CHAPTER III.
PILGRIMAGE OF THE SAINTS.

MADAME LA TOUR, like most persons reared in the Catholic faith, had exalted ideas of the sacredness of the marriage tie, and when the report (only too well authenticated) came to her ears that the Prophet Joseph had taken a score of young girls as his spiritual wives, and that a number of women already married had been "sealed" to him for eternity, horror and loathing took the place of the kindly feeling she had entertained toward him for her husband's sake. Her daughter was no longer an inmate of his house. She had taken her home on the day she returned, and she now felt that her child had been rescued from the brink of destruction. This comfort, however, was short-lived.

Within a month after her return, the Prophet, exasperated by a report that Madame La Tour was about to go to St. Louis with her family for the purpose of denouncing him, sent her a message, the import of which was that she might go when and where she pleased, but she could not take Louise, who had been sealed to him; and Louise, when confronted with the messenger, did not deny it.

The unhappy mother never recovered from this crushing blow, and the kind-hearted women who thought her "a little out of her mind" were not altogether wrong. Her daughter's disgrace bowed her proud spirit to the earth, and when Louise, now thoroughly cured of her infatuation, begged that she might not be forced to go back among those whom she could never look in the face again, her 36 mother yielded so far as to consent to remain in Nauvoo until they could find some retreat far from all who had known them in the past.

The one thought of both was to hide forever from the world; and the mother, thrown back in her grief and despair upon the faith of her childhood, vowed herself to a life of prayer and penance in the refuge that she hoped to find.

At this time, however, all their property was in the hands of the authorities of the Church. Indeed, if it had not been for a small annuity which Madame La Tour possessed in her own right, they would not have had the means to live from day to day.

Matters were in this state when the Prophet Joseph, with several of his counselors, was arrested by the civil authorities and conveyed to the prison, where he met his death at the hands of an infuriated mob. His murder had the effect that might have been anticipated. In the eyes of his devoted followers it crowned him with the glories of martyrdom, and the whole people, accepting it as the gage of open war between themselves and the world, saw the necessity of a closer union among themselves, and began to look forward to the establishment of a commonwealth of their own, at a safe distance from their enemies.

Madame La Tour found her embarrassments greatly increased by the Prophet's death and the consequences that ensued. Her only home was among his followers, and in the eyes of the world she was identified with them. Her daughter refused to return to their former friends, and her property was still held by the Church. Besides all this, the man who from the first had determined to succeed to the dead Prophet, and who already, within six months after his death, exercised a greater power over the people than Joseph had attained to in a lifetime, was her bitter and unrelenting enemy.

By means best known to himself, he had become the trustee of her property, and conceiving the idea of securing it as his own, proposed to make her his spiritual wife. The unmeasured scorn and indignation with which she repelled the first intimation of his purpose, he could neither forget nor forgive, and while outwardly patient and considerate in his manner toward her, he only bided his time to wreak on her such a vengeance as she never dreamed of.

Long before they left Nauvoo, he began to prepare for the accomplishment of his purpose by throwing out artfully-worded hints regarding her insanity.

He intrusted the abduction of her daughter to other hands, upon his established principle of taking no personal risks; but it was his act nevertheless, and only the beginning of his vengeance.

At first, Louise's separation from her family was so arranged as to appear accidental, and her mother hoped to find her somewhere in the company of fugitives who were making their forced and perilous march to the next halting-place chosen by their leaders. It was not until they reached the western bank of the Missouri that she learned the truth. There, in an Indian country, where redress was impossible, and where her enemy had already strengthened himself by an alliance with the chiefs of the savage tribes around them, he sought an interview with her, and obtained it by the promise of giving her news of Louise.

The substance of his communication, when made, was that the spirit she had lately shown rendered her an unfit guardian for her daughter, who besides being the child of the Church, left in its care by her father, was the wife of their martyred Prophet, and as such the especial charge of his successor.

