He proposed that he would furnish me a suit of clothes suitable for the part I was to play, furnish money to pay my expenses, such as hotel bills, whiskey bills, ball-room bills, and pay me fifty dollars per month, I to do as he told me, or as near as I could. "And, at the end of one month," said he, "if your work does not suit me, or if I don't suit you, I can pay you off and you can go your way; or if you stay and we work up this case as I anticipate, as soon as the work is completed I will pay you one hundred dollars per month instead of fifty."
Under these conditions I went to work for him, and the next two days were spent in drilling me on Mormon phrases, their customs And so on, he having been there some three months, had got pretty well posted on the Mormon doctrine.
When I got my new suit of clothes on and he got my hair fixed up just to suit him I looked in the mirror, and I could hardly believe that it was Will Drannan.
The third day we mounted our horses and started across the country to a little town called Provo, which is about forty miles from Salt Lake, if I have not forgotten. Here, we are both Mormons, are brothers, and our business buying cattle; looking around to see who has cattle to sell. We arrived at Provo on Sunday evening and made the acquaintance of two young men who were Mormons. They asked us to go to church with them. "All right," said Mr. Howard, "but where will my brother and I stay to-night?" The eldest of the two young men said: "One of you can stay with me and the other can stay with Jim," referring to his chum. So it fell to my lot to go with Jim after church.
On our way to church, naturally enough the boys asked our names, and Howard spoke up and said: "My name is George Howard, and this is my brother Frank." And I will tell you now with all candor I did not feel right over this, for it was the first time in my life that I had ever lived under an assumed name, but I had agreed to do what I could, and although I would have given the best horse I had to have been out of the scrape, yet I was into it and I was determined to go through with it if possible. That evening when we came out of church Jim gave me an introduction to his two sisters and they asked me to walk home with them from church, and I did so.
After conversing with them for some time and getting a little acquainted with them, I asked the girl on my left how old she was, and she said she was seventeen. I asked her how long she had lived in this country. She said: "My father was one of the first settlers in this country. He came here among the first emigrants and I was raised here in this country."
"Is that so?" I asked. "Then you were here in this part of the country at the time of the Mountain Meadow massacre?" "Yes," said she, "but you know we must not talk about that." "Well," said I, "you know they were all Gentiles that were killed and what's the difference?" "Well," she said, "I think it was all wrong any way."
I asked her if her father was in that fight and she said: "Let's don't talk about that, please don't ask me any more questions about it."
By this time we had reached the gate, and the conversation stopped for that time. The next day I tried to get a chance to talk to her, but my efforts were all in vain. That afternoon I met Howard and told him of the conversation I had with the young lady, and he insisted on my working on her father if I could get a chance to have a private conversation with her.
On Wednesday night there was to be a big dance at the church, and it being free to all, we attended it. In the mean time I had engaged the company of those two young ladies for the dance. I paid all due respect to the young lady, but did not mention the affair of which I was desirous of obtaining information until we were returning from supper to the church, when I again made mention of the affair in such a manner that I did not think she would suspect anything wrong. But she gave me to understand in plain language that she would not converse on that subject under any circumstances.