Chapter II: Part 2

The only solution of the problem was the holding of a memorial service for her. One of the Pocatello pastors went up to hold such a service at the Agency and Ben was present. He was told that if he lived with his heart clean, "no have bad heart," he would see his Mary again. No one could tell to what extent this message found place in his mind until later. One day he was seen approaching the mission school slowly and apparently sorrowful. Miss F---- met him at the door. On entering he said, "O, Miss F----, bad Injun no liky me have hay, no liky me have wikiup all same witee man. Bad Injun burn me up; all me wikiup, all me hay, all me everyt'ing. But me no have bad heart [that means, "I do not hate them"], me no have bad heart, Miss F----; me no have bad heart; me want see my lil' gal some day."

So the lonesome man went away to his one-time home to try to live among the unchristian and unprogressive Indians without having any hatred toward them, for he wanted to meet his Mary.

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[1] Mary is a very frequent name among the Bannocks of Fort Hall.

A THREE-CORNERED SERMON

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not
return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.--_Isaiah_.

Thy word, Almighty Lord,
Where'er it enters in
Is sharper than a two-edged sword
To slay the man of sin.
--_Montgomery_.

A peculiar wireless telegraphy has ever been in vogue among the aborigines of many lands. The interior tribes of Africa have it and use it to perfection. The plains Indians and those of the mountains know its use, and messages are sent which cause much wonderment to the white man.

In 1899 the ghost-dancing was in progress among all the Indians of the United States. All Indiandom was excited to the highest degree. Disturbances among them were watched and feared by the government. The Bannocks and Shoshones of Fort Hall were nerved to a high tension and quickly athrill to any new movement. Hearing that an unusual interest was being displayed among the Nez Perces of the north, a committee of the Fort Hall men was sent to ascertain what it was. It proved to be a revival of religion conducted by the Presbyterians. The committee was composed of heathens, but they saw, were conquered, and came home reporting it was good, and requested that there be similar meetings held among them. It was so planned and arranged. A Nez Perce Presbyterian minister was to be their visitant evangelist.

The various Protestant churches in Pocatello had been by turns supplying preaching to the people of Fort Hall's tribes, and to the whites who were the residents at Ross Fork, the seat of the Agency. On the particular evening when the special meetings were to begin it was the turn of the writer to preach. The Rev. James Hays, a full-blood Nez Perce, was there as evangelist. But he could not speak a word of the Bannock-Shoshone mixed jargonized dialect. He had been educated in English and could understand me so as to interpret, rather translate into Nez Perce, but who could reach the people to whom we had the message? There was present a renegade fellow, Pat Tyhee (big Pat, or chief Pat), _not an Irishman_. He was a Shoshone who years before had gone to live among the Nez Perces and had married a woman of them. He could interpret Hays, but could he be trusted? He was a very heathenish heathen. The missionary teacher, Miss Frost, consulted with Mr. Hays and myself as to the wisdom of asking Pat to play interpreter for the momentous occasion; after fervently praying we concluded to take the risk and trust to God's leading. Pat, the heathen, was chosen. It was a queer audience. There were some whites, some Indians. It was odd to see Gun, the Agency policeman, there with his only prisoner. There were Billy George, the tribal judge; and Hubert Tetoby, the assistant blacksmith, as well as others of local importance. To add to the excitement of the evening, it was the night before ration day at the Agency, when all the Indians from the entire Reservation were present--fifteen hundred of them--for their share. It was a wild time--the raw blanketed man was there for a Saturnalia. He knew no law but his desires. The unprotected young woman had no security from him. Indeed, while we were gathering in the mission house for this service, I noticed a slight stirring at my feet, and looked, and there was Mary, a young widow, who had scuttled in silent as a partridge and was snuggling down on the floor just back of my feet, successful in getting away from some red Lothario who had pursued her to the door.

The service began. I preached from the words of Martha to Mary, "The Master is come and is calling for thee." It was an attempt to show that Jesus needs us as living agents to work with him. Mr. Hays, I suppose, and always have believed, translated to Pat in Nez Perce what I said. Pat in turn interpreted to the assembled band of mixed Indians. To be sure, I understood not a thing either said: but when I looked at the earnest, love-ridden, and sweat-covered face of the yearning Nez Perce, I believed that what he was saying was all I said and more. And Pat--he was a sight! Had his hands been tied, I really believed he could not have expressed himself at all. He is about six feet six in his moccasins, and those long arms accompanied the lengthy guttural expressions in an intensely effective manner. At the close of the three-cornered sermon the question was asked, "How many of you from this time forward are willing to follow Jesus and be known as his assistants?" Among the most prominent and enthusiastic replies that came were those of Hubert Tetoby, Billy George, _and Pat Tyhee, the heathen interpreter_. Looking me straight in the eyes, swerving neither to the one side nor the other, these madly-in-earnest men of the mountains held their hands up high as they could reach them. And in six weeks from that date there was a Presbyterian church there composed of sixty-five members, of whom only one, the teacher, Miss Frost, was white; and Pat Tyhee was made one of the elders. There had been no Christians there at all before those meetings. It was an Indian Pentecost.

THREE YEARS AFTER

Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.
--_Alexander Pope_.

