1. It was understood that these shots wounded several of the mob, and that two of them died from the effects of their wounds. The widow of a Mr. Lawn, captain of one of the companies of McDonough County militia, meeting with Elder Parley P. Pratt in California in 1856, told him that a man by the name of Townsend, living in Iowa, near Fort Madison, was one of the mob who forced the door of Carthage jail on the above occasion. One of the pistol shots fired by Joseph wounded him in the arm near the shoulder, and it continued to rot until taken off, and then it did not heal, but continued to rot, and about nine months after he was wounded he died. About six months after he was shot Mrs. Lawn saw his arm and dressed it. Auto. P. P. Pratt, p. 475-6. CHAPTER XVI. FLIGHT OF THE MOB--EXCITEMENT OF THE GOVERNOR--ELDER TAYLOR'S SUFFERING--HYPOCRISY--STILL IN DANGER--THE RETURN TO NAUVOO--GRATITUDE--"WITH THE GREATEST OF PROPHETS HE SUFFERED AND BLED." Immediately after the terrible tragedy was ended, fear seized upon the perpetrators of it, and they precipitately fled. A number of the inhabitants of Carthage gathered about the jail, and some of these went to the head of the stairs to see the work that had been done. Elder Taylor was brought out of the cell to the landing at the head of the stairs. Through the open door leading into the room that he and his friends had occupied when the assault was made, he had a full view of Hyrum Smith. "There he lay as I had left him," he writes. "He had not moved a limb; he lay placid and calm, a monument of greatness even in death: but his noble spirit had left its tenement and had gone to dwell in regions more congenial to its exalted nature. Poor Hyrum! he was a great and good man, and my soul was cemented to his. If ever there was an exemplary, honest and virtuous man, an embodiment of all that is noble in the human form, Hyrum Smith was its representative." Such were his thoughts on the character of his friend, even while suffering excruciating pains from his wounds. Among those who stood about him on the landing was a doctor, and feeling the ball that had lodged in the palm of Elder Taylor's left hand, he took a pen knife, made an incision and then with a pair of carpenter's compasses pried out the half-ounce ball. The alternate sawing with a dull pen knife and prying with the compasses was simply surgical butchery. The doctor afterwards said that Elder Taylor had nerves "like the devil" to stand that operation. The crowd now urged him to consent to be removed to Hamilton's hotel, where he could be cared for, to which he replied: "I don't know you. Who am I among? I am surrounded by assassins and murderers; witness your deeds! Don't talk to me of kindness and comfort; look at your murdered victims! Look at me! I want none of your counsel nor comfort. There may be some safety here; I can be assured of none anywhere."