John Stevens' Courtship

XV

I'M A MORMON DYED IN THE WOOL

Meanwhile, the men on the frontier in Weber Canyon were uneasy and as full of vague forebodings of the future as were the women and children left in the safer shelter of the lower valleys. To be sure, the army had been kept out of the Valley for the whole winter; and spring had come, and they were still outside the confines of the Territory.

On the morning of May 28th, Colonel Lot Smith was ordered to the headquarters of the Utah militia. He was closeted with the General for an hour. When he emerged, he went at once to the tent of John Stevens.

"Captain Stevens, get Corporal Rose and a squad of six men and meet me outside of the lines in half an hour; you have an important duty ahead."

The order was instantly obeyed, and soon the little squad was riding out towards Camp Scott.

Arrived there, after hours of hard riding, they showed their passports to the pickets, and were at last allowed to enter the lines. As the little squad rode rapidly up towards the camp of the army, in the near distance, the mountaineers noted with interest the picture of tented life, now grown so familiar to Stevens, but so novel to the eyes of the other young Utahns. The white Sibley tents, now brown and rusty with the winter's use, were planted about the log and wooden structures in regular form in the center of the encampment, while blue-coated soldiers could be seen through the outer motley fringe of the camp's usual followers, pacing in sentry duty, or moving to and fro on other duty. The great white city rested on the brown and pale green landscape of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains like pinioned birdwings, brooding over the nest of mighty enterprises.

John turned to his companions and said:

"Corporal Rose, I shall leave you and the men here to rest quietly until my return. Remain in your saddles and prepare for quick action."

"Do you anticipate any trouble, Captain Stevens?"

"Soldiers do not anticipate. They prepare. I may not go armed into the presence of civil and military authorities on a message of peace. Hold my weapons and my horse until my return."

Handing his musket to his companion, and striding steadily forward, Captain Stevens was soon within the outskirts of the great camp at Fort Scott. In the rough camp life of the hordes of camp followers were mingled shouts of drunken laughter, oaths of anger, and the shrill cries of ribald women. He entered the narrow streets of rude houses in the edge of the camp, which consisted of half shacks, half wigwams, and all of them altogether abandoned in their reckless atmosphere of rude frontier conviviality. The look on the face of the mountaineer as he walked hastily through this outer fringe of corruption to reach the inner city of white orderliness was grim and foreboding.

Passing one of the larger tents in the motley village, a drunken man suddenly emerged therefrom with his pistol swinging in his reckless grasp.

"Who are you?" he demanded of John, reeling up and cocking the pistol directly in the face of the mountaineer. The drunken eyes of the soldier noted the rude garb of the stranger and with drunken quickness of malicious wit, he shouted noisily:

"Are you a damned Mormon?"

With a terrible look in the flashing eyes which passed along the gun barrel and pierced the very marrow of his assailant, John Stevens answered, through his clenched teeth:

"Yes siree! I am a 'Mormon!' Dyed in the wool!"

With a shaking hand the pistol was lowered, and the soldier said unsteadily:

"Well, you're a damned good feller."

John Stevens turned away in disgust and yet with a quick gratitude for the speedy deliverance.

And now he reached the entrance to the real Camp Scott.

He showed his passports to the sentry, and passed quickly into the tented enclosure, where he was soon ushered into the presence of Governor Cumming and a group of officers, among whom were the Peace Commissioners, no doubt, whom John Stevens had come to seek.

Governor Cumming's countenance lighted as he met the flashing gaze of John Stevens.

"So, Captain Stevens, you are to be my escort into Great Salt Lake City this second time also?"

"If that is my duty, I shall perform it even more cheerfully than I did before, Governor Cumming."

"Spoken like a soldier. But, friend Stevens, I want you to enlighten these gentlemen. Excuse me, gentlemen, I desire Captain Stevens, who has so recently come from the Valley, to tell you officers how cordial and friendly his President is."

Stevens' smile was very grim as he answered:

"President Brigham Young is always cordial to his friends."

"And always generous, even to his enemies, hey, Stevens?"

"He is just to every one."

The Governor hastened to cover the slight confusion he felt at his failure to draw happy assurances of peace from the mountaineer. At that moment a slim, dark, handsome young officer, whom Stevens recognized with a flash of his keen eye and quick memory, stepped jauntily out of the group beside the Governor and said lightly:

"My good man, why does your rebel leader court death and extinction in this defiant fashion?"

John strode towards the insulting speaker, and at that moment the Governor of the new Territory realized that he had more than a war of two belligerent forces; he had a religious as well as a sociological problem on his hands. He felt his own powerlessness, even to prevent sudden conflict between these two rash youths.

