John Stevens' Courtship. Gates Susa Young

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      And wished their promise they had kept!

      "If you folks don't hurry, we'll have every scrap of the fish eaten up."

      The prosaic appeal reminded Ellen that she had left her friend alone with the work of preparation of the dinner, and so they hastened down to the other raft and soon paddled across to the island.

      The picnic dinner was scarcely over before Tom Allen was down on the narrow beach and calling for all hands to embark. The children followed him quickly, and he managed to secure both Charlie Rose and Diantha as his other passengers; just as Henry Boyle came running down the rocks, Tom called: "Get the pole and give us a push from shore."

      "Wait," called the young Englishman.

      Boyle seized the pole, and sprang for the raft, but in an instant he was waist deep in the icy water, and the raft was floating off beyond his reach.

      "Come and kiss yoo papa," yelled out the piping chorus of children's voices, while Charlie recited dramatically, "The boy stood on the burning deck," with his own absurd modifications of the original text.

      Dian was angry with the children, thus to taunt their helpless and now uncomfortable friend, but the children only cried out the refrain, again and again, and that piping treble swept over the waters, as the poor youth left behind waded up on to the shore of the island and turned his back resentfully upon his jeering tormentors.

      At that moment, John himself rounded the island with his own raft and picked up the discomfited youth, whose once brilliant red shirt, freshly ironed that morning by Rachel's kind hands, was once more faded and streaked, and added to that humiliation was the awful discomfiture of those dripping, wet, and heavy leathern pantaloons, bordered with dripping fringe. Surely his punishment was very heavy.

      "Hurry home," said John, kindly, as they landed, "and get on some dry clothing."

      As poor Boyle plunged and swashed on his hurried homeward way, the cluck of those swishing breeches and the sluice of his brand new but water-filled shoes made it difficult for even Ellen to keep herself from joining the children in their peals of naughty merriment.

      Yet, with all the sundry small mishaps, surely there had never been so happy and so blissful a day vouchsafed to the "Mormon" refugees in all their tempestuous short existence.

      But the echo calls and calls from peak to peak and cries the challenge out to happiness and freedom. And who shall answer, O spirit of a nameless past, so long pent up in these hoary mountain vales!

       V

      "THE ARMY IS UPON US"

      Oyez!!

      It is a long and a difficult climb into the tops of the Wasatch mountains; and it takes hours and hours to climb; and the knees grow weak, and the breath comes hard, and the body bends to the grass.

      Oyez! Oyez!

      And the news of the evil day may travel so fast or travel so slow, good sir, but it travels apace, and reaches the hills by a steep and a difficult road. And long are the miles and dusty the path which stretch between the rolling river Platte and the tops of the Wasatch hills. But men must ride, good sirs, when they bear the message of evil report, for evil finds wings of wind, while good goes only by post, good sirs. And the men must ride fast, and the men must ride far, for the miles are many and the road is long that stretch between the Platte and the Wasatch hills.

      Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

      The people in the hills are happy today, for they see not, neither do they hear, the echo which flies in sinister message from peak to peak as the men ride fast and spare not, climbing and climbing still, to reach the tops of the Wasatch hills. And the echo is caught and stilled in its upward peal by the curling folds of that star-lit flag which flutters and flies at full-masted pride on the top of the highest tree on the top of the Wasatch hills.

      Oyez! Good Sirs, Oyez!

      The young people ran and danced and sang on their way down the road from the upper lake, but run as they would Ellen was ahead of them all, and she reached the spot where she and John had lingered on their upward way, at the jutting promontory, and the whole party stood breathless and silent in speechless admiration.

      But it was more than the beauty of the scene which caught and riveted John's attention. He stood on the very edge of the precipice and shaded his eye with his hand, then quickly took out his field glass.

      "What is it, John?" asked Charlie Rose, sober in an instant at the look upon his friend's face.

      "Show me; let me help to make things attractive," said Tom, with a teasing note in his voice.

      "What do you see, John? I can see three horsemen coming up the Valley trail. They are just now turning the point," said Charley.

      "Oh, I see them," shouted Harvey, in a boy's excitement and with a mountaineers clear vision, he added, "And they are not our folks. They look too tired and rough for any of our folks. Say John, isn't that Porter Rockwell, with his hair braided round under his hat? Look! I thought he was out on the Platte River."

      But John had caught the profile of the man afar off and he turned down the dangerous short cut and was galloping down the path with the speed of a panther. The remainder of the young men followed helter-shelter and the two older girls were left to go down the safer and slower path with the little girls, with what speed they could muster.

      "I think we are silly people to run for nothing," said Dian as they flew down the path, but she was ahead of Ellen even as she spoke, and for some unknown reason, her own blood was a tingle with the electrical disturbance in the spiritual atmosphere about her.

      "The United States is sending an army to destroy us."

      Almost before they had left the dense woods this message had flashed into their ears.

      "The United States is sending an army against the Saints."

      The people whispered it, spoke it, shouted it, and hissed it as they passed group after group. The children cried it; the women moaned it; and even the trees caught the sinister echo as it drifted from peak to peak and lost itself among the chalk-white cliffs as they gazed down in silence at the sudden excitement, spreading like a pall over that happy group. But as swift as the rumor spread it was followed as swiftly by a whisper of "Peace" and again "Peace, the Lord is on the side of the innocent," and the men drove off the frown of gloom, the women smiled again in trusting hope, and even the children forgot to cry as the influence of the leader, Brigham Young, spread out like a bright cloud, and the spoken word of quiet peace was passed from camp to camp.

      The men might ride, and evil tidings come, but into the very woof and web of Mormonism was woven a trust in Providence which no careless hand might sever.

      "Can Aunt Clara feed these hungry travelers?" asked John Stevens, half an hour later, as he raised the flap of her tent, and introduced the three dusty travel-stained men, accompanied by Judge Elias Smith, who had been their companion from Great Salt Lake City. Abram O. Smoot, tall and eagle-visaged, his splendid limbs stiff and worn with the long ride between the Platte and these peaceful glens in the Wasatch; Porter Rockwell, his hawkeyed glance narrowed into one glittering line as he swept off his worn and ragged hat, was crowned by a wreath of burnished braids that many a woman might envy, but which no woman's hand might ever clip, for death would find him still crowned with those dark and burnished tresses. And last, Judson Stoddard, alert, resourceful and intrepid rider, soldier and friend. Aunt Clara ministered to them СКАЧАТЬ