"Why didn't you hear that Governor Boggs, you remember the rascal, the one who headed the mob in Jackson Co., had sent an order to this host of robbers outside the town, telling them that they are to wipe out every one of us? Giving them authority as an organized millitia. Well you must have staid close at home last night not to have heard that!" "Yes," said Lydia, "I was very busy all night." "So were we all! I am told that Major-general Wallack and General Doniphan were ordered to raise a thousand men and join this General Clark who has command of the whole, and this precious trio are now trying to make arrangements to murder us all in cold blood! This is indeed a land of freedom! Why, Sister Knight, I feel just as though my blood was boiling oil when I think of this inhuman outrage." "Be calm, sister, let your heart rather be filled with humblest prayer, that God will turn aside their wicked purposes." The indignant neighbor departed, with many wishes that "God would exterminate them root and branch if they did not speedily repent." Not long after the woman had gone, the air was filled by shouts and hideous sounds from the mobbers' camp. Looking anxiously from the window, Lydia saw her husband hurrying to the house. On entering he cried, "Lydia, Lydia, pray as you never prayed before. Our beloved Prophet is taken prisoner! The wretch who decoyed him out has betray his Prophet, his religion and his God! Listen to those awful sounds! May the God of Israel hold their lives as in His hand. My wife, these are bitter days." "Newel, I am full of weakness." "Do not go outside the house, for prowlers are around and will injure you if they find you in their power. I must go now, my girl. You know my very soul is bowed with prayer to God to preserve my wife and babes. Be brave as you always are, and I will come when I can and bring you word of what transpires." "Be careful, my husband, and I feel that we shall be protected." Once more the woman was left alone with her little ones and the brethren under her care. God and her own heart alone know the anxieties of the next few hours. But into her soul crept and brooded the sweet spirit that whispered to the troubled waves, "Be still." And she was calm. Oh, that awful night! Over every thing, into every house, down into the low places, high over the tree-tops sounded the piercing, shrieking yells of that blood-thirsty mob. The flesh would creep at the fiendish sounds, the heart would quiver with the fearful though that Joseph, the beloved one, was in their power. Ten thousand wolves could never make a sound so hideously inhuman, or so fiendishly triumphant as the yells and shouts that unceasingly arose from the throats of that murderous throng from evening shades till morning light. Were these men human? Oh yes. Were they civilized beings? Oh yes; there were seventeen ministers and nineteen commissioned officers, who led the mob.