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The Finding of Olga: A Love Story, I

Improvement Era, vol. 4, no. 4, February 1901, pp. 280 to 288

Anderson, Nephi

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large tree, where we were to stand, and the position which our executioners were to occupy, a distance of fifty feet. A very rank growth of tall weeds grew between the two points. These were stamped down. All seemed ready for the order to be given to place us in position, and to prepare their rifles, when this mysterious messenger rushed upon us with his foaming horse. Their purpose was now changed, their own perilous condition dawned upon them. In the haste and alarm of the moment they proposed to us "if you will save us, we will save you." To this we agreed; then we were instantly started on a hurried march. I ought to mention here to the credit of our beloved brother Phineas Young, that as soon as we were notified of our fate, he offered himself as a substitute for his brethren to appease their captors' wrath, on the express condition that his brethren should be saved. But this offer the mobbers refused, saying, "Our lives are in peril in keeping you any longer." This happened after we had been in their hands nearly a week. About this time, (so we afterward learned,) our brethren, numbering about two hundred, gave up the chase as hopeless, and returned to their homes. In the meantime, all sorts of rumors reached Nauvoo, harrowing up the minds of our friends, and torturing their feelings. Sometimes it was reported that we had been savagely tortured, and put to death; and sometimes, our deaths were reported to have been accomplished one way and then another, until all hopes of ever seeing us again were abandoned. I will now draw this sketch to a close, without further detail, by stating that once they tried to killus with poisoned whiskey; all but one of us refused to partake, and he was preserved by vomiting it up. At another time similar arrangements to those already narrated had been made to murder us, but they miscarried also. Last of all, on the morning of Saturday, just two weeks from the time we had left our homes, we demanded our liberty of the guard. We told them we were going home. If they chose to shoot us, they might, but we would stay no longer with prospects of being murdered in cold blood. The leader was at Carthage deliberating with the mob as to how we were finally to be disposed of, and we feared the worst results upon his return. They let us go, and aided us as far as Warsaw, and, lest the mob should over-

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haul us by land, a few of them got two skiffs, and rowed us at midnight five miles up the middle of the Mississippi river, landing us at Keokuk, about 2 a. m., on the west side of the river, six miles below Nauvoo. Early on the Sabbath morning, we hired a cab which took us to Montrose, opposite Nauvoo, and thence we crossed the river in a skiff and were safe among our friends. The unexpected news of our safe arrival spread rapidly over the city and many were the joyful greetings we received. The most affecting scene of all to me was the meeting with my distressed and broken-hearted mother and beloved sister, who had really suffered more anguish and sorrow than I myself, and to whom I appeared as one risen from the dead. The frequent reports of our having suffered a cruel death, had left them without hope. But God, to whom be the glory for our deliverance, had ordered it otherwise. Our work was not yet done. The dream, foreshadowing our deliverance, was fulfilled.

TO A MOTHER.

"Thou art the chosen mother of a son. Sent to thy care from heaven, as thou wert sent, To carry on the work by Christ begun, Who came from heaven to show us what God meant. As Mary was exalted by the event Which gave us Christ, so if thou give us one To do God's will, thou, too, shalt rise content Above thy days; thy cup shall overrun With very joyance; and the grateful tears Of happy motherhood shall lift thy soul Like some fair cloud above the sea of years. Thou, by thy loving precepts, shalt control Men and affairs, and thyself glorify Our noble mothers were not born to die." ' —Paul Shivell.

THE FINDING OF OLGA.

A LOVE STORY OF PIONEER DAYS, IN TWO PARTS.

BY NEPHI ANDERSON, AUTHOR OF "ADDED UPON," ETC.

PART FIRST.

I.

Horace was called a dreamer. Not that his tisions of the night were stranger than other people's, but his dreams were said to be in broad day, with his eyes at least partly open. It is doubtful if Horace had ever read the story of Rip Van Winkle. He had little chance in those early days of stern realities of indulging in imaginative literature. His mother had a volume of Hans Christian Andersen's stories which she had been so fond of that she had carried it with her across the plains; but the book was written in Danish, and Horace could not read his mother's native language. Horace, then, was a dreamer by nature. It was in the blood, and would come out when he heard the waterfall sing, and saw the grain field wave into billows. And then, surely, the grand Wasatch pile was as fruitful of nymphs and goblins as the Catskill ever were. See, then, in the morning, when the sun sends its advance rays through the canyons, and the notches of the topmost ridges, just touching a sidehill or burnishing one side of a cliff.The shadows are deep and sharply defined. Then when the light comes around to the south, the sage-brush hue changes to a steel gray, and the

