Yet the line bravely formed to the order of Seth Wright as captain, and the march began.  Looking back, he saw peaceful Nauvoo, its houses and gardens, softened by the cloudy sky and the autumn haze, clustering under the shelter of their temple spire,—­their temple and their houses, of which they were now despoiled by a mob’s fury.  Ahead he saw the road to the West, a hard road, as he knew,—­one he could not hope they should cross without leaving more graves by the way; but Zion was at the end.

The wagons and carts creaked and strained and rattled under their swaying loads, and the line gradually defined itself along the road from the confused jumble at the camp.  He remembered his father again now, and hurried forward to assure himself that all was right.  As he overtook along the way the stumbling ones obliged to walk, he tried to cheer them.

“Only a short march to-day, brothers.  Our camp is at Sugar Creek, nine miles—­so take your time this first day.”

Near the head of the train were his own two wagons, and beside the first walked Seth Wright and Keaton, in low, earnest converse.  As he came up to them the Bishop spoke.

“I got Wes’ and Alec Gregg to drive awhile so we could stretch our legs.”  But then came a quick change of tone, as they halted by the road.

“Joel, there’s no use beatin’ about the bush—­them devils at the ferry jest now drowned your pa.”

He went cold all over.  Keaton, looking sympathetic but frightened, spoke next.

“You ought to thank me, Brother Rae, for not telling you on the other side, when you asked me.  I knew better.  Because, why?  Because I knew you’d fly off the handle and get yourself killed, and then your ma’d be left all alone, that’s why, now—­and prob’ly they’d ‘a’ wound up by dumping the whole passle of us bag and baggage into the stream.  And it wa’n’t any use, your father bein’ dead and gone.”

The Bishop took up the burden, slapping him cordially on the back.

“Come, come,—­hearten up, now!  Your pa’s been made a martyr—­he’s beautified his inheritance in Zion—­whinin’ won’t do no good.”

He drew himself up with a shrug, as if to throw off an invisible burden, and answered, calmly: 

“I’m not whining, Bishop.  Perhaps you were right not to tell me over there, Keaton.  I’d have made trouble for you all.”  He smiled painfully in his effort to control himself.  “Were you there, Bishop?”

“No, I’d already gone acrost.  Keaton here saw it.”

Keaton took up the tale.

“I was there when the old gentleman drove down singing, ’Lo, the Gentile chain is broken.’  He was awful chipper.  Then one of ’em called him old Father Time, and he answered back.  I disremember what, but, any way, one word fired another until they was cussin’ Giles Rae up hill and down dale, and instead of keepin’ his head shet like he had ought to have done, he was prophesyin’ curses, desolations, famines, and pestilences on ’em