of the parties was related. There were at our post headquarters, and standing out alongside of the door, about forty men, as tickled a lot as I ever saw; soldiers and all seemed to enjoy it immensely. After I had heard the evidence I asked the Englishman why he made the bet. He said he supposed it was an honest bet. I then asked him if he had won, what he would have done with the money. He said he would have put it in his pocket. I then told him that out in the Western country people got their experience in the manner that he had got his. That people paid for it, and therefore came by it honestly; and that I considered the matter as only a little question of propriety between man and man, except as to the killing of the dog. The man was in the room who had given the dog the strychnine coffee. I told the Englishman that he had lost his money, and deserved to lose it, and I would not order it paid back to him. But that any man who would kill a good dog ought to be imprisoned. I told the Englishman he had no right to risk the life of his dog by betting on it. I ordered the sergeant to take the poisoner to the guard-house and lock him up; I ordered the proceedings adjourned, and told all the civilians to get off the reservation. They all went off, enjoying the discomfiture of the Englishman very much.
As to my prisoner, I ordered him to be kept until he paid a fine of $200 into the post fund. I also had him put at work currying horses. This post fund was for the purpose of general post benefits, extra things for the sick boys, and such matters as were needed, and which the Government did not issue. The post fund was really the company fund of our company. The man was kept working in the stables about two weeks. He finally proved to me that he was a worthless scamp, without any resources, and couldn't pay anything. Afterwards there was a train going down the road; I let him go and told him not to appear on the Platte again, and I never saw him afterwards.
The arrival of Lacey and Donley from Ash Hollow with the wood put us all in good spirits, and we entered the month of December with but little apprehension for the future.
Upon the first of December Captain O'Brien returned from Cottonwood Springs, and assumed command of the post. Our First Lieutenant, Brewer, was made Quartermaster of the post, and that left me the only officer to command the company, and on December first I took personal command of the company.
Chapter XXVIII.
The Unfriendly Dinner – Apostle Cannon – Joe Smith – The Mormon Doctrine – Alkali Station – The Mormon Train – The River Crossing – Champagne with Bancroft – Elston's Prophecy
SHORTLY after the Captain reassumed command of the Post, he and I were invited to the stage station, one day, for dinner. There was a long table with about ten on each side. They were the drivers of the stage line, about as rough and jolly a lot of men as I ever saw. They were talking about the Indian scare, and the probabilities of an Indian outbreak, and how General P. Edward Connor was coming through from Salt Lake to take charge. And the whole dinner was a loud and uproarious occasion. The profanity was pyrotechnic.
One of the stage-drivers who was pretty loud, got to talking about the dangers that would follow an Indian outbreak. Every man at the table had on a revolver; some of them two. This loud-talking and vivacious stage-driver said he believed that the Cheyenne Indians could come and take the post. Captain O'Brien asked him what made him think so. He made some sort of a flippant reply which brought on a controversy, and this stage-driver pretended to take offense at what the Captain said, and told the Captain that he, the stage-driver, had a notion to go across the table and break him in two.
Thereupon the Captain quickly arose with his hand on his revolver and told him that he must not talk that way, and if he wanted to do any shooting that he could always get satisfaction; that he, the Captain, would shoot toe to toe, or across the table, or across the corral, or across the prairie, or across the river. The fellow was inclined to be ugly, but as he looked at the Captain he did not think it wise to say much more.
I do not know how many of those present had their hands on their revolvers, but I guess everyone around the table. I had mine ready. The Captain said he believed he did not care to eat any more dinner where such discourtesy was shown, and he withdrew from the table with his hand on his revolver, passing out of the door, and keeping his eye upon those present; I did the same. We went out, got on our horses, and went up to the post.
It was without doubt a put-up job to get us down there at dinner and have some fun with us. Some of them had been Confederate soldiers. Of course we never knew whether there was a design to be gay with us, but we took good care not to get into such a situation again. Some of the stage-drivers we knew personally; some we did not know, but had generally regarded them all as good fellows, and, singly and personally, they were; but, in bulk they were not very desirable acquaintances for officers in blue uniform.