Some hypercritical person, and possibly some sincere soul, may ask: "Did such revival do any permanent good? Does not the so-near savage easily backslide?" To this may be given this partial reply: It depends somewhat on the sort of white folks there are in the immediate vicinity. As elsewhere stated in these pages, the pale face has been the great undoer of the red man. "Civilization" in some garbs is worse than savagery. The white skin has been the password for some awful systems of debauchery among the aborigines of America. An Indian speaker, and chief of police of one of the Indian reservations of Oregon, said at the Second World's Christian Citizenship Conference in Portland, 1913: "Before the white man came the Indian had no jails or locks on their doors. The white man brought whisky; there is now need of both jails and locks."

About three years after the meeting at Fort Hall, where the three-cornered sermon was delivered, Mr. Roosevelt made a visit to the West. Major A. F. Caldwell, Agent of Indian Affairs at Fort Hall, told the fourteen hundred red natives that if they would turn out in their handsomest manner, he would give them all a "big eat" after the visit. Promptly on the day designated the famous rough rider and the desert riders were in evidence, the latter in abundance. They went far out along the railway to meet the train, and then galloped their wiry, pintoed ponies along by the side of the car, performing many feats of daring horsemanship, throwing themselves from the flying bronchos and remounting without a pause, and other stunts which they invented. After the "pageant had fled" the expectant and hungry Indians were herded into a large vacant lot in Pocatello, where all sorts of provisions had been collected for the feast. I was anxious to see them, and so were many other equally bold and possibly a wee bit impolite people, for when they had assembled a great crowd of curious white folks was there gazing.

The Young Men's Christian Association secretary and I overlooked the scene from a hotel whose wall formed one side of the enclosure where the long tables of loose planks were laid. All was hurry, bustle, and confusion, not much unlike what everyone has witnessed at the ordinary picnic.

The Christians and the non-Christians had divided as though not of the same tribe or blood. These had their tables on one side, those on the opposite. When all was ready the savage part of the divided company fell to with vim, vigor, and haste, just as white people often do at outdoor dinners; but see the others! After all had been carefully spread, odorous cans of tempting viands opened, and everything adjusted, the hungry horde was seated. A low word of attention was given by some one; every head was bowed, quiet was absolute, and Billy George in guttural tones said something the Lord of all could understand. When he was through these also fell to with an unmistakable zest and the day ended merrily for the Indians and profitably for some of the onlookers.

This Billy George was crippled by the bullets of some of the reservation Indians who did not like his progressive ways. He had lost one leg for this reason. One night, as he was fastening up his animals, he stooped to lift one of the bars of his corral. Just as he raised himself, a shot that was doubtless meant for his lowered head struck his leg and it had to be amputated.

On the night of his conversion, when he had raised his hand high as he could reach, he in the after meeting mimicked the white folks who had slowly and with many side-lookings so slightly moved their hands upward. He said, "Huh, white folks heap scared, do this way;" and he imitated them grotesquely.

Often when leaving his teepee for the hills in order to haul his winter wood, he would go to the home of Miss F----, the missionary, and tell her he was going away, and at the same time asking her to be sure to care for his squaw and papooses if he did not return; for, said he, "Bad Injun ketchy me some day; no liky me; you savy me liky whity man."

So fair of mind was he, and so humanely progressive, that the government had chosen him as one of the men before whom petty cases among the tribe were taken. If he could not solve the problems, they were then carried to the Agent; then on up if not there adjusted.

When the Presbyterian Missionary Board assisted these Christians to build a neat house of worship it was, and still is, known far and near as Billy George's Church.

CHIEF JOSEPH AND HIS LOST WALLOWA

Land where my fathers died.--_Smith_.

A Cornishman was once asked why there were no public houses (saloons) in his town. He replied, "Once a man by the name of John Wesley preached here, and there have been none since."

Once a man by the name of General O. O. Howard passed through eastern Oregon and northern Idaho, and the country has not been the same since. The occasion was the uprising of the Nez Perces Indians in 1877. Ridpath, the historian, tells of the long chase of the red men and the weary pursuit of "sixteen hundred miles." It was truly a Fabian retreat on the part of Chief Joseph and his band, but General Howard was dealing mercifully with them; at a dozen places he could have given battle, but he spared the useless slaughter, avoiding the needless scaring of the white settlers and the complement of dire scenes and death that would necessarily follow.

The story of Chief Joseph is one of the most interesting unwritten chapters in the history of the great Northwest. The fact of the capture of this wily Indian leader with most of his band is well known. They were banished from the Alpine regions of eastern Oregon and compelled to make their home across the marble cañon of the Snake in the State of Idaho, far from their loved Wallowa.

The valley of Wallowa (an Indian name) is one of the most beautiful spots imaginable. At its southern end stand pillared peaks, eternally snow-crowned, rivaling the finest to be seen in Switzerland. Here lies the limpid, glassy Lake Wallowa, near the busy town of Joseph, so named in honor of the great chieftain. This emerald valley nestles in the lap of the Blue Mountains, and was from time immemorial the favorite home of the exiled natives. When Bonneville passed through that remote region in the early thirties they were in the enjoyment of that valley and the rugged recesses of the Imnaha between Oregon and Walla Walla. The famous red fish, the yank, and others possibly peculiar to the place were found in abundance in the lake. It was their treasure house for finny food, and the hovering hills furnished flesh of deer and bear.

