the great idea to which he had pledged a fortune. He talked so well that she could comprehend the gist of his argument, and he perceived the clearness of her comprehension.

'It may be many years,' he admitted. 'We may none of us live to see it. But some day, some day, the thing will be done, and—every little helps.'

'Does any one know, any one but me?'

'Nobody, yet. But of course I shall be obliged to tell my folks. It will be pretty rough on them, I'm afraid.'

'Rough on them? They could n't be so narrow!' She had pushed back her chair. Her face was plainly visible now; her speech wholly spontaneous. "They must see, they must feel' But here she put sudden compulsion on herself, and fell silent.

'Hester!' he cried, leaning forward across the table. 'You can see it that way? You can feel with me about it? And yet -' He sprang to his feet with an impatient movement.

'And yet?' she echoed, unfolding the shawl from its tissue wrappings, and absently resting her cheek against it.

He was not standing the test, and he knew it. With a sense of wrenching himself free, he said abruptly, 'I'll go now, and leave you to correct compositions in peace to the end of the chapter, on one condition. That you come out on the piazza, and give me absolution, just where it happened. I'll go, honor bright, if you'll do that.'

'Well, if you offer such an inducement,' she jested, tossing the little shawl over her head, in token perhaps of amnesty, as together they passed out into the chill evening air.

There was only starlight to-night; only the stars in their courses looked down upon that provocative little shawl. He almost wished she had n't

thrown it over her head; that little shawl that made her look so human, so lovable, so like those plain women who loved a man without thinking, because they could n't help themselves.

'It's a big good-by for me,' he was saying, with a stricture at his throat that really hurt.

'On account of the burned bridges?' she queried, under her breath.

'Yes,' he said, firmly and finally; 'on account of the burned bridges.' And he took her hand in parting.

'I'm glad you've burned them,' she observed, striving hard for the purely conversational tone. 'I always hated that money of yours.'

'Hated it?'

'Yes, and the things you said about it, and about us. They sounded such castles in the air.'

The shawl had fallen back from her head, and her face showed clear and frank in the starlight. There was a dawning sweetness in it, too, a sweetness that Hazeldean had divined from the very first, though never until that hour had his eyes beheld it. But he kept himself steadily to the issue in hand.

'And ships in the air?' he urged. 'You would rather hear talk of them?' 'Yes; only it's not the talk, either. It's what you've done. It's so-real!'

He had both her hands now, and his eyes held hers.

'Hester!' It was as if he were conjuring her to a confession of faith; Hester! You do believe, you really do believe-in it all?'

And she answered quietly, almost solemnly, yet with that in her voice which was a confession of more, far more, than faith, —

'Yes, I do believe that we shall live to see your ships in the air come true, -you and I!'

...

I

'September 6. Leaving the encampment early. we reached the butte without any difficulty, and, ascending to the summit, immediately at our feet beheld the subject of our anxious search, the waters of the inland sea, stretching in still and solitary grandeur far beyond the limit of our vision. It was one of the great points of the exploration; and, as we looked eagerly over the lake, in the emotions of excited pleasure, I am doubtful if the followers of Balboa felt more enthusiasm when, from the heights of the Andes, they saw for the first time the great western sea.

'September 8. The evening was mild and clear. We made a pleasant bed of the young willows; and geese and ducks enough had been killed for an abundant supper at night, and for breakfast the next morning. The stillness of the night was enlivened by millions of waterfowl.

'September 14. . . . Taking leave at this point of the waters of Bear River, and of the geographical basin which encloses the system of rivers and creeks which belong to the Great Salt Lake, . . . I can say of it that the bottom of this river, and of some of the creeks which I saw, form a natural resting and recruiting station for travelers, now and in all time to come. The bottoms are extensive; water excellent; timber sufficient; soil good and well adapted to the grains and grasses suited to such an elevated region. A mili

tary post and a civilized settlement would be of great value here, and cattle and horses would do well where grass and salt so much abounded. The lake will furnish exhaustless supplies of salt. All the mountain sides here are covered with a valuable, nutritious grass, called bunch-grass from the form in which it grows, which has a second growth in the fall. The beasts of the Indians were fat upon it. Our own found it a good substitute; and its quantity will sustain any amount of cattle, and make this truly a bucolic region.'

