The Black Hawk war was spreading terror among our southeastern frontier settlements, causing many of them to be abandoned. I enrolled in Captain Willis Copeland's company of scouts, and was elected first lieutenant. I aided Colonel J. L. Peirce in moving the settlers from Long Valley and Kanab. As soon as that task was accomplished, I was called to labor among the Indians, and spent the summer with Jacob Hamblin and John Mangum in cultivating friendly relations with the Kaibab tribes. During the winter of 1866, with Jacob Hamblin, Ira Hatch, Thales Haskel, and others, I visited the Moqui Indians. The trip was fraught with hardship and danger, as the Navajos were on the warpath. On our return trip, we crossed the Colorado on a flood-wood raft. There were forty-seven men in the company, and we had to make five trips, which took all day. I worked from morning till night on the raft, my feet in the cold water and my body perspiring from exertion. That night I was seized with cramping colic. In the morning we had to move on, as we were out of provisions. It hurt me to ride on horseback, but I had to do so or be left to die. At Kanab they found the running gears of an old wagon. On this they put two poles, and swung me in a hammock between them; then making harness of ropes, they hauled me to Washington, my home. They had given me twenty-two pills and a pint of castor oil; and I carried that load in my stomach nine days without relief. Doctors Israel Ivins and Silas G. Higgins came from St. George five days in succession, then gave me up. Bishop Covington, a dear friend, came and dedicated me, that I might die without further suffering. But my wife Albina would not relinquish me. She sent for a humble elder, Albert Tyler, and when he came, they two administered to me, and I was instantly healed. For some time I had been unconscious, but I awoke, as it were, from a dream. I wanted to get up, but my wife, with tears of joy, persuaded me to rest until morning. Then I dressed, and rode in a lumber wagon to St. George, to attend the Stake conference. On November 9, 1867, I was ordained a high priest, and set apart to act as a high councilor in the St. George Stake, by Apostle Erastus Snow, who had been ordained an apostle by Brigham Young, who had been ordained an apostle by Joseph Smith and the three witnesses on February 14, 1835. Joseph Smith was ordained an apostle by Peter, James and John, and they were ordained apostles by the Son of God Himself.