At a point in the valley twenty miles north of the lake, Old Joseph, father of the more famous son, lies buried; his bramble-covered grave is to be seen by the roadside to-day. For this reason something more than an instinctive affection dominated the heart of the younger man.

Not long before his death, accompanied by guards, Chief Joseph was taken into the valley on some sort of errand, and was thus permitted to see again the enchanting beauties of his birthplace and early home. How hungry were his eyes as he viewed the great opaline pool which reflected the sinewy cedars and pointed pines; as he looked upon the surrounding glen, the ancient game-range, the distant dissolving plain, the hills heightening through their timber-covered sides up to the very sky! His bursting heart cried out, "I have but one thing to ask for from the White Father: Give me this lake and the land around it, and some few acres surrounding the grave of my father."

The white man's ax had cleared the timber about the old man's grave; the white man's plow might menace the sacred sod above the mute dust of his honored sire. He wished to protect that place hallowed by love--his own father's grave. But his plea was denied. He was not permitted to have what in all reason seemed his very own.

He was now an old man, with eyes that had never shed tears, a soul that was unacquainted with fear, and a heart that had never weakened in the presence of danger. But at the thought that he was no more to see his lovely Wallowa his eyes melted, his soul sank, his heart broke.

Chief Joseph died near Spokane not many years since, wailing out the one great desire of his life, a final glimpse of the land of his birth, the hunting ground of his manhood and the graves of his sires.

THE WHITE MAN'S BOOK

The book--this holy book, on every line
Mark'd with the seal of high divinity,
On every leaf bedew'd with drops of love
Divine, and with the eternal heraldry
And signature of God Almighty stampt
From first to last--this ray of sacred light,
This lamp, from off the everlasting throne,
Mercy took down, and, in the night of time
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow;
And evermore beseeching men, with tears
And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live;
And many to her voice gave ear, and read,
Believed, obey'd.
--_Pollok._

Having heard the early explorers speak of God, the Bible, and religion, and knowing that on Sundays the flag was raised and work suspended, the Indians wanted to know more about these things, and two chiefs, Hee-oh'ks-te-kin (Rabbit-skin Leggins) and H'co-a-h'co-a-cotes-min (No-horns-on-his-Head) set out to find the white missionaries who could inform their troubled minds. They did not reach Saint Louis until 1832, where they found General Clark, whom they had known. The messengers were of the Nez Perce tribe. General Clark took them to the cathedral and showed them the pictures of the saints and entertained them in the best and most approved Christian style; but they were heart-hungry and went home dissatisfied. One of them made the following speech to the kindly soldier, General Clark:

"I came to you over a trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of my fathers who have all gone the long way. I came with one eye partly opened, for more light for my people who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back with both eyes closed? How can I go back blind to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms, through many enemies and strange lands, that I might carry much back to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathers who came with us--the braves of many winters and wars--we leave asleep by your great water and wigwam.[2] They were tired in many moons, and their moccasins wore out. My people sent me to get the white man's Book of heaven. You took me where you allow your women to dance, as we do not ours, and the Book was not there; you showed me the images of the good spirits and the pictures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long, sad trail to my people of the dark land. You make my feet heavy with the burden of gifts, and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, but the Book is not among them. When I tell my poor, blind people, after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men or our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to the other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them and no white man's Book will make the way plain. I have no more words."

It was the rumor of this address that started Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman westward over the old Trail.

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[2] Four of their number had died, and only one reached home.

LIGHTS AND SIDELIGHTS

I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills,
My heart with rapture thrills.
--_Smith_.

LIGHTS AND SIDELIGHTS

The Old Oregon Trail takes bold way through some of the very finest scenery of the West. These new ships of the desert, the passenger trains, glide gracefully down from the aerial highways of the mountain passes into the heart of our fertile oases. Whichever way the traveler turns he sees something absolutely new, and often in strange contrast with what he has just been beholding. Stately, snow-crowned giants of the lordly hills, fir-fringed up to timber line, stand motherlike, or bishoplike, crozier-cragged, shepherding the verdant uplands and the velvety valleys whose billowy meadows bend beneath the highland zephyrs or fall before the scythe of the prospering farmer. Now he beholds the ruggedest of capacious cañons where the rollicking rivers and rhythmic rills have cut great gorges deep into the rocky ribs of the tightly hugging hills. Another turn and he sees the hearty herds transforming themselves automatically into gold for their happy owners; another turn shows the lazy rivers arising from their age-long beds and mossy couches to climb the hot hillsides and to toil and sweat at the command of the lord of this world, as they irrigate his arid acres. Yet another turn and the wrathful river is carrying on its breast the tens of thousands of winter-cut logs dancing like straws on its frothy surface on their way to the busy mills; and the turbulent streams, their wildness tamed and harnessed, serve the needs of man like trusted domestic servants.

