About the middle of October they reached the place called Haun's Mill, where a small Mormon community was settled. Here they thought well to pause, shocked by renewed rumours of warfare. A truce for the whole region, which had been signed by Smith and some of his elders on the one side, and by a magistrate, by name Adam Black, for the Gentiles, had been broken by Gentile mobs in several of the counties near Far West. A number of the saints had been brutally killed, their wives and children driven from their homes at the point of the bayonet. This renewed outrage roused at last the fires of revenge, long smouldering in the breasts of the refugees from the desolate city of Zion, who had themselves known the bitterness of such unmerited wrong. These fires fused religious principle and natural wrath together, till a chain was forged which bound many strong men in a secret society, whose members swore to fight, not only in defence, but especially in vengeance. It was at Haun's Mill that Halsey first heard of this society, and he was deeply concerned. A young Mormon who had lately come to the place belonged to it, and after one of Halsey's sermons, in which the posts of the Gate of Life were represented as meekness and forgiveness, this young man came to the preacher by night to confess, but also to vindicate his position. The missionary's little party, with the exception of Elvira, who had accepted hospitality at a neighbouring farm, were camping in a meadow not far from a stream called Shoal Creek, which drove the mill. The logs of their evening fire were still alight. Susannah sat just within the dark opening of a low canvas-covered waggon; the unsteady flame light fell upon her, and sometimes showed a farther interior where the child lay sleeping. Halsey was sitting at the roots of a tree, the utensils of a simple supper at his side. The gentle horses tethered near were to be heard softly cropping the grass, and the sound of the creek came from a farther distance. Above, the poplar boughs, whose yellow foliage had been thinned by the advancing season, let through the rays of the brilliant stars. These were the sights and sounds which met the young man's senses as he came brushing the fallen leaves with his feet. He leaned against the pole of the farther waggon and looked across the low-glowing fire at the preacher and his wife. "Look here! I'm a Danite. Do you mean to say that the Lord's not going to accept of me because I can't stand by and see weak men and women and children killed, or worse than killed, without punishing the murderers? Supposing that a hundred of Boggs' men were to come down now and put an end to you, your wife, and your child, would you have me go along with them peaceably afterwards and pray they might be forgiven?" "What is a Danite?" asked Susannah.