e
said. "They have always sold to the immigration before. And now they
won't sell. And it ain't our quarrel. Their quarrel's with the
government, an' they're takin' it out on us. It ain't right, Captain. It
ain't right, I say, us with our women an' children, an' California months
away, winter comin' on, an' nothin' but desert in between. We ain't got
the grub to face the desert."

He broke off for a moment to address the whole crowd.

"Why, you-all don't know what desert is. This around here ain't desert.
I tell you it's paradise, and heavenly pasture, an' flowin' with milk an'
honey alongside what we're goin' to face."

"I tell you, Captain, we got to get flour first. If they won't sell it,
then we must just up an' take it."

Many of the men and women began crying out in approval, but my father
hushed them by holding up his hand.

"I agree with everything you say, Hamilton," he began.

But the cries now drowned his voice, and he again held up his hand.

"Except one thing you forgot to take into account, Hamilton--a thing that
you and all of us must take into account. Brigham Young has declared
martial law, and Brigham Young has an army. We could wipe out Nephi in
the shake of a lamb's tail and take all the provisions we can carry. But
we wouldn't carry them very far. Brigham's Saints would be down upon us
and we would be wiped out in another shake of a lamb's tail. You know
it. I know it. We all know it."

His words carried conviction to listeners already convinced. What he had
told them was old news. They had merely forgotten it in a flurry of
excitement and desperate need.

"Nobody will fight quicker for what is right than I will," father
continued. "But it just happens we can't afford to fight now. If ever a
ruction starts we haven't a chance. And we've all got our women and
children to recollect. We've got to be peaceable at any price, and put
up with whatever dirt is heaped on us."

"But what will we do with the desert coming?" cried a woman who nursed a
babe at her breast.

"There's several settlements before we come to the desert," father
answered. "Fillmore's sixty miles south. Then comes Corn Creek. And
Beaver's another fifty miles. Next is Parowan. Then it's twenty miles
to Cedar City. The farther we get away from Salt Lake the more likely
they'll sell us provisions."

"And if they won't?" the same woman persisted.

"Then we're quit of them," said my father. "Cedar