192 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



as that ever before printed ; that the Mormons were the 

 " biggest kind " of prophets, and theirs the best faith ever 

 man believed in. 



Rube had let out one day that he was to be hired as 

 guide by this party of Mormons to the Great Salt Lake ; 

 but their destination being changed, and his services not 

 required, a wonderful change came over his mind. He 

 was, as usual, book of Mormon in hand, when brother 

 Brown announced the change in their plans ; at which the 

 book was cast into the Arkansa, and Rube exclaimed 

 " Cuss your darned Mummum and Thummum ! thar's not 

 one among you knows ' fat cow ' from ' poor bull,' and you 



may go h for me." And turning away, old Rube spat 



out a quid of tobacco and his Mormonism together. 



Amongst the Mormons was an old man named Brand, 

 from Memphis County, State of Tennessee, with a family of 

 a daughter and two sons, the latter with their wives and 

 children. Brand was a wiry 'old fellow, nearly seventy 

 years of age, but still stout and strong, and wielded axe 

 or rifle better than many a younger man. If truth be told, 

 he was not a very red-hot Mormon, and had joined them 

 as much for the sake of company to California, whither he 

 had long resolved to emigrate, as from any implicit credence 

 in the faith. His sons were strapping fellows, of the ster- 

 ling stuff that the Western pioneers are made of; his 

 daughter Mary, a fine woman of thirty, for whose state of 

 single blessedness there must doubtless have been sufficient 

 reason; for she was not only remarkably handsome, but 

 was well known in Memphis to be the best-tempered and 

 most industrious young woman in those diggings. She 

 was known to have received several advantageous offers, all 

 of which she had refused ; and report said that it was from 

 having been disappointed in very early life in an affaire 

 da coeur, at an age when such wounds sometimes strike 

 strong and deep, leaving a scar difficult to heal. Neither 

 his daughter nor any of his family had been converted to 

 the Mormon doctrine, but had ever kept themselves aloof, 

 and refused to join or associate with them ; and, for this rea- 

 son, the family had been very unpopular with the Mormon 



