“Chint-zille is foolish.  Let the Long-Knife measure the fire-water, and she shall be yours.”

“No, Long-Knife will not do this; Chint-zille should never be the wife of the man she does not love.”

The old chief pleaded for a long time with the trader to take the girl and give him the liquid, but the trader was inexorable; he would not form any such tangling alliance, so the old chief failed to get the liquor, and he left the house with mortification and shame depicted on his withered face.

CHAPTER VI.  THE MORMONS.

Utah was settled in 1847 by a religious community of people generally known by the name of Mormons, but they style themselves, “The Latter-day Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

In the great valley of a vast inland sea, the existence of which was unknown to the world seventy-five years ago, whose surroundings were a desert in the most rigid definition of the term, a great commonwealth has been established unparalleled in the history of its origin by that of any of the civilized countries of the world.

Out of the most desolate of our vast arid interior areas, in less than half a century has been evolved not only a magnificent garden spot, but a great city with all the adjuncts of our most modern civilization.  Rich in its architecture, progressive in its art, with a literature that is marvellous when the conditions from which it has sprung are seriously considered, the Mormon community meets all the demands of our ever advancing civilization.

Neither the love of gold, nor the cupidity of conquest, those
characteristics which have subordinated other portions of the
New World to the restless ambition of man, were the causes that have
revolutionized both the physical character and the social conditions
of the now wealthy and prosperous state of Utah.  As Bancroft very
forcibly states: 
        Utah was settled upon an entirely new idea of God’s revelation
        to the world.  Old faiths have been worked over and over;
        colonies have been built upon those tenets, but never before
        have any results comparable to those which characterize that
        of the Mormon faith been attained, in founding a community,
        based as it is upon an entirely new religion.

Originating east of the Mississippi, perhaps no sect in modern times has been so persecuted as was that of the Mormons in their early days.  So great and unbearable had this persecution become that it was determined by their leaders to seek some remote spot where they could worship according to their own ideas, without fear of molestation.

The Mormon emigration to Utah was seriously considered by Brigham Young years before 1847, the date of their exodus.  It is claimed that he was but carrying out the plans of Joseph Smith, who early in 1842 said that his people “would yet be driven to the Rocky Mountains, where they would be able to build a city of their own free from all interference.”