Brigham was gracious enough to accord the desired permission, adding that the young Elder could preach the revived gospel and rebaptise on his way south, thus combining work with recreation.  He was also good enough to volunteer some advice.

“What ails you mostly, Brother Joel, is your single state.  What you need is wives.  You’ve been here ten years now, and it’s high time.  You’re given to brooding over things that are other people’s to brood on, and then, you’re naturally soul-proud.  Now, a few wives will humble you and make you more reasonable, like the rest of us.  I don’t want to be too downright with you, like I am with some of the others, because I’ve always had a special kind of feeling for you, and so I’ve let you go on.  But you think it over, and talk to me about it when you come back.  It’s high time you was building up your thrones and dominions in the Kingdom.”

He started south the next day, riding down between the two mountain ranges that bordered the valley, stopping at each settlement, breathing more freely, resting more easily, as each day took him farther away.  Yet, when he closed his eyes, there, like an echo, was the vision of a woman’s face with shining eyes and lips,—­a vision that after a few seconds was washed away by a great wave of blood.

But after a few days, certain bits of news caught up with him that happily drove this thing from his sight for a time by stirring within him all his old dread of Gentile persecution.

First he heard that Parley Pratt, the Archer of Paradise and one of the Twelve Apostles, had been foully murdered back in Arkansas while seeking to carry to their mother the children of his ninth wife.  The father of these children, so his informant reported, had waylaid and shot him.

Then came rumours of a large wagon-train going south through Utah on its way to California.  Reports said it was composed chiefly of Missourians, some of whom were said to be boasting that they had helped to expel the Saints from Jackson County in that State.  Also in this train were reported to be several men from Arkansas who had been implicated in the assassination of Apostle Pratt.

But news of the crowning infamy reached him the following day,—­news that had put out all thought of his great sin and his bloody secret, news of a thing so monstrous that he was unable to give it credence until it had been confirmed by other comers from the north.  President Buchanan, inspired by tales that had reached him of various deeds growing out of the reformation, and by the treatment which various Federal officers were said to have received, had decided that rebellion existed in the Territory of Utah.  He had appointed a successor to Brigham Young as governor, so the report ran, and ordered an army to march to Salt Lake City for the alleged purpose of installing the new executive.

Three days later all doubt of the truth of this story was banished.  Word then came that Brigham was about to declare martial law, and that he had promised that Buchanan’s army should never enter the valley.