The bereaved mother did not break out into ravings, as 38 her tormentor hoped she would; the blow was too direct and stunning. For a time all her faculties seemed benumbed, and during most of the years that followed she appeared as we have seen her on the day preceding the departure of the emigrants for their new home in the heart of the wilderness.

It will be perceived that Brigham Young, in the character of successor to the murdered Prophet, assumed powers that the former never pretended to. Already, within less than a year from the time that his claim to the office on which he had seized was confirmed by the people, he had entered upon the exercise of that absolute temporal power which afterward grew to such proportions that he felt himself able to defy the Government of the United States.

And yet, not one of all those who have attempted to analyze his character has given a satisfactory solution of the secret of his extraordinary ascendency over his followers.* A man of the people, born and nurtured in poverty, barely able to read and write, living in obscurity until nearly forty years of age, and moreover quite destitute of personal courage,† for nearly a quarter of a century he held the lives, liberty, and property of the Saints in his hands, and exercised in all things the power of an absolute and irresponsible despot. At the time of which we write, his complete domination over his followers (numbering many thousands in both hemispheres) was shown by the fact that, while he led in person the small company of two 38 thousand souls which composed the van of the moving army of pilgrims, the marching orders which he left behind him were obeyed to the letter by the Saints who were settled in comfortable homes, as well as by those who tarried in camps, and thenceforward the plains were white with the wagons of the emigrants, who came at the call of their leader from almost every country and clime, to gather round the standard which he had set up in the wilderness.

The first company, with which the Prophet traveled, was provided with everything necessary for a speedy and prosperous journey, and as many of the men in this company were already under the ban of the law for various offenses, the Zion toward which they journeyed was to them a city of refuge, which it was desirable to. reach as soon as possible.

There was another reason which operated still more powerfully with their Prophet to urge forward the company he led. Among the spiritual wives who had been sealed to the Prophet Joseph were a number of married women, whose husbands knew nothing of their relations to him. In some cases the deceived husband was absent on a foreign mission, which would keep him from his family four or five years. In other instances, though the husband continued to live with his wife, concealment had been so successfully practiced that he did not even suspect her of infidelity; but in either case a discovery which could not fail to be attended with unpleasant consequences was to be guarded against just now.*

Injured husbands had made much of the trouble which resulted in the downfall of Nauvoo, and the Prophet Brigham, who in the character of Joseph's successor claimed and appropriated a number of his wives, meant to estab- 38 lish himself securely in the mountain fastness which was to be the seat of his kingdom, before the husbands of these women learned the truth. Then, being clothed with absolute power, he would acknowledge them openly as his wives, and make them members of his household.

Polygamy had been secretly practiced, not only by the leaders of the people, but by many of their followers, for six years past, and now, having left the farthest borders of civilization for a home in the wilderness, all disguises were thrown off, and women who had been wholly ignorant of the acceptance of polygamy by their husbands were confronted with the "spiritual wives" (and in some cases with their children also), and requested to receive them as members of the family!

In Nauvoo, women who refused to accept what was known there as the spiritual wife doctrine could only be subjected to ecclesiastical penalties, and threatened with eternal punishment; but here, in the heart of the Indian country, with no human tribunal to which appeal could be made, with no help at hand, the penalty which the Mormon code prescribed* could be visited on offenders by abandoning them to the tender mercies of savages and wild beasts.

There were many wives in that company who could not otherwise have been brought to submit to the indignities heaped upon them; and among these there were some who would have chosen to perish in the wilderness rather than to continue their journey with the women who had robbed them of their husbands; but these wives were also mothers, many of them with babes at the breast, and for their children's sake they endured all things.

It was for her child's sake that Madame La Tour had undertaken her dreary pilgrimage across the plains, in the company of those she despised and loathed. The word of the Prophet alone could not have convinced her that Louise was to he taken to the place to which the emigrants were bound; but what he had said to her was only a confirmation of what she had learned from other sources, and she had now no reason to doubt that her daughter, if not already in the mountains, would be carried there some time during the present summer.

