CHAPTER II.
The Flower Of Utah
trials and privations endured by the immigrant
Mormons before they came to their final haven.
From the shores of the Mississippi to the western
slopes of the Rocky Mountains they had struggled
on with a constancy almost unparalleled in
history. The savage man, and the savage beast,
hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease—every impediment
which Nature could place in the way—had
all been overcome with Anglo-Saxon tenacity. Yet
the long journey and the accumulated terrors had
shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them.
There was not one who did not sink upon his
knees in heartfelt prayer when they saw the broad
valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight beneath
them, and learned from the lips of their leader that
this was the promised land, and that these virgin
acres were to be theirs for evermore.
Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful
administrator as well as a resolute chief. Maps
were drawn and charts prepared, in which the
future city was sketched out. All around farms
were apportioned and allotted in proportion to
the standing of each individual. The tradesman
was put to his trade and the artisan to his calling.
In the town streets and squares sprang up, as if
by magic. In the country there was draining and
hedging, planting and clearing, until the next summer
saw the whole country golden with the wheat
crop. Everything prospered in the strange settlement.
Above all, the great temple which they had
erected in the centre of the city grew ever taller
and larger. From the first blush of dawn until the
closing of the twilight, the clatter of the hammer
and the rasp of the saw was never absent from the
monument which the immigrants erected to Him
who had led them safe through many dangers.
The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little
girl who had shared his fortunes and had been
adopted as his daughter, accompanied the Mormons
to the end of their great pilgrimage. Little
Lucy Ferrier was borne along pleasantly enough
in Elder Stangerson’s waggon, a retreat which she
shared with the Mormon’s three wives and with
his son, a headstrong forward boy of twelve. Having
rallied, with the elasticity of childhood, from
the shock caused by her mother’s death, she soon
became a pet with the women, and reconciled herself
to this new life in her moving canvas-covered
home. In the meantime Ferrier having recovered
from his privations, distinguished himself as a useful
guide and an indefatigable hunter. So rapidly
did he gain the esteem of his new companions,
that when they reached the end of their wanderings,
it was unanimously agreed that he should
be provided with as large and as fertile a tract of
land as any of the settlers, with the exception of
Young himself, and of Stangerson, Kemball, Johnston,
and Drebber, who were the four principal Elders.
On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built
himself a substantial log-house, which received so
many additions in succeeding years that it grew
into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical
turn of mind, keen in his dealings and skilful
with his hands. His iron constitution enabled
him to work morning and evening at improving
and tilling his lands. Hence it came about that his
farm and all that belonged to him prospered exceedingly.
In three years he was better off than
his neighbours, in six he was well-to-do, in nine
he was rich, and in twelve there were not half a
dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City who
could compare with him. From the great inland
sea to the distant Wahsatch Mountains there was
no name better known than that of John Ferrier.
There was one way and only one in which he
offended the susceptibilities of his co-religionists.
No argument or persuasion could ever induce him
to set up a female establishment after the manner
of his companions. He never gave reasons for this
persistent refusal, but contented himself by resolutely
and inflexibly adhering to his determination.
There were some who accused him of lukewarmness
in his adopted religion, and others who
put it down to greed of wealth and reluctance to
incur expense. Others, again, spoke of some early
love affair, and of a fair-haired girl who had pined
away on the shores of the Atlantic. Whatever the
reason, Ferrier remained strictly celibate. In every
other respect he conformed to the religion of the
young settlement, and gained the name of being
an orthodox and straight-walking man.
Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and
assisted her adopted father in all his undertakings.
The keen air of the mountains and the balsamic
odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and
mother to the young girl. As year succeeded to
year she grew taller and stronger, her cheek more
rudy, and her step more elastic. Many a wayfarer
upon the high road which ran by Ferrier’s farm
felt long-forgotten thoughts revive in their mind
as they watched her lithe girlish figure tripping
through the wheatfields, or met her mounted upon
her father’s mustang, and managing it with all the
ease and grace of a true child of the West. So the
bud blossomed into a flower, and the year which
saw her father the richest of the farmers left her as
fair a specimen of American girlhood as could be
found in the whole Pacific slope.
It was not the father, however, who first discovered
that the child had developed into the woman.
It seldom is in such cases. That mysterious change
is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by
dates. Least of all does the maiden herself know
it until the tone of a voice or the touch of a hand
sets her heart thrilling within her, and she learns,
with a mixture of pride and of fear, that a new and
a larger nature has awoken within her. There are
few who cannot recall that day and remember the
one little incident which heralded the dawn of a
new life. In the case of Lucy Ferrier the occasion
was serious enough in itself, apart from its future
influence on her destiny and that of many besides.
It was a warm June morning, and the Latter
Day Saints were as busy as the bees whose hive
they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields
and in the streets rose the same hum of human industry.
Down the dusty high roads defiled long
streams of heavily-laden mules, all heading to the
west, for the gold fever had broken out in California,
and the Overland Route lay through the
City of the Elect. There, too, were droves of sheep
and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture
lands, and trains of tired immigrants, men and
horses equally weary of their interminable journey.
Through all this motley assemblage, threading
her way with the skill of an accomplished rider,
there galloped Lucy Ferrier, her fair face flushed
with the exercise and her long chestnut hair floating
out behind her. She had a commission from
her father in the City, and was dashing in as she
had done many a time before, with all the fearlessness
of youth, thinking only of her task and how
it was to be performed. The travel-stained adventurers
gazed after her in astonishment, and even
the unemotional Indians, journeying in with their
pelties, relaxed their accustomed stoicism as they
marvelled at the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.
