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Show THE FAIR APOSTATE CONTINUED. 345 the Tabernacle talk. It was a dark time for the few Gentile resi-dents. Every man must look out for himself, and those under ban were to be avoided. In one month from his last conversation with Elder Briarly, Willie Manson was out of his position in the store, out of his latest lodgings, and in a frame of mind desperate enough for any thing. In this mood he met a returned Californian, who had halted in Salt Lake for a brief space, and instead of going on home, had again been seized with the gold fever, and wanted a companion to the northern diggings. In twenty- four hours they were equipped, mounted and off, taking the route north- east to come upon the Bridger trail, and secure a larger party to pass through the Indian country. Their fourth day of leisurely travel they descended the eastern slope of the main Wasa'tch, and turning more to the north, aimed for the upper bend of Bear River. Midway upon this plain, Manson was amazed to find lying under a scrubby pine his acquaintance of the previous year, the Mormon apostate and escaped " Morrisite," Thomas James. Hank Beatty, the Californian, was all impatience to press on to the Montana gold fields. He had spent two years in California, and started back poor as he came, and in a fever to get home; but the older and more persistent fever again seized him, when he heard of the rich discoveries in Montana, and he became again that eager, rest-less mortal a gold- seeker. But Manson would not leave the sick and wounded man. He transported him to the nearest place where good water could be procured and a rude shelter erected, and there for a fortnight, while Beatty fumed and fretted, he nursed the unfort-unate back to health and strength. As soon as he was able to ride slowly, sharing the two horses between the three, they traveled on to the Bridger and Fort Hall trail, and were soon in company with a jolly party of Missourians, all primed for adventure, and sanguine of getting gold beyond the dreams of avarice. But the adventure - came before the gold, for soon the whole country was swarming with Ban-nocks and Shoshonees. These warlike savages looked upon the Montana emigration of 1861 and ' 62 as their legitimate prey. From the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada, clear to the Laramie Plains, the whole Shoshone nation seemed to concentrate on this trail; with them soon came their kins-men, the Bannocks, and erelong the way was dotted with the wrecks of captured trains and the bodies of murdered emigrants. From Bear River northward our party had an almost continuous running fight. At last they reached a section where sleep and rest were |