At other times, after a long period of silence, Elvira would burst forth in excited soliloquy audible to Susannah and others about her.  On the last day when they were descending the hills to the Mississippi her increasing excitement culminated in a greater demonstration.  The sun was shining, and a clear frost had hardened the roads.  Elvira broke forth thus—­

“It is Joe Smith who is conducting this march.  We say that he is lying in gaol,” she laughed.  “In gaol is he?  Have they got him safe?  But it was he who taught all these men to work together, one under the other, and none of them kicking; and it was he who taught these women and children to do as they are bid—­a wonderful thing that in the land of the free.  It was he who taught one and all of us to be kind to each other, to the poor and the sick and the young, to the very beasts.  Do you remember that when they caught our prophet at Hiram and dragged him out to be beaten and insulted, they had first to take from his arms a sick motherless baby that he was sitting up all night to nurse?  Do you remember how he gave commandment about the animals? how he said that any man striking a beast in anger was thrown so far back on his road to heaven?” She paused when she had thrown out this question, and the men and women within hearing answered in broken chorus, “Yes, blessed be the Lord; we do remember.”

“And who was it that taught us to give up the filthy Gentile habits of strong drink and tobacco?” (Again in the pause the chorus of thanksgiving to Heaven was heard.) “It was Joe Smith,” Elvira cried more loudly.  “And when the Gentiles thought that we would be scattered and separated and ruined, his spirit has gone like a banner before us.  Twice they have taken our lands that we bought with our own money and cleared with our own hands, and the houses that we have built, and cast us out destitute, but we are not destroyed.”

The enthusiasm of the crowd that now pressed upon her went like wine to her head; her cheeks flamed, her eyes brightened, and she lifted her small hands in fantastic gesture and danced, crying, “We are cast down, but not destroyed, because God Almighty has given to us a prophet, and a great prophet.”

And the people around her answered again, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

It was whispered about the camp that the spirit of prophecy had fallen upon Elvira Halsey.

On the afternoon of that day they saw the ice that floated in large cakes on the breast of the Mississippi flash back the sunbeams to their straining eyes.  The sight of the limits of the hostile State from which they were flying was a great joy to every one of them.  Susannah felt her heart leap; Elvira, with the growing tendency to cling to her which she had displayed since their last meeting, cast her arms around her and sobbed for joy.

After this blessed glimpse of the river they went down through the recesses of a low forest, the frost and the sunshine still inspiriting them.  As they went, the melody of a hymn was taken up from one end of the caravan to the other by all those well enough to join in the song.  It was a swinging triumphant air, and Susannah found herself uplifted for the first time since the days of her baptism upon the party spirit of the sect, and singing with them, although she could only catch the words of the refrain often repeated,