e Commissioners,
accompanied by the Governor, travelled southward, and addressed large
audiences at Provo and Lehi, specially exhorting the people to return to
their homes in the northern settlements, assuring them that the troubles
were ended, and that they need fear no molestation of person or
property.

Whether all these proceedings--which were legitimate results of Mr.
Buchanan's policy--were consistent with the honor of the country, the
public can judge for themselves. The Commissioners certainly conducted
themselves with dignity and credit; but it is doubtful whether they ever
would have accepted their appointment, had they anticipated the nature
of the duties they would be required to perform.

The army moved slowly forward during the progress of these negotiations.
In Echo Canon, it had an opportunity to inspect the bugbear of the
previous autumn,--the Mormon fortifications. As the canon--which is more
than twenty miles long--approaches the Weber River, it dwindles in
width from five or six hundred yards to as many feet. Its northern side
becomes a perfect wall of rock, which rises perpendicularly to the
height of several hundred feet above the road. The southern side retains
the character of a steep mountain-slope covered with grass and stunted
bushes. Echo Creek, a narrow streamlet, with its dense fringe of
willows, fills the whole bottom between the road and the bluffs. The
first indication of approach to the fortifications was the sight of
piles of stones heaped into walls four or five feet high, pierced with
loopholes, and visible on every projecting point of the cliffs along the
northern side, from most of which a pebble could be snapped down upon
the road. Just beyond, after turning a bend in the canon, all the
willows along the creek had been cut away, and through the cleared space
a ditch five or six feet wide and ten feet deep was dug across the
bottom. The dirt thrown from it was packed so as to form an embankment,
on which logs were so arranged that it would answer for a breastwork,
behind which riflemen could be posted under cover. At intervals of about
a hundred yards were two similar lines of ditch and breastwork, by the
first of which the road was forced to skirt the very base of a cliff
which had probably been mined. The other line was constructed just above
the mouths of two narrow gorges which enter the canon, nearly opposite
one another, from the north and south. By the aid of these dams the