u would have no Laura Fair in
your jail tonight."[270]

Boos and hisses from every part of the hall greeted this statement;
but Susan, trained on the antislavery platform to hold her ground
whatever the tumult, waited patiently until this protest subsided,
standing before the defiant audience, poised and unafraid. Then, in a
clear steady voice, she repeated her challenging words. This time,
above the hisses, she heard a few cheers, and for the third time she
repeated, "If all men had protected all women as they would have their
own wives and daughters protected, you would have no Laura Fair in
your jail tonight."

Now the audience, admiring her courage, roared its applause. "I
declare to you," she concluded, "that woman must not depend upon the
protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and here I
take my stand."

Reading the newspapers the next morning, she found herself accused not
only of defending Laura Fair, but of condoning the murder of
Crittenden. This story was republished throughout the state and
eagerly picked up by New York newspapers.

As it was now impossible for her or for Mrs. Stanton to draw a
friendly audience anywhere in California, they took refuge in the
Yosemite Valley for the next few weeks. Susan was inconsolable. These
slanders on top of the loss of _The Revolution_ and the split in the
suffrage ranks seemed more than she could bear. "Never in all my hard
experience have I been under such fire," she confided to her diary.
"The clouds are so heavy over me.... I never before was so cut
down."[271]

Not until she had spent several days riding horseback in the Yosemite
Valley on "men's saddles" in "linen bloomers," over long perilous
exhausting trails, did the clouds begin to lift. Gradually the beauty
and grandeur of the mountains and the giant redwoods brought her peace
and refreshment, putting to flight "all the old six-days story and the
6,000 jeers."

Bearing the brunt of the censure in California, Susan expected Mrs.
Stanton to come to her defense in letters to the newspapers. When she
did not do so, Susan was deeply hurt, for in the past she had so many
times smoothed the way for her friend. Even now, on their return to
San Francisco, where she herself did not yet dare lecture, she did her
best to build up audiences for Mrs. Stanton and to get correct
transcripts of her lectures to the papers. Disillusioned and
heartsick, she was for the first time sadly disappointed i