John responded to this genuine outburst with mingled feelings; he could but acknowledge the genuineness of the man, but the strictures upon the leaders of his people stung John almost to the quick reply. Again Governor Cumming was to the rescue. "Gentlemen, we have no time for reminiscence. We must to business! There is no time to lose." "Damn me, sir, I am not wasting time when I tell a man he is one of a body of heroes. Damn it, man, do you know anything about that tremendous march of half-clad, half-starved troops through a howling barren waste, over deserts and mountains, burying their dead, and nursing their sick, without one day's rest or pause? Damn it, man, you seem to be pretty ignorant of the greatest march undertaken by American or other soldiers. Do you know, sir, that that company of rough, untrained soldiers planted the first American flag on the soil of Lower California? Stevens, I am proud to take your hand. I saw your name on the muster roll and am glad to meet you." Governor Cumming was nervously aware of the stare of contempt indulged in by more than one of the officers in the tent at this outburst of the peppery but generous major; but he was fain to wait till the soldier's tongue was tired, and then he hastily proceeded to outline the plan of action. As the council proceeded, John Stevens perceived that, inadvertently perhaps, the Governor held out as a sort of peace-sop the picture of the comfortable homes down in the Valley below: the smiling farms, the young orchards and the fruitful gardens; these he hinted to the assembled officers would make life very endurable to all who might find shelter beneath the snowy peaks of the mountains towering above the lakes and valleys of that inhabited desert. John was forced to listen in silence to the seeming bait which was held out to the weary soldiers who had wintered almost where Gen. Harney said they would--in "hell"--and "hell" it had been to those restless men in the frozen passes of the desert mountains. "How can all this be true, Governor?" asked ex-Governor and Senator-elect Powell, the other member of the Peace Commission, "when it is hardly ten years since these people came into these barren wastes?" "My dear sir, these 'Mormons' have done more marvelous things than ever did Moses. And they have even put the Pilgrim Fathers to the blush with their gigantic toil and its marvelous results. They call it the special providence of God; hey, Stevens?" to the young man whom he was anxious to placate and who was listening savagely to this somewhat indiscreet parley; "but the blossoming desert below may be called, in all reason, the result of energy and grit. Yankee grit! Why, sir, you will find that those people down there are mostly of pure New England descent. A very few English, and fewer Europeans. Yankees they are, most of them. And a very courageous lot of Yankees they all are. They are the peers of any in the matter of sobriety, courage and industry."