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Show A STARTLING INTERVIEW. 303 " And heard nothing that was good, I reckon." This, with some bitterness of tone. He then continued, speaking rapidly : " Yes, I told my wives to call me Doyle to strangers; they've been kicking up such a muss about polygamy, McKean and them, and I'm a man that's had eighteen wives; but now that the Supreme Court has decided that polygamy's part of a man's religion, and the law's got nothin' to do with it; it don't make no difference, I reckon." Of course this was only a subterfuge^ but I could not have ventured to recur to the real reason of his being located in this wild place, if he had not approached the subject himself soon after. Then I hinted as delicately as possible, that if it were not disagreeable to him, I should like to hear " the true account of that affair which had been the cause of his name being so prominent." It had grown dark mean-while, and this gave him, I thought, more freedom in his talk. ( It is to be noted that he did not know my name or business.) Clearing his throat nervously, he began, with many short stops and repetitions : " Well, I suppose you mean that well, that Mountain Meadow af-fair ? Well, I'll tell you what is the exact truth of it, as God is my Judge, and the why I am out here like an outlaw but I'm a goin' to die like a man, and not be choked like a dog and why my name's published all over as the vilest man in Utah, on account of what others did but I never will betray my brethren, no, never which it is . told for a sworn fact that I violated two girls as they were kneel-ing and begging to me for life ; but, as God is my Judge, and I expect to stand before Him, it is all an infernal lie." He ran off this and much more of the sort with great volubility; then seemed to grow more calm, and went on : " Now, sir, I'll give you the account exactly as it stood, though for years I've rested under the most infamous charges ever cooked up on a man. I've had to move from point to point, and lost my property, when I might have cleared it up any time by just saying who was who. I could have proved that I was not in it, but not without bringing in other men to criminate them. But I wouldn't do it. They had trusted in me, and their motives were good at the start, bad as the thing turned out. " But about the emigrants. They was the worst set that ever crossed the plains, and they made it so as to get here just when we was at war. Old Buchanan had sent his army to destroy us, and we had made up our minds that they should not find any spoil. We had been making preparations for two years, drying wheat and caching it in the mountains; and intended, when worst come to worst, to burn and |