The army was so far ahead that
they had become bold. We beat off the attacks, but lost two men.
It was white men, however, not Indians, who were to prove our most
dangerous enemies. Arriving near Green River we were nooning on a ridge
about a mile and a half from a little creek, Halm's Fork, where the
stock were driven to water. This was a hundred and fifteen miles east
of Salt Lake City, and well within the limits of the Mormon country.
Most of the outfit had driven the cattle to the creek, a mile and a
half distant, and were returning slowly, while the animals grazed along
the way back to camp. I was with them. We were out of sight of the
wagons.
As we rose the hill a big bearded man, mounted and surrounded by a
party of armed followers, rode up to our wagon-master.
"Throw up your hands, Simpson!" said the leader, who knew Simpson's
name and his position.
Simpson was a brave man, but the strangers had the drop and up went his
hands. At the same time we saw that the wagons were surrounded by
several hundred men, all mounted and armed, and the teamsters all
rounded up in a bunch. We knew that we had fallen into the hands of the
Mormon Danites, or Destroying Angels, the ruffians who perpetrated the
dreadful Mountain Meadows Massacre of the same year. The leader was Lot
Smith, one of the bravest and most determined of the whole crowd.
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