"Oh, well, as I told a raw-boned fellow in the dooryard back there, if the women get a sight of us, they will follow us without our even going to the trouble to whistle for them. I have known the dear creatures all my life, don't you know?"
All day, the tramp, tramp of armed men, the rattle of heavy field-pieces, the jingle of swords and guns, the rumble of baggage wagons, with occasional bursts of music from the regimental bands—these were the only sounds heard through the tomb-like and deserted streets. So profound was the silence that, at intervals, between the passage of the columns, the slight monotonous gurgle of City Creek struck on every ear. The only living creatures to be seen was the group of men who stood around Governor Cumming on the Council House corner and waved a cheerful yet subdued salute to the troops, as they filed lustily by. Inside of many of these houses, no sign of inhabiting life remained; the furniture was piled in great heaps, with under portions of shavings and kindlings and straw, ready to be burned at a moment's notice; while in a few houses there were eager watching, silent men inside, who held flint and steel ready to apply to these crisp piles of shavings if ever the marching feet outside had stopped and attempted any desecration. Outside, everywhere, great piles of straw lay upon grass, garden and outbuildings; all ready for the instant torch of destruction.
All day, all day, the marching feet and wondering eyes passed through the desolate streets. There were no stops, no breaking of ranks, save here and there, where some daring soldier's hand would seize and pluck a fragrant bloom from a flaunting rose-bush, or a thirsty, dust-stained soldier would stoop, and making a cup of his hands, drink of the running, sparkling streams along the road. The divisions clanged heavily along with no rest to the steady, onward, measured march. The fragrant grass-grown streets were not more eloquent of a whole people's sorrowing desertion than were the sun-rotting barrels and buckets near the unused wells of water.
Forty miles to the south there awaited in the silent desert the spot where these journeying troops would halt in their march, and striking permanent camp, sojourn for a season. But the army would camp for the night on the dry plain across the river Jordan to the west of the City.
As the last company of soldiers filed past the western streets in the late summer evening, John Stevens warily closed his own and other doors in the neighborhood, and together with a party of scouts, he rode stealthily down to the army camp, made temporarily a couple of miles beyond the river Jordan. He watched in silent suspicion the whole night through, and when morning light found men and camp-followers astir, he, too, was on the alert, and at a safe distance he followed the long moving column for two days as it stretched from the banks of the river Jordan down through the narrow pass beside the treacherous stream's banks. On and on the marching lines flowed heavily down the southern road, past the northern edge of the lovely sheet of blue, clear water called Utah Lake; around and around this lake the road ran, past the northern shores of its clear blue glory; past the chain of canyon defiles which opened at last into the Cedar Valley, and down into the heart of that desert vale, where only the cricket and sage-brush gave evidence of animal or vegetable life. Here on the valley's one water course the army halted. They made their permanent quarters there and called their first Utah camp "Floyd," in honor of the Secretary of War.
Here, then, the army of the United States was quartered, with the approval of the great and distant heads of the Government, and the disapproval of the surrounding bands of half-hungry and half-frightened Ute and Pauvan Indians; with the grudged consent of General Albert Sidney Johnston, and the silent acquiescence, that armed truce, of the intrepid "Mormon" leader, Brigham Young.
As the last tent was set, and the whole machinery of camp life once more set in motion, Captain John Stevens found himself at liberty to ride, with his companions, into the southern rendezvous of his people, at Provo, and to make due report to his commanding officers. As he turned his face eastward and rode at the head of his company his relieved thoughts flew from those larger affairs of state to his personal affairs; and he wondered silently whether it were whim or affection which kept Charlie Rose's ring on the finger of Diantha Winthrop. If it were whim—well, eternity was very long; if it were affection—
"Corporal Rose," he said, somewhat sharply, "we shall take no rest for dinner, but press on at once for Provo."
And Corporal Rose, albeit full of wonder as to the sharpness and the haste, was very glad to ride straight on to Provo.