But this is not the way to view mountains; it is only surface sights we get in this manner. He who would know the beauties of the hills must become acquainted with them personally _and on foot_. Anyone can enjoy the lazy luxury of the cozy precincts of an upholstered, porter-served car. He may travel horseback or donkey-back, if he cares to visit only where such sure-footed animals can go. However, when I want to see the stately things among the unchiseled palaces and temples where Nature pays homage in the courts of the Divine Architect, I dismiss all modes of conveyance, and with well-nailed shoes, rough clothes, a staff, and a lunch, I take the kingdom by force. When once in, I am royally entertained; for though coy and apparently hard to woo, Nature is a most delightful companion when once you are acquainted.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

So sang Longfellow. Bishop Warren said that every peak tempted him as with a beckoning finger, daring him to a climb.

To those who have never been nearer the unlocked fastnesses of our eternal American hills than by the too common means above mentioned, the far-away cliffs of marble or white granite, with their areas of unmeltable snows and ices, look temptingly down on us in August, together with the smaller and less inspiring crags. But when we approach them, even those nearest, how they appear to recede--almost to run away! The high peaks that looked as though climbing up and peeping over the heads of the lower ones, either jump down and bashfully run to hide, or the little ones rise up to protect them. So it seems as one approaches.

Entering the mountain side by way of a yawning cañon we soon come to a sheer precipice lying in a deep gorge with perpendicular sides, while, leaping from the top of the declivity high above our heads, as if from the very zenith, a stream of crystal water cleaves the air. It is dashed into countless strands of silvery pearls before it reaches the deep bed of moss spread down to receive it, and where it lies resting awhile for its downward journey toward the moon-whipped ocean.

Ah, Longfellow! You have taught us how to climb some mountains, but here we have to construct our ladders, for anyone less sure of foot than the chamois or the mountain sheep must stay at the bottom of the falls. Scylla and Charybdis are stationary now, and the gaping chasm has swallowed us upward, where we reach an opening into a wide park, a veritable fairyland. On the top of one of those ponderous laminations tilted edgewise is the king of the gnomes of the new glen. We call him Pharaoh. How archly he looks out over his wide domain! His kingly cap is adorned with a cobra ready to strike, yet out on his ample breast floats a most royal but un-Pharonic beard. This is one of the ways the quondam haughty hills have of providing entertainment for the bold questioner and visitor.

The scenery is always new. High rocks, whose rugged faces look as if their titanic architect had been surprised and driven away while as yet his task was not half completed; long gaping gulches lined with an evergreen decoration of spruce, cedar, manzanita, and mountain mahogany, are some of the sidelights to be found in a day's journey in the realms adjacent to the Old Oregon Trail.

THE STAGECOACH

My high-blown pride
At length broke under me and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
--_Shakespeare_.

Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens.... When I was at home I was
in a better place; but travelers must be content.--_Shakespeare_.

THE STAGECOACH

At frequent intervals throughout the widening West may be seen the relegated ship of the desert standing forlorn, friendless, forsaken. The merciless claws of summer and the icy fangs of winter are loosening the red paint, and the white canvas cover and side curtains are flapping in the winds. The tired tongue, dumb with age and years of use, still tells tales of hardships by the silent eloquence of its multitude of unhealed scars.

This class of carryall was at once unique and supreme. It was the one indispensable link in the endless chain of evolution popular and powerful, the only public agent of the Trail and the plains until the unconquerable initiative of the lord of the world had time to steel a highway with trackage for more rapid transit. What a living link was that old overland stage! To look upon an isolated and abandoned relic of earlier pioneerdom is like standing at the marble monument of some human pivot in the mighty march of man's progress. Before the bold and bustling railway noisily elbowed its way into the affections of travel and commerce and pushed aside the patient wagon of the nation-builders, the tens of thousands of hurried travelers enjoyed (or endured) the hospitality of its rocking thorough-braces as they, hour by hour, day after day, and night after night, and even week after week in the longer journeys, sat atop or inside this leviathan of the sand-ocean making the most rapid trip possible and under safe guidance.

Could such old hulk tell its story, could that dried-up old tongue but begin to wag again, what tales! First would come those of the men too often overworked and underappreciated, like our modern railmen, the drivers of the stage. These, as the ancient Jehu, were compelled to drive furiously on occasion, in order to keep a cramped schedule or make up for the loss of time brought about by a breakdown, a washout, or some Indian depredation. Few drivers there were who did not love their work. It came to be a saying, "Once a driver, always a driver." The coach-and-four, or more, with booted and belted man on the throne of the swinging chariot, made every boy envious and created in him a desire to become great some day too. Eagle and Dick, Tom and Rock, Bolly and Bill understood the snap of the whip, or its more wicked crack, as well as they did the tension of the line or the word of the chief charioteer, who, with foot on the long brake-beam, regulated the speed of the often crowded vehicle down the precipitous places which to the novice looked very dangerous. But Jehu is no longer universal king. A Pharaoh who knew him not has heartlessly and definitely usurped some of his places.

In the boot of this old seaworthy craft was hauled many a load of treasure, for the gold-hungry prospector without sextant and chain surveyed the fastnesses of the hills as well as the illimitation of the prairies, and a care-taking government made a way to his camp to send him his mail. Express companies joined their traffic to that of Uncle Sam, and he of the pick and shovel became the lodestone to popular convenience. With many a load of treasure went a man known as a messenger, who sat beside the driver, carrying a sawed-off gun under his coat, ready to meet the gangster or holdup, who so often robbed both stage and passenger.