These words placed Utah upon the map. They are from Frémont's report of his explorations in 1842, 1843, and 1844, extending from Missouri to California. The entries here cited are from the journal of 1843, and describe the region in and near the Salt Lake basin. Published in 1845, they were read eagerly by Brigham Young when, after being compelled to leave Nauvoo, Illinois, with his people, in 1846, he was casting his eyes over the continent in search of a place to which to lead them, where they could be free from further molestation.

The religio-social organization of which he was the head had already contributed an interesting chapter to United States history. In Fayette, Seneca County, New York, on April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith, his brothers Hyrum and Samuel H. Smith, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and his brother Peter Whitmer, organized, under the laws of the State of New York, the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is an important date in the story of the building of the West. On that day, and under those auspices, the corporation popularly known as the Mormon Church, which was destined to open to civilization the then darkest spot on America's dark continent, to figure conspicuously in America's social and political annals in the after time, began its legal existence.

Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, in 1805. According to Mormon history, the angel Moroni came to him on the night of September 21, 1823, and told him that God had a great work for him to do; that a revelation written on gold plates was deposited in a hill near by, and that with it were two transparent stones in silver bows, called the Urim and Thummim, on looking through which the plates could be deciphered. Plates and stones were delivered into Smith's hands on the night of September 22, 1827. The characters on the plates were what the Mormons called the 'reformed Egyptian.' Putting a blanket over the plates to conceal the record from profane eyes, Smith read the plates, and Oliver Cowdery wrote down the words. These disclosures, which were printed in Palmyra, New York, in 1830, were what was known as the Book of Mormon, and marked out the work which Smith and his people were to do. It had as an appendix a statement by Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, that they had seen the angel, the plates, and the characters thereon. A few years afterward these persons, having renounced the Mormon faith in the interval, declared that their previous testimony was false. The Book of Mormon, however, is history, and not a body of precepts or dogmas. The articles of faith, which were adopted later, are set forth in the code entitled Doctrines and Covenants. VOL. 106-NO. 1

Removing to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1831 (an episode which figures in Mormon church history as the 'first hegira'), the saints quickly aroused the distrust of their Gentile neighbors, and at length they fled to Missouri (the 'second hegira'), settling at Independence, on the western border of that state. Finding that spot inhospitable, they moved to other parts of the state. Trouble pursued them, however; a miniature civil war resulted between them and the rest of the community, and in 1838 Governor Boggs issued an order declaring that they 'must be exterminated, or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public good.' Once more they migrated (the 'third hegira'), this time crossing into Illinois, where they purchased the little village of Commerce, and there on the bank of the Mississippi, laid out a town which they named Nauvoo.

II

Charles Francis Adams, son of the sixth President of the United States, and Josiah Quincy, visited Nauvoo early in 1844. Writing long afterward, Quincy said that some text-book of the future might contain a query like this: 'What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen?' and he thought it possible that the answer might be: 'Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet.' Quincy closed his chapter thus: 'If the reader does not know what to make of Joseph Smith, I cannot help him out of the difficulty. I myself stand helpless before the puzzle.'

Others besides Adams and Quincy marveled at the Mormon phenomenon. The Illinois legislature in 1840 granted a liberal charter to Nauvoo, and the ten thousand men who started to build it in that year had grown to

twelve thousand in 1844. In addition to a university and a temple, the city had most of the accompaniments of a modern town of that period. The Mormons had reached a dignity and a prosperity never before attained by them. Believing that persecution for his people had ended, Smith became arrogant, so his Gentile neighbors said. Early in 1844 some of his people proposed him for the nomination for President of the United States. He sent letters to Clay, Van Buren, Cass, Buchanan, and others who had been mentioned in connection with the candidacy, Whigs and Democrats, asking what, if they were elected, would be their attitude toward the Mormons, and in every case the answers were non-committal.

But disaster was lying in ambush for Smith and his people. The wrath of the Gentiles was rising, and for several reasons, one of which was the acts, or the alleged acts, of the Danites, or Destroying Angels, an assassination society with which some members of the Mormon hierarchy were affiliated. In his History of Illinois, however, published in 1854, Governor Thomas Ford said, "The great cause of the popular fury was that the Mormons, at several preceding elections, had cast their votes as a unit, thereby making the fact apparent that no one could aspire to the honors or offices of the country, within the sphere of their influence, without their approbation and votes.'