Suddenly an orderly entered and after saluting he announced:

"Governor Powell and Major McCulloch."

The entrance of these two men made a diversion. But neither the soldier nor the mountaineer forgot his personal grievance.

"Major McCulloch, here is the leader of the escort which Governor Young has sent to convey the Peace Commissioners into the Valley. I trust you will be mutually benefited by your acquaintance. Stevens is a fearless soldier and a just man. Captain Stevens, Major McCulloch and Governor Powell of Kentucky are the two Peace Commissioners sent out here by our gracious executive, President Buchanan."

"Captain Stevens, were you one of that gallant band of boys who went to San Bernardino in the 'Mormon' Battalion?" asked Major McCulloch.

John signified that he was, and the bluff old soldier grasped his hand and shook it heartily.

"Well, sir, I may think your leaders a damned set of hypocrites, but you men, and the women too, as to that, sir, who undertook that most damnable and difficult march in the way you did, and carried it through so gloriously, sir, you have all my hearty admiration. I am glad to see you, sir."

John responded to this genuine outburst with mingled feelings; he could but acknowledge the genuineness of the man, but the strictures upon the leaders of his people stung John almost to the quick reply. Again Governor Cumming was to the rescue.

"Gentlemen, we have no time for reminiscence. We must to business! There is no time to lose."

"Damn me, sir, I am not wasting time when I tell a man he is one of a body of heroes. Damn it, man, do you know anything about that tremendous march of half-clad, half-starved troops through a howling barren waste, over deserts and mountains, burying their dead, and nursing their sick, without one day's rest or pause? Damn it, man, you seem to be pretty ignorant of the greatest march undertaken by American or other soldiers. Do you know, sir, that that company of rough, untrained soldiers planted the first American flag on the soil of Lower California? Stevens, I am proud to take your hand. I saw your name on the muster roll and am glad to meet you."

Governor Cumming was nervously aware of the stare of contempt indulged in by more than one of the officers in the tent at this outburst of the peppery but generous major; but he was fain to wait till the soldier's tongue was tired, and then he hastily proceeded to outline the plan of action.

As the council proceeded, John Stevens perceived that, inadvertently perhaps, the Governor held out as a sort of peace-sop the picture of the comfortable homes down in the Valley below: the smiling farms, the young orchards and the fruitful gardens; these he hinted to the assembled officers would make life very endurable to all who might find shelter beneath the snowy peaks of the mountains towering above the lakes and valleys of that inhabited desert.

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.

"My dear fellow, that is a question that lies too deep for a soldier to answer. Which shall rule in this Territory? The civil or the military? Can you unriddle me the riddle, Governor Powell?"

That gentleman merely raised his eyebrows, as he sought to keep a steady seat on his fiercely trotting cayuse pony and said:

"Quien sabe?"

"There must be no mistake," said Governor Cumming, anxiously; "if there is any measure of peace to come into this unhappy Territory – and you gentlemen have been commissioned for that purpose and no other – I must be allowed full control as the civil head of this part of our Nation. There has been no rebellion, gentlemen; I beg you to remember that;" and John, who had heard all, loved the kindly, determined gentleman who maintained that fact in the face of all opponents. "You may patch up a peace as best you may. But it will never, can never, be done at the point of the sword."

"Quien sabe?" again asked the political Powell, who was open to conviction on either side.

And so the cavalcade rode swiftly on its way. They reached the entrance to the canyon at dusk; after a brief rest Capt. Stevens insisted that they should continue on their line of travel, because of the possible danger of attack from Indians or other stragglers in the mountains. And so it was that the party traversed the whole of the canyon fortifications under cover of darkness. And whatever John's motive in so doing might be, it was not communicated to the others. But when they passed peak after peak, all brilliantly illuminated by camp fires, around which men stood silent and grim, Governor Cumming felt some doubt as to whether this glowing tribute was a token of respect for themselves, or a skilful multiplication of resources on the part of the mountaineers.

XVI

THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS

As the small and weary party of travelers went into camp that night a messenger rode quietly up, and gave a small packet into the hands of Stevens. John did not unfasten the packet at once; he had much to do in making camp and preparing things for the night. But when the stillness of late evening brooded over them, John drew out from the wrapping a half dozen letters, among them being two of instructions to himself from General Wells; among the letters from friends and relatives to the Utah squad, there was a small missive, written in a delicate, familiar hand, addressed to Charlie Rose. John immediately went over to the far side of the camp fire where Charlie lay at ease, and delivered the small letter. He was quick to note the sudden excitement which quivered along every nerve of the young fellow, as his fingers grasped the expected note from Diantha Winthrop. Both knew who had written the letter. Both were mountaineers; ready of action, but slow to confide.