In the hold of this old coach have ridden governors, statesmen of all grades, men and women, good and better (some bad and worse); here were bridal tours, funeral parties, commercial men and gamblers, miners and prospectors, Chinamen and Indians, pleasure-seekers and labor-hunters, officers and convicts.

Men of every station
In the eye of fame,
On a common level
Coming to the same--

is the way Saxe punningly puts it; but more of a leveler was this old coach, for there was of necessity the forceful putting of people of the most heterogeneous character together in the most homogeneous manner as the omnibus (most literal word here), made up its hashy load at the hand and command of the driver, whose word was unappealable law as complete as that of another captain on the high seas. Prodigal, profligate, and pure, maiden or Magdalene, millionaire or Lazarus, all were crowded together as the needs of the hour and the size of the passengers demanded, to sit elbow to elbow, side by side to the journey's end.

Huddled thus, they traveled unchanged till the stage station was reached; here the horses were exchanged for fresher ones; the wayside inn had its tables of provisions varying and varied as the region traversed. If in the mountains, there were likely to be trout, saddle of deer, steaks of bear; but if through the sands, there was provided bacon or other coarser fare. Usually these crowds were joking and jolly, unless tempered by something requiring more sobriety, but always optimistic, for the fellow who became grouchy the while had generally abundant occasion to repent and mend his ways.

One day, on a road not far from where this is being written, the old coach was toiling up a long mountainside; the driver was drowsy and the passengers had exhausted their newest répertoire of stories and had lapsed into stillness such as often seizes a squeezed crowd. The horses were permitted to take their time; the dust was deep, the sun hot, and all possible stillness prevailed.

"Halt!" ordered a low voice very near the road.

The driver, Tom Myers, did not understand the command, and simply looked up, half asleep, and said to the horses, "Gid-dap!"

"Halt!" came the words again, louder and unmistakable.

Myers halted. Standing at the end of an elongated bunch of pines where he had been invisible until the heads of the horses appeared stood the highwayman, with menacing gun covering the head of the driver.

"Throw out your treasure and mail!" came the command.

"I have mail, but no treasure," said my friend Tom, as he afterward pointed out the spot and told the story. "Come and get it."

The lone robber rifled the sacks, turned the pockets of the travelers inside out, and bade them drive on without imitating Lot's wife; he was never caught.

To be sure, this is a tame story, and many readers doubtless can tell one more thrilling; but this one is true.

The stagecoach is a thing of the past, but we still have the hardy, dust-covered, mud-daubed teamster, who yet must haul the freight far back into hills where for ages there will be no railway. To these, Godspeed and good cheer! They live by the Trails; they eat at the wheel; they sleep under the wagon; they are kindly and obliging even when their heavily belled teams of six to fourteen or more head of horses meet another loaded caravan in some narrow pass where the highest engineering ability is needed to get by in safety; and they never leave a fellow-traveler in distress.

AMONG THE HILLS

To him who in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language;...
The hills
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun.
--_Bryant_.

Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek
The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak,
Upreared of human hands.... compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek
With Nature's realm of worship.
--_Byron_.

THE MOTHER DEER

The ragged sky-line high in air
Sits boundary to sight
And seems to end the world;
But topping it by way well worn by braver
pioneer,
A fertile, home-filled dale is found
Where love holds warm,
And schools and churches dot the land.
But while the slow-drawn old stagecoach
With load of dust-clad travelers
Crawls over jolting, stone-filled ruts,
The puffing beasts, sweat-covered,
Winding in and out among the stately
pines
(Where friendly Nature spreads her yellow
moss
O'er bleaching arms long since deprived of
life),
May now be seen a mother deer
Half hidden 'mong the sloping boughs;
Alert, ears high, eyes wide, body so tense
And motionless. In silence all
The passengers admire the instinct-love
Which not affrights the spotted babe
Fast sleeping at her feet.
"There are no guns aboard!" says one.
"But if there were, how could one's heart
Be hard enough to murder mother-love?"
Said I.

THE SHEPHERD

The tired shepherd stands among his ewes
That with their lambs are unafraid
Of him and keen-eyed dogs;
They crouch close in about his feet
Whene'er the coyote's cry
Or bear's low growl
Falls tingling on the timid ear.
Himself thrusts gun to elbow-place
And peers amid the dust-dressed sage
And scented chaparral so dense,
To glimpse the fiery eyeballs
Of the prowler of the hills;
While all awatch the faithful collies stand
Prepared to fend e'en with their lives
The young and helpless not their own.

THE FEATHERED DRUMMER

The wooded thicket holds a drum.
The air in springtime afternoons
Is filled with sharp staccato notes
Whose echoes clear reverberate
From precipice and timbered hills.
No fifer plays accompaniment;
No pageant proud or marching throng
Keeps step to this deep pulsing bass
Whose sullen solo booms afar.

A double challenge is this gage,
A gauntlet flung for love or war;
As strutting barnyard chanticleer
Defies his neighboring lord:
So calls this crested pheasant-king
For combat or for peace.
The meek brown mate upon her nest
Feels happy and secure
While thus her lord by deed and word
Displays his woodland bravery
And guards their little home.

