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Show MASSACRE. 143 Mr. Meeker then applied for troops for protection, and Major Thornburg, commanding Fort Steele on the Union Pacific Railroad, was at once ordered to use all dispatch in reaching the Indian country. During this time the Utes were secretly preparing for a massacre. They purchased, at exterior points, arms of the most improved pattern, and ammunition in large quantities. , Everything being in readiness, Chief Douglass visited the agency on the morning set for the massacre. He made some remarks about the soldiers coming. Mr. Meeker assured him that their coming did not mean war. Apparently convinced, but at heart resolved to do murder, Douglass ate dinner with them, and lingered long after the meal, laughing and talking in a very pleasant manner with Mr. Meeker, Miss Josephine and Mrs. Price. Suddenly he left. He was thought by the people of the agency to possess many good qualities, but he proved himself to be one of the most cruel and heartless, as well as'one of the most treacherous of the band. A few minutes after his departure the firing began. The women and children, in great alarm, sought a hiding place, and when they were driven from their shelter the cruel work had been accomplished. The Agent and his employees were murdered, and no white person survives who witnessed it. Mrs. Meeker, after emerging from concealment, in passing across the grounds, came close to the side of her dead husband, with whom she had passed twenty-five years of contented married life. She stopped to kiss the cold blue lips, but was rudely ordered by Douglass to pass on. The men were dead, but a fate worse than death awaited the women. Miss Josephine, young and intelligent, Mrs. |
