CHAPTER III.
John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet
and his comrades had departed from Salt Lake
City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him
when he thought of the young man’s return, and
of the impending loss of his adopted child. Yet
her bright and happy face reconciled him to the
arrangement more than any argument could have
done. He had always determined, deep down in
his resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce
him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such
a marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as
a shame and a disgrace. Whatever he might think
of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he
was inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the
subject, however, for to express an unorthodox
opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in
the Land of the Saints.
Yes, a dangerous matter—so dangerous that
even the most saintly dared only whisper their religious
opinions with bated breath, lest something
which fell from their lips might be misconstrued,
and bring down a swift retribution upon them.
The victims of persecution had now turned persecutors
on their own account, and persecutors of
the most terrible description. Not the Inquisition
of Seville, nor the German Vehmgericht, nor the
Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able to put a
more formidable machinery in motion than that
which cast a cloud over the State of Utah.
Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached
to it, made this organization doubly terrible.
It appeared to be omniscient and omnipotent,
and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who
held out against the Church vanished away, and
none knew whither he had gone or what had befallen
him. His wife and his children awaited him
at home, but no father ever returned to tell them
how he had fared at the hands of his secret judges.
A rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation,
and yet none knew what the nature might
be of this terrible power which was suspended
over them. No wonder that men went about in
fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of
the wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts
which oppressed them.
At first this vague and terrible power was exercised
only upon the recalcitrants who, having
embraced the Mormon faith, wished afterwards
to pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it
took a wider range. The supply of adult women
was running short, and polygamy without a female
population on which to draw was a barren
doctrine indeed. Strange rumours began to
be bandied about—rumours of murdered immigrants
and rifled camps in regions where Indians
had never been seen. Fresh women appeared in
the harems of the Elders—women who pined and
wept, and bore upon their faces the traces of an unextinguishable
horror. Belated wanderers upon the
mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked,
stealthy, and noiseless, who flitted by them in
the darkness. These tales and rumours took substance
and shape, and were corroborated and recorroborated,
until they resolved themselves into
a definite name. To this day, in the lonely ranches
of the West, the name of the Danite Band, or the
Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened
one.
Fuller knowledge of the organization which
produced such terrible results served to increase
rather than to lessen the horror which it inspired
in the minds of men. None knew who belonged
to this ruthless society. The names of the participators
in the deeds of blood and violence done
under the name of religion were kept profoundly
secret. The very friend to whom you communicated
your misgivings as to the Prophet and his
mission, might be one of those who would come
forth at night with fire and sword to exact a terrible
reparation. Hence every man feared his neighbour,
and none spoke of the things which were nearest
his heart.
One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set
out to his wheatfields, when he heard the click of
the latch, and, looking through the window, saw
a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming
up the pathway. His heart leapt to his mouth, for
this was none other than the great Brigham Young
himself. Full of trepidation—for he knew that such
a visit boded him little good—Ferrier ran to the
door to greet the Mormon chief. The latter, however,
received his salutations coldly, and followed
him with a stern face into the sitting-room.
“Brother Ferrier,” he said, taking a seat, and
eyeing the farmer keenly from under his lightcoloured
eyelashes, “the true believers have been
good friends to you. We picked you up when you
were starving in the desert, we shared our food
with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley, gave
you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to
wax rich under our protection. Is not this so?”
“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.
“In return for all this we asked but one condition:
that was, that you should embrace the true
faith, and conform in every way to its usages. This
you promised to do, and this, if common report
says truly, you have neglected.”
“And how have I neglected it?” asked Ferrier,
throwing out his hands in expostulation. “Have
I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended
at the Temple? Have I not—?”
“Where are your wives?” asked Young, looking
round him. “Call them in, that I may greet them.”
“It is true that I have not married,” Ferrier answered.
“But women were few, and there were
many who had better claims than I. I was not a
lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my
wants.”
“It is of that daughter that I would speak to
you,” said the leader of the Mormons. “She has
grown to be the flower of Utah, and has found
favour in the eyes of many who are high in the
land.”
John Ferrier groaned internally.
“There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve—
stories that she is sealed to some Gentile.
This must be the gossip of idle tongues. What is
the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph
Smith? ‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry
one of the elect; for if she wed a Gentile, she commits
a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is impossible
that you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer
your daughter to violate it.”
John Ferrier made no answer, but he played
nervously with his riding-whip.
“Upon this one point your whole faith shall be
tested—so it has been decided in the Sacred Council
of Four. The girl is young, and we would not
have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive
her of all choice. We Elders have many heifers, 1
but our children must also be provided. Stangerson
has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either
of them would gladly welcome your daughter to
their house. Let her choose between them. They
are young and rich, and of the true faith. What say
you to that?”
Ferrier remained silent for some little time with
his brows knitted.
“You will give us time,” he said at last. “My
daughter is very young—she is scarce of an age to
marry.”
“She shall have a month to choose,” said
Young, rising from his seat. “At the end of that
time she shall give her answer.”
He was passing through the door, when he
turned, with flushed face and flashing eyes. “It
were better for you, John Ferrier,” he thundered,
“that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons
upon the Sierra Blanco, than that you should
put your weak wills against the orders of the Holy
Four!”
With a threatening gesture of his hand, he
turned from the door, and Ferrier heard his heavy
step scrunching along the shingly path.
He was still sitting with his elbows upon his
knees, considering how he should broach the matter
to his daughter when a soft hand was laid
upon his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside
him. One glance at her pale, frightened face
showed him that she had heard what had passed.
“I could not help it,” she said, in answer to his
look. “His voice rang through the house. Oh, father,
father, what shall we do?”
“Don’t you scare yourself,” he answered, drawing
her to him, and passing his broad, rough hand
caressingly over her chestnut hair. “We’ll fix it up
somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy
kind o’ lessening for this chap, do you?”
A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only
answer.
“No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you
say you did. He’s a likely lad, and he’s a Christian,
which is more than these folk here, in spite o’ all
their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting
for Nevada to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send
him a message letting him know the hole we are
in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be
back here with a speed that would whip electrotelegraphs.”
Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s
description.
“When he comes, he will advise us for the best.
But it is for you that I am frightened, dear. One
hears—one hears such dreadful stories about those
who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always
happens to them.”
“But we haven’t opposed him yet,” her father
answered. “It will be time to look out for squalls
when we do. We have a clear month before us; at
the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of
Utah.”
“Leave Utah!”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“But the farm?”
“We will raise as much as we can in money, and
let the rest go. To tell the truth, Lucy, it isn’t the
first time I have thought of doing it. I don’t care
about knuckling under to any man, as these folk
do to their darned prophet. I’m a free-born American,
and it’s all new to me. Guess I’m too old to
learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he
might chance to run up against a charge of buckshot
travelling in the opposite direction.”
“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.
“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage
that. In the meantime, don’t you fret yourself,
my dearie, and don’t get your eyes swelled up, else
he’ll be walking into me when he sees you. There’s
nothing to be afeared about, and there’s no danger
at all.”
John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in
a very confident tone, but she could not help observing
that he paid unusual care to the fastening
of the doors that night, and that he carefully
cleaned and loaded the rusty old shotgun which
hung upon the wall of his bedroom.
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