She had reached the outskirts of the city when
she found the road blocked by a great drove of cattle,
driven by a half-dozen wild-looking herdsmen
from the plains. In her impatience she endeavoured
to pass this obstacle by pushing her horse
into what appeared to be a gap. Scarcely had
she got fairly into it, however, before the beasts
closed in behind her, and she found herself completely
imbedded in the moving stream of fierceeyed,
long-horned bullocks. Accustomed as she
was to deal with cattle, she was not alarmed at
her situation, but took advantage of every opportunity
to urge her horse on in the hopes of pushing
her way through the cavalcade. Unfortunately
the horns of one of the creatures, either by accident
or design, came in violent contact with the
flank of the mustang, and excited it to madness.
In an instant it reared up upon its hind legs with
a snort of rage, and pranced and tossed in a way
that would have unseated any but a most skilful
rider. The situation was full of peril. Every plunge
of the excited horse brought it against the horns
again, and goaded it to fresh madness. It was all
that the girl could do to keep herself in the saddle,
yet a slip would mean a terrible death under
the hoofs of the unwieldy and terrified animals.
Unaccustomed to sudden emergencies, her head
began to swim, and her grip upon the bridle to
relax. Choked by the rising cloud of dust and by
the steam from the struggling creatures, she might
have abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a
kindly voice at her elbow which assured her of
assistance. At the same moment a sinewy brown
hand caught the frightened horse by the curb, and
forcing a way through the drove, soon brought her
to the outskirts.
“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver,
respectfully.
She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and
laughed saucily. “I’m awful frightened,” she said,
naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho
would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”
“Thank God you kept your seat,” the other said
earnestly. He was a tall, savage-looking young fellow,
mounted on a powerful roan horse, and clad
in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle
slung over his shoulders. “I guess you are the
daughter of John Ferrier,” he remarked, “I saw you
ride down from his house. When you see him,
ask him if he remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St.
Louis. If he’s the same Ferrier, my father and he
were pretty thick.”
“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?”
she asked, demurely.
The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion,
and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure.
“I’ll do so,” he said, “we’ve been in the mountains
for two months, and are not over and above in visiting
condition. He must take us as he finds us.”
“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so
have I,” she answered, “he’s awful fond of me. If
those cows had jumped on me he’d have never got
over it.”
“Neither would I,” said her companion.
“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make
much matter to you, anyhow. You ain’t even a
friend of ours.”
The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy
over this remark that Lucy Ferrier laughed aloud.
“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of
course, you are a friend now. You must come and
see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t
trust me with his business any more. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad
sombrero, and bending over her little hand. She
wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with
her riding-whip, and darted away down the broad
road in a rolling cloud of dust.
Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions,
gloomy and taciturn. He and they had
been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting
for silver, and were returning to Salt Lake City in
the hope of raising capital enough to work some
lodes which they had discovered. He had been
as keen as any of them upon the business until
this sudden incident had drawn his thoughts
into another channel. The sight of the fair young
girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes,
had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart to its very
depths. When she had vanished from his sight,
he realized that a crisis had come in his life, and
that neither silver speculations nor any other questions
could ever be of such importance to him as
this new and all-absorbing one. The love which
had sprung up in his heart was not the sudden,
changeable fancy of a boy, but rather the wild,
fierce passion of a man of strong will and imperious
temper. He had been accustomed to succeed
in all that he undertook. He swore in his heart
that he would not fail in this if human effort and
human perseverance could render him successful.
He called on John Ferrier that night, and many
times again, until his face was a familiar one at
the farm-house. John, cooped up in the valley,
and absorbed in his work, had had little chance
of learning the news of the outside world during
the last twelve years. All this Jefferson Hope
was able to tell him, and in a style which interested
Lucy as well as her father. He had been a
pioneer in California, and could narrate many a
strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in
those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too,
and a trapper, a silver explorer, and a ranchman.
Wherever stirring adventures were to be had, Jefferson
Hope had been there in search of them. He
soon became a favourite with the old farmer, who
spoke eloquently of his virtues. On such occasions,
Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her
bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that
her young heart was no longer her own. Her honest
father may not have observed these symptoms,
but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the
man who had won her affections.
It was a summer evening when he came galloping
down the road and pulled up at the gate. She
was at the doorway, and came down to meet him.
He threw the bridle over the fence and strode up
the pathway.
“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands
in his, and gazing tenderly down into her face; “I
won’t ask you to come with me now, but will you
be ready to come when I am here again?”
“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing
and laughing.
“A couple of months at the outside. I will come
and claim you then, my darling. There’s no one
who can stand between us.”
“And how about father?” she asked.
“He has given his consent, provided we get
these mines working all right. I have no fear on
that head.”
“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged
it all, there’s no more to be said,” she whispered,
with her cheek against his broad breast.
“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and
kissing her. “It is settled, then. The longer I stay,
the harder it will be to go. They are waiting for me
at the ca ˜ non. Good-bye, my own darling—goodbye.
In two months you shall see me.”
He tore himself from her as he spoke, and,
flinging himself upon his horse, galloped furiously
away, never even looking round, as though afraid
that his resolution might fail him if he took one
glance at what he was leaving. She stood at the
gate, gazing after him until he vanished from her
sight. Then she walked back into the house, the
happiest girl in all Utah.
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