ite flag. Will Hamilton went out and talked to
him, came back and talked with father and the rest of our men, and then
went out to the stranger again. Farther back we could see a man standing
and looking on, whom we recognized as Lee.

With us all was excitement. The women were so relieved that they were
crying and kissing one another, and old Mrs. Demdike and others were
hallelujahing and blessing God. The proposal, which our men had
accepted, was that we would put ourselves under the flag of truce and be
protected from the Indians.

"We had to do it," I heard father tell mother.

He was sitting, droop-shouldered and dejected, on a wagon-tongue.

"But what if they intend treachery?" mother asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We've got to take the chance that they don't," he said. "Our ammunition
is gone."

Some of our men were unchaining one of our wagons and rolling it out of
the way. I ran across to see what was happening. In came Lee himself,
followed by two empty wagons, each driven by one man. Everybody crowded
around Lee. He said that they had had a hard time with the Indians
keeping them off of us, and that Major Higbee, with fifty of the Mormon
militia, were ready to take us under their charge.

But what made father and Laban and some of the men suspicious was when
Lee said that we must put all our rifles into one of the wagons so as not
to arouse the animosity of the Indians. By so doing we would appear to
be the prisoners of the Mormon militia.

Father straightened up and was about to refuse when he glanced to Laban,
who replied in an undertone. "They ain't no more use in our hands than
in the wagon, seein' as the powder's gone."

Two of our wounded men who could not walk were put into the wagons, and
along with them were put all the little children. Lee seemed to be
picking them out over eight and under eight. Jed and I were large for
our age, and we were nine besides; so Lee put us with the older bunch and
told us we were to march with the women on foot.

When he took our baby from mother and put it in a wagon she started to
object. Then I saw her lips draw tightly together, and she gave in. She
was a gray-eyed, strong-featured, middle-aged woman, large-boned and
fairly stout. But the long journey and hardship had told on her, so that
she was hollow-cheeked and gaunt, and like all the women in the company
she wore an expression of brooding, never-ceasing anxiety.

It was when