, where the
stock were driven to water. This was a hundred and fifteen miles east
of Salt Lake City, and well within the limits of the Mormon country.

Most of the outfit had driven the cattle to the creek, a mile and a
half distant, and were returning slowly, while the animals grazed along
the way back to camp. I was with them. We were out of sight of the
wagons.

As we rose the hill a big bearded man, mounted and surrounded by a
party of armed followers, rode up to our wagon-master.

"Throw up your hands, Simpson!" said the leader, who knew Simpson's
name and his position.

Simpson was a brave man, but the strangers had the drop and up went his
hands. At the same time we saw that the wagons were surrounded by
several hundred men, all mounted and armed, and the teamsters all
rounded up in a bunch. We knew that we had fallen into the hands of the
Mormon Danites, or Destroying Angels, the ruffians who perpetrated the
dreadful Mountain Meadows Massacre of the same year. The leader was Lot
Smith, one of the bravest and most determined of the whole crowd.

"Now, Simpson," he said, "we are going to be kind to you. You can have
one wagon with the cattle to draw it. Get into it all the provisions
and blankets you can carry, and turn right round and go back to the
Missouri River. You're headed in the wrong direction."

"Can we have our guns?" asked Simpson.

"Not a gun."

"Six-shooters?"

"Not a six-shooter. Nothing but food and blankets."

"How are we going to protect ourselves on the way?"

"That's your business. We're doing you a favor to spare your lives."

All Simpson's protests were in vain. There were thirty of us against
several hundred of them. Mormons stood over us while we loaded a wagon
till it sagged with provisions, clothing and blankets. They had taken
away every rifle and every pistol we possessed. Ordering us to hike for
the East, and informing us that we would be shot down if we attempted
to turn back, they watched us depart.

When we had moved a little way off we saw a blaze against the sky
behind us, and knew that our wagon-train had been fired. The greasy
bacon made thick black smoke and a bright-red flame, and for a long
time the fire burned, till nothing was left but the iron bolts and
axles and tires.

Smith's party, which had been sent out to keep all supplies from
reaching Johnston's army, had burned two other wagon-trains that same
day, as we afterward learned. The wagons were all co