Madness and Death

The remainder of our journey was terrible by Nature only, without the atrocious aid of man. But the past had done its work. We reached Washoe with our very marrows almost burnt out by sleeplessness, sickness, and agony of mind. The morning before we came to the silver-mining metropolis, Virginia City, a stout, young, Illinois farmer, whom we had regarded as the stanchest of all our fellow-passengers, became delirious, and had to be held in the stage by main force. (A few weeks afterward, when the stage was changing horses near the Sink of Carson, another traveller became suddenly insane, and blew his brains out.) As for myself, the moment that I entered a warm bath, in Virginia City, I swooned entirely away, and was resuscitate with great difficulty after an hour and a half's unconsciousness.

Burnt Station

Only one consolation was left us. In the middle of the defile stood an overland station, where we were to get fresh horses. The next stage was twenty miles long. If we were attacked in force, we might manage to run it, almost the whole way, unless the Indians succeeded in shooting one of our team, - the coup they always attempt. I have no doubt we were ambushed at several points in that defile, but our prefect preparation intimidated our foes. . . At last we turned the corner around which the station-house should come in view. A thick, nauseous smoke was curling up from the site of the buildings. We came nearer. Barn, stables, station-house, -- all were a smouldering pile of rafters. We came still nearer. The whole stud of horses -- a dozen or fifteen--lay roasting on the embers. We came close to the spot. There, inextricably mixes with the carcasses of the beasts, lay six men, their brains dashed out, their faces mutilated beyond recognition, their limbs hewn off, -- a frightful holocaust steaming up into our faces.

A Terrible Defile

The first afternoon-stage that day was a long and terrible one. The poor horses could hardly drag our crazy wagon, up to its hubs in potash; and yet we knew our only safety, in case of attack, was a running fight. We must fire from our windows as the horses flew. About four o'clock we entered a terrible defile, which seemed planned by Nature for treachery and ambush. The great, black, porphory and trachyte rose three hundred feet above our heads, their lower and nearer ledges being all so many natural parapets to fire over, loop-holed with chinks to fire through. There were ten rifles in our party. We ran them out, five on a side, ready to send the first red villain who peeped over the breastworks to quick perdition. Our six-shooters lay across our laps, our bowie-knives were at our sides, our cartouche-boxes, crammed with ready vengeance, swung open on our breast-straps. We sat with tight-shut teeth, -- only muttering now and then to each other, in a glum undertone, "Don't get nervous, --don't throw a single shot away, -- take aim, -- remember it's for home!"

The Lookout

I must abruptly leap to the overland stage again. From Salt Lake City to Washoe and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the road lies through the most horrible desert conceivable by the mind of man. For the sand of the Sahara we find substituted an impalpable powder of alkali, white as the driven snow, stretching for ninety miles at a time in one uninterrupted dazzling sheet, which supports not even that last obstinate vidette of vegetation, the wild-sage brush.

As if Nature had not done her worst, we were doomed, on the second day out from Salt Lake, to hear, at one station where we stopped, horrid rumors of Goshoots on the war-path, and, ere the day reached its noon, to find their proofs irrefragable. Every now and then we saw in the potash-dust moccasin-tracks, with the toes turned in, and presently my field-glass revealed a hideous devil skulking in the mile-off ledges, who was none other than a Goshoot spy. How far off were the scalpers and burners?

The Destroying Angel

Porter Rockwell is a man whom my readers must have heard of in every account of fearlessly executed massacre committed in Utah during the last thirteen years. He is the chief of the Danites, -- a band of saints who possess the monopoly of vengeance upon Gentiles and Mormons. They are the Heaven-elected assassins of Mormonism . . . Porter Rockwell has slain forty men. This is historical. His probable private victims amount to as many more. He wears his hair braided behind, and done up in a knot with a back-comb, like a woman's. he has a face full of bull-dog courage, -- but vastly good-natured, and without a bad trait in it. I went out riding with him on the Fourth of July, and enjoyed his society greatly, - though I knew that at a word from Brigham he would cut my throat in as matter-of-fact a style as if I had been a calf instead of an author. I understood his anomaly perfectly, and found him one of the pleasantest murderers I have ever met. He was mere executive force, from which the lever, conscience, had suffered entire disjunction, being in the hand of Brigham.

Supreme Control

Over all these matters Brigham Young has supreme control. His power is the most despotic known to mankind. Here, by the way, is the constitutionally vulnerable point of Mormonism. If fear of establishing a bad precedent hinder the United States at any time from breaking that nest of all disloyalty, because of its licentious marriage-institutions, Utah is still open to grave punishment, and the Administration inflicting it would have duty as well as vested right upon its side, on the ground that it stands pledged to secure to each of the nation's constituent sections a republican form of government, -- something which Utah has never enjoyed any more than Timbuctoo. I once asked Brigham if Dr. Bernhisel would be likely to get to Congress again. "No," he replied with perfect certainty; "we shall send __________ as our Delegate." What more absolute despotism is conceivable? Here lies the pou-sto for the lever of Governmental interference. The mere fact of such power resting in one man's irresponsible hands is a crime against the Constitution. At the same time, this power, wonderful as it may seem, is practically wielded for the common good. I never heard Brigham's worst enemies accuse him of peculation . . . His life is one great theoretical mistake, yet he makes fewer practical mistakes than any other man, so situated, whom the world ever saw.

Infernally Cruel Ruse

As to the Indians, let me remark by-the-by, I did not tell him (Brigham Young) that I understood the reason of his dislike to severe measures in that direction. Infernally bestial and cruel as are the Goshoots, PiUtes, and other Desert tribes, still they have never planned an extensive raid since the Mormons entered Utah. In every settlement of saints you will find from two to a dozen young men who wear their black hair in the Indian fashion, and speak all the surrounding dialects with native fluency. Whenenver a fatly-provided wagon-train is to be attacked, a fine herd of emigrants' beeves stampeded, the mail to be stopped, or the Gentiles in any way harassed, these desperadoes stain their skin, exchange their clothes for a breech-clout, and rally a horde of the savages, whose favor they have always propitiated, for the ambush and massacre, which in all but the element of brute force is their work in plan, leadership and execution.