One day, early in December, I was up on top of our stable gazing around with my field-glass, as I often used to do, to see if anything suspicious could be seen on the horizon, or up on the hills, when I noticed a dark speck up Lodgepole Creek. It was so much enveloped in haze that I could not make it out for a long time. Finally I saw that it was a covered wagon. I bad a corporal and five men immediately go over to where it was, for fear that some Indian might rise up out of the grass and kill the traveler.
When he arrived at the post the occupant of the vehicle introduced himself to me as Mr. Cannon. He had a driver and a large, fine four-mule light-running wagon with rubber cover. I told Mr. Cannon that he would have to stay until a hundred armed men were going East. He very much opposed this, and did his utmost to persuade me to disobey my orders in such cases. He told me that he was one of the twelve apostles of the Mormon Church, and he was going East to meet an appointment, and if he were long delayed it would be very unfortunate. He told me, as every other Mormon did, that he was not afraid of the Indians, and that no Indian ever killed a Mormon. But I was compelled to hold him; told him that I could not permit the orders to be violated; would have a train ready for him as soon as possible, and that there were already quite a number of wagons in corral near the post.
Cannon was a very fine, dignified-looking gentleman, and very much inclined to talk. And when I found he was a Mormon apostle, I was very desirous of hearing what he had to say, having already had the advantage of desultory conversations with his predecessor, Elder Sharpe, of whom I have spoken. As an evangelist and lecturer on the Mormon faith, Cannon was very much superior to Sharpe. Cannon saw the dogs, and wanted to see a wolf-hunt; so I with ten men went out on horseback with him. While on the hunt he got to telling me about the Mormon faith, and its introduction by Joe Smith. There came between us a series of very interesting colloquies. I would now be unable to depict these, except that I not only made full notes of them at the time, but I also wrote them out fully in letters to my Mother, upon whose death I found them all preserved. I am able, therefore, to go into the matter with more detail than I otherwise would, but will have to condense them very much here.
I asked him how be knew that the Indians were the lost tribes of Israel. He then went on to tell me how the lost tribes of Israel wandered from their country, came to the United States, and how they increased and spread out, and prospered. Then he gave me a long history of the wars that took place between them. He told me of the battles which were fought, one after another. At the place where Cincinnati now stands a great battle had been fought. There were pursuits by one tribe of another. One tribe endeavored to annihilate another. There was a great battle where Charleston, South Carolina, now stands, and there were secretaries who acted as historians to keep run of the vicissitudes of these wide and bloody wars.
Then he told about how finally the record was made which Joe Smith found. He described to me the size of the gold plates upon which the characters containing these records were engraved. These gold plates contained it all, and had been placed in a stone box, and hidden in a hill in New York. He kept using scriptural quotations continually. He told how Joe Smith had found these plates, and had translated them. I asked him what kind of characters were on these plates. He said that he had not seen them, but he had had them described to him. He said they were not like the Roman letters, nor the Greek letters, nor the Chinese, nor the Hebrew, but they were written in a sort of elegant, cursive hand, something not unlike Pitman shorthand, smoothly, but with an entirely different character and meaning. He said nobody could read the characters without they had the tools to read them with. I asked him what he meant. He said that with these plates in the stone box there were placed two transparent pebbles, one for each eye to look through. These pebbles were rights and lefts, and must be held up before the eye, each pebble for the proper eye, and that when looking through those pebbles anybody could read the writing; that the pebbles themselves illuminated the mind of the reader, so that the reader, so long as he was looking through the pebbles, could read and understand the script, no matter what his native language was, but that he could not understand anything by simply looking at the plates with his unaided eyes.
I asked him why it was that as an apostle he had never seen these plates. He said that he did not dare to look
