I could
secure some venison to eat with my honeycomb."

As I got through they all huddled around me and commenced to
relate the horrors of Mormonism. They advised me to have nothing
to do with the Mormons, for said they:

"As old Joe Smith votes, so will every Mormon in the country
vote, and when they get into a fight they are just the same way;
they stick together. When you attack one of the crew you bring
every one of them after you like a nest of hornets."

To this I replied that I had heard a little of the fuss at
Gallatin, but did not suppose I had got the right of the story,
and would be glad if they would tell me just how it was. I should
like to learn the facts from an eyewitness. Several of the men
spoke up and said they were there and saw it all. They then told
the story, and did the Mormons more justice than I expected from
them.

They said, among other things, that there was a large rawboned
man there who spoke in tongues, and that when the fight commenced
he cried:

"Charge, Danites!"

They then said the Mormons must leave the country.

"If we do not make them do so now, they will be so strong in a
few years they will rule the country as they please. Another band
of men will come along soon; and they will then go through the
Mormon settlements and burn up every house, and lynch every
Mormon they find. The militia has been sent to keep order in
Daviess County, but will soon be gone, and the work of destroying
the Mormons begin."

"If they have done as you say they have, pay them in their own
coin," I said.

The company then passed on, and I returned with a heavy heart to
my friends. I advised making an immediate start for home, and in
a few minutes we were on our way.

While coming up from home we had found four bee trees, that we
left standing, intending to cut them down and get the honey as we
went back. When we got on the prairie, which was about eight
miles across, the men with me wanted to go and get the honey. I
was fearful that the people I had met in the morning would attack
the settlements, and I wanted to go directly home and let trees
and honey alone.

While we were talking the matter over a single blackbird came to
us, apparently in great distress. It flew around each one of us,
and would alight on the head of each one of our horses, and
especially on my horses' heads, and it even came and alighted on
my hat, and would squeak as though it was in pain, and turn its
feathers up,