As a dogma of the church, polygamy was not proclaimed until 1852, five years after the Mormons had settled in Utah; but cohabitation, it was said, had been secretly practiced by Smith in Nauvoo, and this was the immediate cause of his downfall. His suggestions to some of the women of his flock in 1843 to become his spiritual wives led them and their husbands to separate from the church, and they

started a paper in that town named the Expositor, which disclosed and attacked his practices. On May 6, 1844, Smith and a few of his followers destroyed the press and type of the paper. A warrant for their arrest was resisted. The county authorities called out the militia, and Smith and his brother Hyrum gave themselves up. On their promise to appear for trial they were released, but were immediately rearrested and placed in jail at Carthage, the county seat. Hearing that Governor Ford was about to give them their liberty, a mob, of which some of the jail guards were a part, attacked the jail on June 27, and shot the Smiths dead. The assassins were never punished.

The murder of Smith caused a sensation throughout the country, but local hostility compelled the legislature to revoke the charter of Nauvoo, in January, 1845. A deputation of prominent citizens, Whigs and Democrats, including Stephen A. Douglas, went to Nauvoo and told the Mormon leaders that they must leave the state. In October, 1845, Brigham Young, who became the head of the church after the death of Smith, announced that they would begin at once to sell their property, and seek a home in the Western wilderness. The large amount of property which was thrown upon the market, with the comparatively small number of buyers, most of whom were hostile, compelled the Mormons to let their farms, residences, and workshops go for any price which was offered, much of the property being exchanged for horses, wagons, horned cattle, and sheep.

It was then that Frémont's report reached Young's eyes. At the beginning of 1846 there were no states west of the Mississippi except Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, the last-named having just been annexed. Beyond the

Missouri was a wilderness roamed over by Indians and wild beasts. The territory comprised in the present Oregon, Idaho, and Washington was in dispute between the United States and England and had been for more than a generation, though it was to come under the flag by a treaty with England before that year expired. Utah, as well as New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California, belonged to Mexico. Mexico was feeble, and its seat of government was two thousand miles from Salt Lake. In that region, far away from his persecutors in the United States, Young probably dreamed that he could erect an empire in which his people would be free forever from espionage or attack.

III

The bluffs of Hancock County, Illinois, where, in its northern and southern stretches, the Mississippi swings eastward, saw stirring and pathetic scenes on February 1, 1846. This was the beginning of the fourth and the last of the Mormon hegiras. The crossing of the river into Iowa territory, first on the ice and then on flatboats, skiffs, and such other craft as were obtainable, lasted until spring, the temperature, in the mean time, running the gamut of the Fahrenheit scale, from twenty degrees below zero to ninety degrees above.

With halting-places at Garden Grove, Mount Pisgah, and other points, some of which retain to this day the names which were then given to them, the exiles' line stretched almost from the Mississippi to the Missouri. It comprised fourteen thousand people, with three thousand wagons, thirty thousand head of cattle, and large numbers of horses and sheep. Births and deaths took place on the march. Some of the fugitives tarried on the way to plant and gather crops in the great vacant

spaces which they traversed. It was the pilgrimage of a whole people.

The head of the column, with Brigham Young and most of the twelve apostles, reached the Missouri, near Council Bluffs, in June, crossed into Nebraska, and built a temporary town which they named Winter Quarters. This was near the present village of Florence, and a few miles north of the spot on which Omaha was afterward to rise. Nebraska, which was not organized as a territory until eight years later, had only a few dozen white inhabitants at that time, chiefly furtraders, and was part of the region which was vaguely called the 'Indian Country.' Some of the fugitives went further into Nebraska, and found a refuge among the Sioux, and others stayed in Iowa for the time, but the main body passed the autumn and winter at Winter Quarters.

From the camp at that point, on April 14, 1847, started the advance detachment which was to blaze the path to the new Zion. It comprised one hundred and forty-three men, three women, and two children, with seventythree wagons. The women were the wives of Brigham Young and of the apostles Lorenzo D. Young and Heber C. Kimball. Brigham was in command. The detachment was divided into companies, with regularly recognized officers, because, as they were to pass through a region in which Indians abounded, a semblance of military organization for purposes of defense was felt to be necessary. The objective of their migration was not definitely fixed in the minds of their leaders, except that they intended to cross the Rocky Mountains, and they were to attempt to seek out the locality which had been described by Frémont.

On the North Fork of the Platte they struck the Oregon Trail, which by 1847 had become broad and plainly