The next day we rolled out of camp, and proceeded on our way towards the setting sun.  Everything ran along smoothly with us from that point until we came within about eighteen miles of Green river, in the Rocky mountains—­where we camped at noon.  At this place we had to drive our cattle about a mile and a half to a creek to water them.  Simpson, his assistant, George Woods and myself, accompanied by the usual number of guards, drove the cattle over to the creek, and while on our way back to camp, we suddenly observed a party of twenty horsemen rapidly approaching us.  We were not yet in view of our wagons, as a rise of ground intervened, and therefore we could not signal the train-men in case of any unexpected danger befalling us.  We had no suspicion, however, that we were about to be trapped, as the strangers were white men.  When they had come up to us, one of the party, who evidently was the leader, rode out in front and said: 

“How are you, Mr. Simpson?”

“You’ve got the best of me, sir,” said Simpson, who did not know him.

“Well, I rather think I have,” coolly replied the stranger, whose words conveyed a double meaning, as we soon learned.  We had all come to a halt by this time, and the strange horsemen had surrounded us.  They were all armed with double-barreled shot guns, rifles and revolvers.  We also were armed with revolvers, but we had had no idea of danger, and these men, much to our surprise, had “got the drop” on us, and had covered us with their weapons, so that we were completely at their mercy.  The whole movement of corraling us was done so quietly and quickly that it was accomplished before we knew it.

“I’ll trouble you for your six shooters, gentlemen,” now said the leader.

“I’ll give ’em to you in a way you don’t want,” replied Simpson.

The next moment three guns were leveled at Simpson.  “If you make a move you’re a dead man,” said the leader.

Simpson saw that he was taken at a great disadvantage, and thinking it advisable not to risk the lives of the party by any rash act on his part, he said:  “I see now that you have the best of me, but who are you, anyhow?”

“I am Joe Smith,” was the reply.

“What! the leader of the Danites?” asked Simpson.

“You are correct,” said Smith, for he it was.

“Yes,” said Simpson, “I know you now; you are a spying scoundrel.”

Simpson had good reason for calling him this and applying to him a much more opprobrious epithet, for only a short time before this, Joe Smith had visited our train in the disguise of a teamster, and had remained with us two days.  He suddenly disappeared, no one knowing where he had gone or why he had come among us.  But it was all explained to us now that he had returned with his Mormon Danites.  After they had disarmed us, Simpson asked, “Well, Smith, what are you going to do with us?”

“Ride back with us and I’ll soon show you,” said Smith.