But news of the crowning infamy reached him the following day,—news that had put out all thought of his great sin and his bloody secret, news of a thing so monstrous that he was unable to give it credence until it had been confirmed by other comers from the north. President Buchanan, inspired by tales that had reached him of various deeds growing out of the reformation, and by the treatment which various Federal officers were said to have received, had decided that rebellion existed in the Territory of Utah. He had appointed a successor to Brigham Young as governor, so the report ran, and ordered an army to march to Salt Lake City for the alleged purpose of installing the new executive. Three days later all doubt of the truth of this story was banished. Word then came that Brigham was about to declare martial law, and that he had promised that Buchanan’s army should never enter the valley. Now his heart beat high again, with something of the old swift fervour. The Gentile yoke was at last to be thrown off. War would come, and the Lord would surely hold them safe while they melted away the Gentile hosts. He reached the settlement of Parowan that night, and when they told him there that the wagon-train coming south—their ancient enemies who had plundered and butchered them in Jackson County—was to be cut off before it left the basin, it seemed but right to him, the just vengeance of Heaven upon their one-time despoilers, and a fitting first act in the war-drama that was now to be played. Once more the mob was marching upon them to despoil and murder and put them into the wilderness. But now God had nerved and strengthened them to defend the walls of Zion, even against a mighty nation. And as a token of His favour and His wish, here was a company of their bitterest foes delivered into their hands. Beside the picture was another; he saw his sister, the slight, fair girl, in the grasp of the fiends at Haun’s Mill; the face of his father tossing on the muddy current and sucked under to the river-bottom; and the rough bark cylinder, festooned with black cloth, holding the worn form of the mother whose breast had nursed him. When he started he had felt that he could never again preach while that secret lay upon him,—that he could no longer rebuke sinners honestly,—but this matter of war was different. He preached a moving sermon that day from a text of Samuel: “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women.” And when he was done the congregation had made the little dimly lighted meeting-house at Parowan ring with a favourite hymn:— “Up, awake, ye defenders of Zion! The foe’s at the door of your homes; Let each heart be the heart of a lion, Unyielding and proud as he roams. Remember the wrongs of Missouri, Remember the fate of Nauvoo! When the God-hating foe is before ye, Stand firm and be faithful and true.” Chapter XVI. The Order from Headquarters