John took careful notice of all his own instructions, read by the light of his heaped-up fire. But in and through it all his thoughts were centered on that missive lying on the heart of Charlie Rose. The remembrance of that letter lay in his own breast for many days, like a coal of fire.

As the party emerged, two mornings later, June 7th, 1858, from the last of the canyon defiles, they were at once struck with the wild beauty before them. It was a barren valley, through which flowed a few green-fringed streams, a silvery line of shimmering water on its western horizon betokening the presence of the blue salt sea, and near the northern mountains the prosperous beginning of that inland empire, now dotted here and there, over the checker-board regularity of its wide-streeted design, with the green of planted fruit and shade trees. The geometrical fields around and beyond this incipient city amazed the party with their regularity.

"They plant their whole civilization in accordance with the line and plummet of order. Irrigation makes the system and regularity a vital necessity," explained the Governor.

"How distinctly you can see in this wonderful atmosphere," exclaimed Governor Powell. "I should think that town but a few miles away, and that lake shimmering in the distance is, how far away? A dozen or so miles?"

The Governor smiled as he explained distances and details with the growing enthusiasm which ever belonged to even temporary ownership in Utah scenery.

"This is the most wonderful place in the world. The eye is not weary, the brain is not taxed, nor the body aged, by life in this salubrious climate. And you can see objects many miles away. Indeed the clearness of the air makes distance a very deceptive matter."

"Make it all a little more civilized," growled the weary Major.

As the party rode down into the streets, the tomb-like silence greeted them uncannily, and the faces of the Commissioners were puzzled and anxious.

"What does all this deserted look mean?" asked Major McCulloch.

"Sir," answered the Governor, "I must now inform you of a condition in this Territory which I had hoped would be over and done with when we returned to this Valley. Brigham Young told me some weeks ago that he should vacate every town and hamlet in this Territory. More, he should set fire to every house, destroy every green thing, and leave behind him a desolate waste, such as he found when he came here."

"Zounds, man, how can the old rebel dare to do such a thing?" asked the Major.

"Major McCulloch, Brigham Young may be a fanatic, but he is not nor never has been, I am persuaded, a rebel. He loves his country as dearly as ever you did. And, sir, I cannot hear him vilified, even by a Peace Commissioner." The tone of gentle quiet in the last words robbed them of their ironical sting, and the irascible old soldier grunted as he shifted his position on his tired steed.

"These people have been most unjustly treated, so they think, and if you are to be peacemakers, you must meet them on their own footing, and not on any stilted plane of your own setting up."

The silent streets, the empty houses, the absence of even a dog or other animal was very mournful, and not a man in the party but felt the pressure of that heavy grief. The rattle of their horses' feet echoed far up the empty street. Zion had fled!

"What a pity there were not poet or artist here," said Governor Powell, as they rode with noisy echoes along the silent roads. Overhead the young cottonwood trees were throwing delicate shadows upon the trickling streams that coursed down by every sidewalk. In the well fenced city lots, surrounding the comfortable but lonely and deserted houses, had been planted generous kitchen gardens, now withering and dun in the sweltering sun. The forge of the blacksmith was silent and black through its widely opened door, and most of the windows and doors were barred and closed, while the flaunting weeds in all the streets and sidewalks bore eloquent evidence of the desertion of man.

"This is most damned lonesome, Governor Cumming. Not much like your gaudy pictures drawn out in camp."

"I had hoped that Brigham Young would repent himself; for I promised to make peace and to keep it."

"Pretty bold of you, sir, I must say, sir." And the old soldier sputtered with annoyance.

"Major, I brought my wife in from Camp Scott, as you know, last month. And when we came into this deserted city, partially deserted even then, she could not withhold her tears. She wept like a child to see this terrible sight. She besought me as only a tender woman could, to do everything in my power to bring this unhappy and wronged people back into the homes that their toil and sacrifices had created in this desert wild. And, sir, it is because of those tears, and that tender pleading, that you are here today. I have neither taken sleep nor food, except by necessity, till President Buchanan has listened to my appeal and has sent you gentlemen out to undo this most awful blunder."

"Sir," answered Governor Powell, with a note of reverence in his voice, "your judgment is no less to be commended than your sentiment."

"Quite right, sir; quite right," and the bluff old Major blew heartily at his bugle of a nose. "I wish we may see all this unhappy business well settled. But, sir, I don't like this damned loneliness!"

And neither did any of them.