MORMONDOM

That fellow seems to possess but one idea, and that is the wrong
one.--_Samuel Johnson_.

Utah is harder than China.--_Bishop Wiley_.

Utah is the hardest soil into which the Methodist plowshare was
ever set.--_Bishop Fowler_.

THE TRAIL OF THE MORMON

By the Trail had gone Jason Lee, in 1834, to plant the sturdy oak of Methodism in the Willamette Valley and the north Pacific Coast. His task was nobly done; the developments of to-day attest the wisdom of the church in sending him and his coequal coadjutors, Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepherd, and P. L. Edwards.

Over this same track went Marcus Whitman, in 1835, to found the mission at Waiilatpu, near the present site of Walla Walla, and to find there the early grave of honorable martyrdom at the hands of the people he was attempting to save. The call to these two intrepid equals, Lee and Whitman, came through the visit of the two young Indian chiefs who, immediately after the expedition of Lewis and Clark, had gone to Saint Louis to obtain a copy of the "white man's Book of heaven." The names of these two, as previously stated, were Hee-oh'ks-te-kin and H'co-a-h'co-a-cotes-min.

On the sixth day of April, 1830, in Kirkland, Ohio, Joseph Smith, Jr., had organized the body best known as the Mormon Church. Fourteen years later he was mercilessly, and unjustly, mobbed at Nauvoo, Illinois, and after three more years of drifting about from pillar to post, the Latter-Day Saints prepared to emigrate to upper California under the absolute domination and guidance of Brigham Young, who was often styled the successor to the "Mohammed of the West," as Joseph Smith was sometimes called. This cult had some queer traits. W. W. Phelps, one of their more prominent members, thus characterized the leaders of Mormondom: Brigham Young, the Lion of the Lord; P. P. Pratt, the Archer of Paradise; O. Hyde, the Olive Branch of Israel; W. Richards, the Keeper of the Rolls; J. Taylor, Champion of Right; W. Smith, the Patriarchal Jacob's Staff; W. Woodruff, the Banner of the Gospel; G. A. Smith, the Entablature of Truth; O. Pratt, the Gauge of Philosophy; J. E. Page, the Sun Dial; L. Wright, Wild Mountain Ram.

Expelled from Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, the trembling Saints sought less turbulent surroundings by immersing their all in the wild conditions both of men and wilderness in the untamed lands of the great West. They were not able to sustain the physical cost of the trek of more than a thousand miles under the hardest of circumstances. The Trail was the home of the Sioux, the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Otoes, Omahas, Utes, and others, who knew neither law nor mercy. The waters were often alkaline and deadly as Lethe. A thousand miles afoot was the record some had to make. They appealed to the government, then at war with Mexico, to permit a number of their men to enlist as soldiers to be marched over the ancient Santa Fe Trail, and thus be able to draw wages on the journey. This was granted. These recruits had little, if anything, to do, but they are known in history as the Mormon battalion. They went to California, 1847-49, and were present when James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill.

In 1847, July 24, Mormondom threw up its first trenches in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, as that saline body was then known and recorded. In this salubrious region was planted the analogy of the harem of Mohammed, and the seraglio of Brigham became the center of the sensual system of the Latter-Day Saints. So blatant was the apostle Heber Kimball that he said he himself had enough wives to whip the soldiers of the United States.

Evangelical Christianity waited almost twenty years before an attempt was made to plant the high standards of Christendom in the Wahsatch Mountains. In the sixties went the denominations in the order here named: Congregational, Protestant Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal; in 1871 the Presbyterians went, and then the Baptists. It was dark. Mighty night had beclouded the intellect and obscured the spiritual senses; civilized sensuality swayed with unchecked hand the destinies of the masses. The blinded people groped for light in the pitchlike blackness of the new superstition.

"None but Americans on guard" in such a night! Hear the roll call. None but tried and true Christian soldiers were mounted on those ramparts: Erastus Smith, the heart-winner; Thomas Wentworth Lincoln, the scholarly but quiet Grand Army man, who always kept his patriotic fires banked; George Ellis Jayne, another veteran of the Civil War, tireless evangelist who possibly saw more Mormons made Christian than any other pastor of any church in Utah; George Marshall Jeffrey, eternally at it; Joseph Wilks, methodic, patient, sunny; Martinus Nelson, weeping over the straying of his Norwegians; Emil E. Mörk, rugged and steadfast; Martin Anderson and Samuel Hooper, both of whom died by the Trail, falling at the "post of honor." Last, but not least of these to be named, stands the energetic and "Boanergetic" Thomas Corwin Iliff, that Buckeye stentor and patriot, who with heart-thrilling tones has raised millions of dollars in aiding and in establishing hundreds and hundreds of churches in these United States. For thirty years he commanded the Methodist as well as the patriotic redoubts of Utah and bearded the "Lion of the Lord" in his very den.

But there were never truer watchmen on the high-towered battlements of the real Zion than the Protestant Episcopal Bishop, Daniel S. Tuttle; the knightly Hawkes of the Congregationalists; the truly apostolic Baptist, Steelman; the Presbyterian leaders--who surpasses them? See the saintly Wishard, the polemic McNiece and McLain; the scholarly and tireless Paden!