A mother's love triumphs over all difficulties, and perceives no impossibilities. She did not ask herself how she should rescue her child when found. Surely, after all her sacrifices and sufferings, God would provide a way.

There was no one near her in whom she could confide, or of whom she could ask counsel. Her son Philip, though affectionate and obedient to her, looked up to the Prophet as a divine being, and the latter spoke truly when he said that the boy would cut off his right hand for him. Catherine, her second daughter, inherited her mother's spirit, and if she knew the truth about her sister, would say or do some rash thing which would bring trouble upon all of them; and Blanche, the youngest, was only a child.

Her servants, it is true, were faithful and attached to her; but they were stolid specimens of the Canadian peas- 42 antry, whose slow wits were of little use in any matter not connected with their daily tasks.

She had one friend in the company outside of her own family, but just now this friend had sore burdens of her own to bear.

Helen Woodford was the wife of a high priest whose place was near the Prophet, and whose counsel and aid had been of the greatest value to the Saints in their past difficulties and perils.

He was a man of more than ordinary ability, and by far the superior of their leader in birth and culture, but he was one of the few who merited the title of fanatic. He had already sacrificed fortune, friends, and social position for the sake of his faith, and the event proved that he was ready to do much more than this at the command of the Prophet.

He had always been proud of his wife, who was a woman of fine mind and noble presence, and apparently their marriage was in every sense a happy one.

They had three boys, bright, handsome children, idolized by both parents, and so far as their friends knew, their domestic sky was without a cloud; but in reality, the storm which finally wrecked their home began to gather as far back as the days when the Prophet Joseph first whispered to those nearest him that he had a "revelation" commanding the Saints to take unto themselves many wives.

Woodford, from the fact that he occupied a position of trust and confidence, was one of the first to hear of this "revelation," and although the immediate effect of the disclosure was to shake his faith in the new religion and its Prophet, he was finally brought to accept the doctrine of celestial marriage as true. Still his affection for his wife, and perhaps also a little wholesome fear of consequences (for it must be remembered that at this time and 38 for some years afterward the Saints were, to a certain extent, amenable to the civil law), kept him from putting his belief in practice.

It was not the will of the Prophet's successor, however, that the "revelation" should remain a dead letter, and a strong pressure was brought to bear upon the leading men of the Church who had still some love for their wives, and some regard for decency and good morals, to bring them to practice its teachings.

Woodford was among the number of those who, as a test of their loyalty to the Church, were required to take more wives, and in the end he consented to do so, and two young girls were sealed to him on the same day, "for time and eternity."

The need of secrecy, however, was still recognized, and for many months Helen Woodford knew nothing of the irreparable wrong done her.

When her suspicions were at length awakened, her husband was absent on a missionary tour, from which he did not return until the day when the first company of emigrants were preparing for their march across the plains. Long before this the quick eye of the wife had discerned a change in him for which she was at a loss to account; and now, while he was, if possible, more tender in his manner toward her than ever before, she could not help perceiving that he was ill at ease, and oppressed by some unusual anxiety.

Still, strangely enough, the fears which sit had begun to entertain during her husband's absence did not now trouble her, and after they started on their journey she did not once suspect the true cause of his gloom aid restlessness, until the day came which he had determine upon for ending all concealment.

The emigrant train had now been about a week on the 44 road, and was a little more than a hundred miles west of the Missouri. It was near sundown, and they had camped for the night, when Woodford entered the tent in which his wife sat, accompanied by two young women, one of them carrying a baby in her arms, and the other leading by the hand a child a little more than a year old. Helen rose with a feeling of surprise, but still with no premonition of what was coming, and at the same moment her husband led forward the woman on his right, saying,

"This is my wife Mary, and this is our child."

