So near came the rumours of war that the Mormons of Haun's Mill entered into a renewed compact of mutual peace with the Gentiles around them. The place was about twenty miles below the town of Far West, on the same stream of Shoal Creek. Around Far West the roads presently became very dangerous, haunted, it was said, by armed parties of bloodthirsty Gentiles who lay in wait for trains of Mormon emigrants coming from the east to the prophet's city. All travellers became alarmed; Halsey remained where he was; the people of the place accepted his pastoral services gladly. A train of Gentile emigrants also waited at Haun's Mill for the cessation of hostilities. These emigrants were quiet folk and had children with them. Susannah used to go out upon sunny days with her sturdy yearling, talking to all mothers, Gentile or Mormon, who carried little children. The beauty of the season, the cloudless sun, gilded these few peaceful days. Susannah compared her child with other children, marvelled at the baby intercourse he held with them, at the likes and dislikes displayed among these pigmy associates; and the other mothers had like sources of interest in these interviews. One among the emigrants, a dark-eyed woman of about forty years of age, was of better position and education than the others. One morning she noticed Susannah's child very kindly, speaking of things that did not lie on the surface of life. "There is a seeking look in his eyes," the lady said; "he smiles, he plays with us all, but he looks beyond for something. I have seen that look in the eyes of children who were in pain, but yours is at ease." "He has his father's eyes," Susannah sighed. "My husband is always looking for a virtue that seems to me impossible." Both women turned toward an open grassy space in the midst of the clustered houses where Halsey was now standing, Bible in hand, teaching a little group of children to repeat the beatitudes. Only four children, one sickly boy and three girls, were willing to stand and repeat the lesson; others had straggled away and were shouting at their play. Not far from where Halsey stood some fifteen of the neighbours had gathered together to put up a new wooden house; piles of sweet-smelling deal lay about them as they worked. Just then on the road from Far West a horse bearing an old man was seen straining itself to the swiftest gallop. The old man began to shout as he came within hearing. No one could understand what he said. He shouted more loudly, and many women ran out of their doors to see his arrival. Before his words were articulate a cloud of dust was seen rising round a turning of the same road, and a large company of horsemen came swiftly into view.