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Show Waller went on with growing exultance: "After they'd beat us off last time, I reckon the devils begun to think they was back m hell. They got so dry they dressed up two little gals in white an' sent 'em out to the spring. They didn't have the luck of them men." " You shot them ? " I cried. " Young girls! " "Well " he answered, staring at me in blank surprise. ,'Ain't them our orders? Ain't you heard yet. Well, I'll be dummed!" " Just what are the orders, Jake? " inquired Chilcott. "Wby to wipe 'em out, in course-the cussed enemies of the Lord I It's fixed to let on we've come to save 'em from the Injins an' guard 'em back to Cedar City. They don't know we've been fighting 'em-think it's been jest Injins. We'll git 'em out of their camp without their guns, if we can. Lee's to see to that. Then the order is to shoot down every last one of the sinful, murderous cusses, 'cept the little children what can't tell on us. Let's push on, so's not to miss the fun." We were by now well along through the pass that lies between Pinto Creek and the Mountain Meadows. At Waller's suggestion I roused from the numbness of horror to frantic action. I spurred my horse so cruelly that he leaped ahead and dashed down the defile at headlong speed. Chilcott and Waller thought the animal was running away. They shouted for me to hang on and hold him to the road. A glance over my shoulder showed me that they had wheeled out of the trail and were galloping to the left across country. W1thout doubt, they were taking a cut-off to the lower end of the Meadows. Raving at my ill luck, I spurred my horse to his utmost speed. Up to the last I had felt certain that the militia would check any outburst of ferocity on the part of the Indians-that at least the women and children of the train would be protected. I had not imagined ~ ... . . " '" .. THE MORMON LION 28! the possibility of white men deliberately massacring defenceless white women. Even as I dashed past the shack at the head of the Meadows and raced away up the gentle slope at furious speed, frantic with dread of what I should find awaiting me, my reason cried out its denial of what Waller had said -it told me that he must have lied about that hideous order. |