"A man lay on the bare floor with his feet to the fireplace, and all were asleep. I went in and spoke to the man, but did not wake him. I stepped up to him, and laid my hand on his shoulder. The moment he felt the weight of my hand he jumped to his feet and ran around the room as though he were {50} frightened; but he was quieted when we informed him we were friends. The cause of his fright was that he had shot a panther a few nights before, and he thought its mate had jumped upon him. He asked us what we wanted; we told him we wished to stop with him all night, and would like something to eat. He informed us we might lie on the floor as he did, but that he had not a mouthful for us to eat, as he had to depend on his gun to get breakfast for his family in the morning. So we lay on the bare floor, and slept through a long, rainy night, which was pretty hard after walking sixty miles without anything to eat. That was the hardest day's work of my life. The man's name was Williams. He was in the mob in Jackson County; and after the Saints were driven out, he, with many others, went south. "We got up in the morning and walked in the rain twelve miles to the house of a man named Bemon, who was also one of the mob from Jackson County. The family were about to sit down to breakfast as we came in. In those days it was the custom of the Missourians to ask you to eat even though they were hostile to you; so he asked us to take breakfast, and we were very glad of the invitation. He knew we were Mormons; and as soon as we began to eat, he began to swear about the Mormons. He had a large platter of bacon and eggs, and plenty of bread on the table, and his swearing did not hinder our eating, for the harder he swore the harder we ate, until we got our stomachs full; then we arose from the table, took our hats, and thanked him for our breakfast. The last we heard of him he was still swearing. I trust the Lord will reward him for our breakfast. "In the early days of the Church, it was a great treat to an elder in his travels through the country to find a Mormon; it was so with us. We were hardly in Arkansas when we heard of a family named Akeman. They were in Jackson County in the persecutions. Some of the sons had been tied up there and whipped on their bare backs, with hickory switches, by the mob. We heard of their living on Petit Jean River, in the Arkansas Territory, and we went a long way to visit them.