By the first of June they had wormed their way over five hundred miles of plain to the trading post of Fort Laramie.  Here they were at last forced to cross the Platte and to take up their march along the Oregon trail.  They were now in the land of alkaline deserts, of sage-brush and greasewood, of sad, bleak, deadly stretches; a land where the favour of Heaven might have to be called upon if they were to survive.  Yet it was a land not without inspiration,—­a land of immense distances, of long, dim perspectives, and of dreamy visions in the far, vague haze.  In such a land, thought Joel Rae, the spirit of the Lord must draw closer to the children of earth.  In such a land no miracle should be too difficult.  And so it came that he was presently enabled to put in Brigham’s way the opportunity of performing a work of mercy which he himself would have been glad to do, but for the fear of affronting the Prophet.

A band of mounted Sioux had met them one day with friendly advances and stopped to trade.  Among the gaudy warriors Joel Rae’s attention was called to a boy who had lost an arm.  He made inquiries, and found him to be the son of the chief.  The chief himself made it plain to Joel that the young man had lost his arm ten moons before in a combat with a grizzly bear.  Whereupon the young Elder cordially bade the chief bring his crippled son to their own great chief, who would, by the gracious power of God, miraculously restore the missing member.

A few moments later the three were before Brigham, who was standing by his wagon; Joel Rae, glowing with a glad and confident serenity; the tawny chief with his sable braids falling each side of his painted face, gay in his head-dress of dyed eagle plumes, his buckskin shirt jewelled with blue beads and elk’s teeth, warlike with his bow and steel-pointed arrows; and the young man, but little less ornate than his splendid father, stoical, yet scarce able to subdue the flash of hope in his eyes as he looked up to the great white chief.

Brigham looked at them questioningly.  Joel announced their errand.

“It’s a rare opportunity, Brother Brigham, to bring light to these wretched Lamanites.  This boy had his arm torn off a year ago in a fight with a grizzly.  You know you told me that day I brought the rain-storm that you could well-nigh raise the dead, so this will be easy for you.”

Brigham still looked puzzled, so the young man added with a flash of enthusiasm:  “Restore this poor creature’s arm and the noise of the miracle will go all through these tribes;” he paused expectantly.

It is the mark of true greatness that it may never be found unprepared.  Now and again it may be made to temporise for a moment, cunningly adopting one expedient or another to hide its unreadiness—­but never more than briefly.

Brigham had looked slowly from the speaker to the Indians and slowly back again.  Then he surveyed several bystanders who had been attracted to the group, and his eyelids were seen to work rapidly, as if in sympathetic pace with his thoughts.  Then all at once he faced Joel.