They were loyal to the core, commanding the Christian forces as they deployed, enfiladed, charged, marched, and stormed the trenches of religious libertinism in the fertile and paradisaical valleys and roomy cañons of the Mormon state of Deseret. These never surrendered, compromised, or retreated.

Glorious Brotherhood! Permit us the honor of saluting you. Your like may never march abreast again in any campaign! Living, you were conquerors; dying, you are heroes.

Of these above named Messrs. Hooper, Anderson, Steelman, and McNiece have entered the "snow-white tents" of the other shore.

SOME MORMON BELIEFS

His studie was but litel on the Bible.--_Chaucer_.

Imaginations fearfully absurd,
Hobgoblin rites, and moon-struck reveries,
Distracted creeds, and visionary dreams,
More bodiless and hideously misshapen
Than ever fancy, at the noon of night,
Playing at will, framed in the madman's brain.
--_Pollok, in Course of Time_.

The abode of the dead, where they remained in full consciousness of their condition for indefinable periods, or even for eternity, has been the theme of many a writer both before and after the advent of the Saviour of men. Annihilation is repugnant to the common intelligence. Homer sends Ulysses, Dantelike, to the realms of the dead, where he converses with them he had known in life. The Stygian River, the dumb servitor, Charon, the coin-paid fare, are all well known in the classics of the ancients.

In some later religio-philosophic studies the names are different; some have tartarus, some purgatory, some paradise. The last is the name adopted by the Mormons.

The heroes of Homer seemed never to hope for a release from the bonds of Hades. Voluptuous Circe, the Odysseyan swine-maker, told the hero of those tales he was a daring one:

"... who, yet alive, have gone
Down to the abode of Pluto; twice to die
Is yours, while others die but once."

Many well meaning minds have tried to discover in the Bible, or otherwise reasonably invent a second probation for the unrepentant as an addendum to the final resurrection of the just. Not a little has been made of the term "spirits in prison" (1 Pet. 3. 19, 20), and of "baptism for the dead" (1 Cor. 15. 29). In the intensity of zeal, or as a proselyting advertisement, the Latter-Day Saints proclaim the possibility of all the inhabitants of the grave (paradise) being saved in heaven. To this end, early in the history of the organization, there was implanted the doctrine of preaching to the departed and that of proxy ministrations.

From their Articles of Faith I take these two:

3. We believe that through the atonement of Christ all mankind may
be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

4. We believe that these ordinances are: First, Faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for
the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of
the Holy Ghost.

Now, since without immersion there is no remission of sins, and since they who are in prison (paradise) are eligible to salvation, therefore some one must be baptized for them and have all the other rites of the plan likewise administered in their name. That "all things may be done decently and in order," there was received a "revelation" to the end that temples must be built, recorders and other officials appointed, and all the paraphernalia necessary for the work prepared. When these rites are consummated some elder of the church who dies goes to the spiritual prison house and tells the people therein confined that these most meritorious works have been done for them on earth; in fact, this is the chief reason for their going thither. They who will believe this story and repent of their sins are then and there entitled to "a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."

Not only are the people redeemed from all their sins by the pious ministrations of the many temple-workers, who, like Samuel, continually serve and minister therein, but as marriage relations are to continue throughout the endless ages of eternity, and children are to be born forever and ever, these dead have the hymeneal ceremony performed "for eternity"; this act is known as the "sealing" process. Men are here married--by proxy--to others than the actual living wife, sometimes with her consent, sometimes without it. One old gentleman, whose name is not to be mentioned, was sealed thus for eternity to Martha Washington and to Empress Josephine. It sounds farcical and foolish in the extreme; fit only to be counted as a silly joke, unworthy the attention of a sane soul for a minute; but it is terribly sober when it is remembered that there are hundreds of thousands of innocent, honest, and unsuspecting Mormons who really and truly believe this to be the only road to eternal life and exaltation.

Added to this is the doctrine of the deification of men. All the true and faithful Mormons are to become gods by and by, and create and populate new worlds; hence the value of polygamy; in fact, this world is but one of the samples of this truth. Adam is the owner and ruler of earth, and to him we pray. He is our God. As such he is only one in an endless procession of such beings.

"There has been and there now exists an endless procession of the Gods, stretching back into the eternities, that had no beginning and will have no end. Their existence runs parallel with endless duration, and their dominions are limitless as boundless space."[3]

Possibly the most popular hymn among these people is the following, written by one of the wives of Joseph Smith, Eliza R. Snow. It is in their collection and now in use:

HYMN TO FATHER AND MOTHER

O my Father, thou that dwellest
In the high and glorious place!
When shall I regain thy presence,
And again behold thy face?
In thy holy habitation,
Did my spirit once reside?
In my first primeval childhood,
Was I nurtured by thy side?

For a wise and glorious purpose
Thou hast placed me here on earth,
And withheld the recollection
Of my former friends and birth;
Yet ofttimes a secret something
Whispered, "You're a stranger here";
And I felt that I had wandered
From a more exalted sphere.

I had learned to call thee Father,
Through thy Spirit from on high;
But, until the Key of Knowledge
Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heavens are parents single?
No; the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me, I've a mother there.

