. His manhood could hardly be insulted by such personalities.
As he waited without, after the conference had been broken up, and the Governor and Commissioners had withdrawn, he noted one of the officers, whom he had heard called Col. Saxey, trying to still the wild boasts of some of the younger men, who could not quite rid themselves of the prospective triumph over the "damned Mormons."
"This whole business," asserted Saxey, "is nothing but a scheme on the part of King Buchanan to get the flower of the Union troops out here just to further his own wily political ends. He is the king of blunderers, say I!"
John moved hastily away; he was aware of the few wise heads in that vast army of ten thousand, but he also knew that time and time again, the demons of mobocracy had broken over all civil and military control and had plundered and driven his poor and unhappy people. And now, behold, he was to escort the Peace Commissioners into the Valley! Well, he would do his full duty.
"I have sent a message to General Albert Sidney Johnston," said the Governor, after they rode out of camp under the protection of the "Mormon" squad, "charging him to remain here quietly until you gentlemen of the Peace Commission have done your work, and until it is quite safe and proper to debouch our army into the valleys below."
"And do you expect General Johnston to obey your orders?" asked Major McCulloch. "If he remains in camp one day after we leave it, it will be because he wishes to do so, not because you command it."
"What do you mean Major. Am I not the head of the government in this Territory? Who shall command, if not the representative of the United States government?" and the gentleman proudly swept his glance over the generous form of his companion.