ree deep. When they did not
fit in, we put one or two crosswise at the head or feet of the others.
We covered them with willows and then with the earth. When we buried
these thirteen people, some of their relatives refused to attend the
services. They manifested an utter indifference about it. The numbness
and cold in their physical natures seemed to have reached the soul, and
to have crushed out natural feeling and affection. Had I not myself
witnessed it, I could not have believed that suffering could produce
such terrible results. But so it was. Two others died during the day,
and we buried them in the same big grave, making fifteen in all. Even so
it has been better for them than to stay where their souls would have
been among the rejected at the day of resurrection.

"But for Elder Rae, our leader, we should all have perished by now. He
is at times severe and stern with those who falter, but only for their
good. He is all along the line, helping the women, who well-nigh worship
him, and urging on the men. He cheers us by prophesying that we shall
soon prevail over all conditions and all our enemies. I think he must
never sleep and never eat. At all hours of the night he is awake. As to
eating, a girl in our hundred, Fidelia, daughter of Jabez Merrismith,
who has been much attracted by him and stays near him when she can,
called him aside the other day, so she has told me, and gave him a
biscuit--_soaked, perfectly soaked, with bacon grease_. She had saved it
for many days. He took it and thanked her, but later she saw him giving
it to the wife of Henry Glines, who is hauling Henry and the two babies
in the cart. She taxed him with not eating it himself; but he told her
that she had given him more than bread, which was the power to _give_
bread. The _giving_ happiness, he told her, is always a little more than
the _taking_ happiness, even when we are starving. He says the one kind
of happiness always keeps a little ahead of the other."

* * * * *

December 1st, the remnant of the caravan reached the city of the Saints.
Of six hundred setting out from the Missouri River, over one quarter had
died by the way.

And to Joel Rae had now come another mission,--one that would not let
him wait, for the spirit was moving him strangely and strongly,--a
mission of reformation.

CHAPTER XIV.

_How the Saints Were Brought to Repentance_

He put his torch to the tinder of irreligion