When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, mother, may I meet you
In your royal court on high?
Then, at length, when I've completed
All you sent me forth to do,
With your mutual approbation
Let me come and dwell with you.

-----

[3] New Witness for God, B. H. Roberts, 1895.

WEBER TOM, UTE POLYGAMIST

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.
--_Pope_.

When Mormonism was no longer compelled to maintain the defensive it quickly assumed the offensive. This was apparently deemed necessary for the existence of the system. Two kinds of preaching were indulged in by the elders on their missions, home and foreign. At home they declared the beauty of the Smithian gospel, including the doctrine of polygamy, a sweet morsel for the blood-thirsty Utes. They were trying by every means, Machiavellian or otherwise, to gain the Lamanites, as Indians were called by the Mormons, at least to an extent which would allow them to remain undisturbed throughout the territory of Utah. Old Kanosh and other leaders were immersed for the remission of their sins, but they were permitted to multiply unto themselves as many squaws as they cared for. It would take water stronger than the common alkaline pools contained to reach the morals of a heathen Ute.

Very many of the Indians thus were made Mormons and white men were appointed as their bishops. Brigham Young used to make visits to them to try to instruct them in various things. For a considerable period he was the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. He was such official at the time of the lamentable Mountain Meadow Massacre, in 1857, and for which crime Bishop John D. Lee suffered death.

Possibly it was the influence of Mr. Young that kept the most of the red men from the warpath and thus saved the scattered settlers in the earlier days when there were so few to guard the isolated homes in the far-away nooks and cañons of the mountains.

The other sort of preaching in which the elders indulged was that of an absolute and unqualified denial of polygamy in Utah. Such was the plan of the elders who went to Europe. The public denial of John Taylor, later president of the church, is abundant evidence. When they deny polygamy now they have the consistency of definition to back them; to their manner of explaining, polygamy is the act of taking new wives; to the non-Mormon, polygamy is the possessing of more than one wife. For this reason we are very bold in saying that polygamy is publicly practiced in Utah--witness Joseph F. Smith as chief example.

Although we may read of it, none can comprehend just what it means to a girl-wife, two thousand miles away from her parents, to be treated as an alien, in a land under the flag of the free. This was the case in the strictly Mormon settlements in Utah thirty years ago. Reason only kept the Giant Despair from the threshold of the mind. The bravery of these women can be compared only to the English women of the Sepoy Rebellion days of 1857 in India, or to those of our American sisters who accompanied their valorous husbands to their isolated posts on the Indian frontiers, resolved to share equally in the dangers, and to die lingeringly and cruelly if necessary. Retreat and surrender never grew in the hearts of such women. It was so in the times that were called the "dark days" in Utah--the time when the government applied its functions to the stamping out of polygamous practices, 1883 to 1893--ten terrible years for the Mormon as well as the non-Mormon.

Add to this the fact that, unannounced, a brawny, stalwart Indian might walk in at the door. More than once has it so occurred in our home. One day the door was suddenly opened and in walked a grinning brave, armed with a long knife, and followed by his squaw; extending his empty hand toward the far-from-home girl-wife, alone in the house, he said, "How-do!" In telling us of it, she said: "I was scared to death, I thought, but I would have shaken hands with him if I had died in the attempt. I would not let him know I feared him." But this was not Weber Tom.

It was in those fearsome days when the leading men of Utah--farmers, bankers, stockmen, church dignitaries, all sorts and conditions of the Latter-Day Saints--were being arrested and haled to the courts almost daily, that one morning there rode up to our door the battle-scarred old warrior, Weber Tom, chief of the Skull Valley Utes, or Goshutes.

If perfection is beauty, this Indian was most beautiful, for he was the ugliest creature imaginable, ugly even to perfection. One eye had been gouged out, a knife-scar extended from his ear down across his mouth, and he was Herculean in physical proportions. I am a large man, but once when I gave him an overcoat he tried vainly to button it over his vast frontal protuberance, looking at me and saying, "Too short, too short."

This giant chief dismounted, and, seeing my wife standing near, reached the reins of the bridle to her and said, "Here, squaw, hol' my hoss."

She said, quietly, "Hold your own horse if you want him held."

Having had to accommodate himself to the rudeness of a civilized woman, he made other provision for his cayuse and then asked her, "Wheh yo'man?"

She told him I was down in the field, and he then proceeded to find me. He was in the depths of trouble. He had several squaw-wives and feared he was to be arrested for it.

Now he approached me. It was dramatic; it was high-class pantomime. It is too bad the kinetoscope, cinematograph, or some other moving-picture machine had not been invented. He seemed awed by a presence, yet so emboldened by the needs of his case that he walked stoically to his quest.

Squaring his Atlaslike shoulders, he began: "You heap big chief. You talky this way" (at the same time extending one finger straight from his lips). "Mormon he talky this way" (now extending two fingers, to show he understood them to talk with double tongue). "Mormon telly me sojer men ketchy me, put me in jug [jail]; me havy two, tree, four squaw. You heap big chief. You telly me this way" (one finger). Continuing, he said: "Me havy two, tree, four squaw. Mormon he telly me, me go jug; one my squaw he know dat, he heap cry, _heap_ cry, HEAP cry, by um by die!"