Then turning immediately to the one on his left he added,

"This is my wife Emily, and the little one in her arms is our child."

Helen did not break out into reproaches, nor did she scream or faint. She walked quickly and silently out of the tent, and continued to walk until a little rise of ground hid the camp from her sight. She was following the course of the stream that ran near the tent. Somewhere, perhaps, it might be deep enough to afford her a resting-place under its waters. Still farther. She was now a mile from camp, and yet the peaceful stream, creeping between its grassy banks, was so shallow that she could touch the bottom with her hand. She sat down beside it, and gazed into the water.

"There are other ways," she said aloud, remembering the pistol that was lying in a corner of her trunk, with a sense of disappointment that she had not brought it.

How long she sat there she did not know. She was not thinking; she was not even conscious for a part of the time ; but at last her trance was broken by a voice that she knew--the voice of her first-born.

"Mother! mother!" the boy called, in accents of agony and terror.

He did not see her. Darkness was settling down, and the fringe of willows on the bank hid her from view.

"Mother! mother! where are you? Oh, she is lost!" and then sobs drowned his voice.

That sound called the mother back to life. She rose slowly to her feet. "Here, my son," she called, and in a minute more the lad was clinging about her neck.

"Oh, mother, why did you go so far?" he said through his tears. "Edward and I have hunted everywhere for you, and the Indians are all around. Poor little Arthur is alone in the tent crying for you. Come, mother;" and leaning on her son, henceforth her only stay in life, Helen retraced her steps. Half way to the camp they met the second boy sobbing and wringing his hands, while he continued to call. for her, and little Arthur, her baby, had cried himself to sleep in the tent.

She lifted the little fellow, sobbing even in his slumber, from the cold ground on which he lay. Of what had she been thinking? Was her life her own to end when it became unbearable? No. It belonged to her children, and for their sakes she would live it out.

She sat down on the side of her bed, with her boy in her arms, and rested the little sleeping head on her bosom. There was healing in the touch of the baby hands. There was balm in the soft breathing close to her bruised and bleeding heart.

The older boys moved about quietly, building the campfire and cooking the supper, and when all was ready, Robert, the eldest, said,

"Shall I go and call father?"

"No," the mother replied, wondering at herself that she could speak so calmly; "he has something to attend to, and will come by and by."

She did not ask the boys whether their father had sent 46 them to search for her; and it was well perhaps that she knew nothing of what passed in the tent after she left. Emily, the younger of the two women, looking at her as she passed out, was terrified by the expression of the white, set face.

"Go after her quickly, Brother Woodford," she said; "she means to put herself out of the way."

"You do not know Helen," he answered. "This is a heavy cross for her, and she wants to be alone for a little while. She needs to pray for help to receive you in the right spirit."

"You don't mean to say," exclaimed Mary, "that she knew nothing about us until you brought us right in before her?"

"Brother Brigham counseled us to reveal nothing before the appointed time," was the answer, "and I have obeyed him."

"Then I must say, Brother Woodford, I don't wonder that she went out in the way she did, and for my part I wouldn't have stirred a step to come here to-night it I'd known that she had never been told a word before. It wasn't treating her right, nor us either."

"Mary," said Brother Woodford severely, "such language in reference to the counsel that is given us is most unbecoming, and I cannot allow it in any member of my family."

Mary looked subdued. It was plain that she stood greatly in awe of her lord, who according to the teaching she had received held her salvation in his hands.

Both she and Emily were simple-minded, unsophisticated girls, whose credulity had been their undoing, and they were not so lost to all womanly feeling as to wish to force their presence upon the wronged and outraged wife. It had been Woodford's purpose to follow the example of the 47 Prophet, and make them members of his household at once; but they both refused to remain that night. They had made the journey thus far with a relative, and they announced their intention of returning to his camp for the present. "We will give Sister Woodford a little time to get reconciled; I know I should need it in her place," Emily said, with a touch of genuine feeling.