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Show 492 WESTERN WILDS. merry. The whole town appeared to be concentrating in that vicinity. It was evident the place contained at least seventy- five fighting men, and that they only waited a signal from Lee, or some one else, to begin. Directing his men to keep their weapons in constant readi-ness, and placing two of them as a special guard over Lee, the Mar-shal informed that worthy that the first move towards a rescue would be the signal for his instant death. The signal was not given. The posse ate breakfast, silently and in haste, and departed for the hills, the whole population waiting" and watching. By forced marches the Gentiles reached Beaver next morning, and John D. Lee soon reposed in the strong room at Camp Cameron with fifty pounds of iron on his person. Before entering on the details of his trial it is necessary to give some particulars of the crime, a thousand times told, for which he finally suffered. It was the result of three motives, prominent in the order named: revenge, lust for plunder and fanaticism. When the Latter- day Saints left Illinois, 20,000 strong, they hurled back apos-tolic curses at the whole Gentile nation. That nation, they said, had rejected the gospel by the murder of the Prophet and Patriarch, and should perish in its sins. In the Rocky Mountains the Saints would establish a kingdom, and in due time take vengeance on their enemies. In the endowment oaths, every true Mormon was sw r orn to avenge the death of Joseph Smith. A peculiar system of diplomacy and attempt to establish a theocracy in the States, had brought the Saints into con-flict with the Americans, and now that conflict was made the means of uniting them more solidly against the Gentile world. With the doctrine of a temporal kingdom came in the long train of Hebraic similes: the Church was in bondage in Egypt; it was in the wilder-ness of Zin; it was to overthrow the Amalekites ( Missourians), and repeat all the wonderful achievements in the fruitful annals of Israel. And as the Amalekites resisted, and many Mormons grew disaffected, all the bloody devices of the ancient Hebrews were legalized, and thus Mormonism became the terrible thing it was in 1856 and ' 57. When they first settled in Utah they determined their government should be a pure theocracy, but it was necessary to have some form which the United States would recognize, to give jurisdiction over Gentiles who might pass through or tarry in Zion. A State govern-ment was agreed upon. Its boundaries were declared to be from the summit of the Sierras to that of the Rocky Mountains, and from latitude 42 down to the Mohave Desert and divide of the Colorado plateau ; it contained all the present Utah and Nevada, with consider- |
