“It is ordered from headquarters that this party must be used up, except such as are too young to tell tales. We got to do it. They been acting terrible mean ever since we wouldn’t sell them anything. If we let them go on now, they been making their brag that they’ll raise a force in California and come back and wipe us out—and Johnston’s army already marching on us from the east. Are we going to submit again to what we got in Missouri and in Illinois? No! Everybody is agreed about that. Now the Indians have failed to do it like we thought they would, so we got to finish it up, that’s all.” Joel Rae spoke for the first time. “You say except such as are too young to tell tales, Brother Higbee; what does that mean?” “Why, all but the very smallest children, of course.” “Are there children here?” Lee answered: “Oh, a fair sprinkling—about what you’d look for in a train of a hundred and thirty people. The boys got two of the kids yesterday; the fools had dressed them up in white dresses and sent them out with a bucket for water. You can see their bodies lying over there this side of the spring.” “And there are women?” he asked, feeling a great sickness come upon him. “Plenty of them,” answered Klingensmith, “some mighty fine women, too; I could see one yesterday, a monstrous fine figure and hair shiny like a crow’s wing, and a little one, powerful pretty, and one kind of between the two—it’s a shame we can’t keep some of them, but orders is orders!” “These women must be killed, too?” “That’s the orders from headquarters, Brother Rae.” “From the military headquarters at Parowan, or from the spiritual headquarters at Salt Lake?” “Better not inquire how far back that order started, Brother Rae—not of me, anyway.” “But women and children—” “The great Elohim has spoken from the heavens, Brother Rae—that’s enough for me. I can’t put my human standards against the revealed will of God.” “But women and children—” He repeated the words as if he sought to comprehend them. He seemed like a man with defective sight who has come suddenly against a wall that he had thought far off. Higbee now addressed him. “Brother Rae, in religion you have to eat the bran along with the flour. Did you suppose we were going to milk the Gentiles and not ever shed any blood?” “But innocent blood—” “There ain’t a drop of innocent blood in the whole damned train. And what are you, to be questioning this way about orders from on high? I’ve heard you preach many a time about the sin of such doings as that. You preach in the pulpit about stubborn clay in the hands of the potter having to be put through the mill again, and now that you’re out here in the field, seems to me you get limber like a tallowed rag when an order comes along.” “Defenseless women and little children—” He was still trying to regain his lost equilibrium. Lee now interposed. “Yes, Brother Rae, as defenseless as that pretty sister of yours was in the woods there, that afternoon at Haun’s Mill.”