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green patches on the northern slopes form into a deeper shade. In the evening, the whole vast pile becomes alight with the reflections of a crimson cloud in the west, the whole scene ending in unsurpassed grandeur. On many a sunny afternoon, when taking his after-dinner rest on the hay stack, did Horace let his eyes and mind wander to the mountains. They were full of life to him. Every nook was peopled, and the wildest, most'remote recesses teemed with people of another sphere. The crags and peaks were the towers and battlements of their palaces. There they dwelt, up away from the toils and cares of men, drinking the purest, coolest waters, breathing an atmosphere which in itself was life enough. Away off around the further — peaks, a blue haze often hung a warmer atmosphere which seemed to touch the susceptible soul of the young man, and loose the tenderest springs of his heart. In other more lively moods, he would imagine some sprites, having become discontented with their aerial existence, were building fires and baking food and brewing drink of human kind. Horace was often up in the nearest canyon where he seemed to get a little nearer to that other world. The rustle of the quaking-asp, the sound of falling water, the odor of wild flowers, all appealed to him; and when the plaintive notes of the mourningdove rang from distant glen, the day dreamer fancied that a forlorn maiden was waiting for her dead lover. Speaking of maidens and lovers, it may as well be stated that Horace lay claim to being one of the latter. Not that he had captured the heart of any maiden living in any of the small settlements along the Wasatch's base. No, Horace was not practical enough for that. He was too much of a "sleepy-head." He had no tact with the girls, and they had not much use for such a dumpish, bashful fellow. So, true to his nature, Horace had a sweetheart away off. In a tin box, in one corner of the lower drawer of the red bureau, were a number of envelopes addressed to Herr. Horace Lusk, and adorned with a foreign stamp in the usual corner. One of these letters contained a photograph, and every once in a while, which means at least once a day, Horace took a peep at this picture. This is what he saw: A young lady sitting on a chair, lean-

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ing her elbows on a round table. The sleeves of her dress were extremely wide, and the skirt made a large circle as if the threatened invasion of the hoops had been accomplished. A long chain hung from her neck. The face, was doll-like, and the plain, smooth hair was parted exactly in the middle. This small, old-fashioned portrait was supposed to represent "Horace's girl," in Denmark, for whose emigration he had advanced fifty dollars. She was to start for Utah that summer. One day, when Horace was looking longer than usual at the hills, his mother called impatiently:

"Come, now, come, you can't see Denmark through that mountain." But Horace saw more than his mother thought he did.

II.

One morning, towards the close of July, 1857, Horace Lusk started with his yoke of oxen to the canyon for a load of woodHe had not traveled half a mile before he met Sidney Jones riding towards him in a cloud of dust. "Hello!" "Hello, Sid, are ye ridin' fur stakes?" Sidney reined in his panting horse, and Horace stopped his oxen. "Haven't ye heard the news?" asked Sidney. "What news?" "Why, an army's on the road from the states to wipe out the ^Mormons.' "No! Who told ye?" "Why, I just come from the city. Been in the saddle all night. They got the news down there on the 24th, while they was havin' a grand celebration up in some canyon. I've got letters from the governor to our militia captain. Fm 'f raid there's the deuce to pay." "Whoa there, Buck — ^you don't say! Will the militia be called out?"

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"Sure, sure we will; but I must be going. So long!" Horace drove leisurely along up the road, even allowing the oxen to nip the bunch-grass by the way-side, a thing which he always prided himself in not allowing. An army coming to Utah! What could be the matter now? And the young man tried to think wherein the people had merited further persecution. Digging, plowing, sowing, harvesting, (when there was a harvest,) threshing, building, working long and hard, with the Sunday rest and meeting-going between, was the program that filled his life's history as far back as he could remember clearly. And his neighbors had been doing the same for the same length of time, as far as he could recollect. An army coming to destroy the "Mormons!" What for? Horace struggled with faint recollections of scenes in Nauvoo which he had witnessed. He was young at the time, and had since tried to forget some memories which filled him with horror; but now they struggled for recognition and

would not away. And then a spirit of resentment welled up within him. Had he not for ten years breathed the liberty-inspiring air of the mountains! Were the people now to be again abused, and driven from their homes? And into the young man's mind would come a dim picture of a night-scene wherein the moon shone in fitful gleams over a river, and a group of people camped on

the low banks of the stream. There was the awful hush of death over the scene, broken only by some groan of suffering, a half suppressed sob, or the distant wailing of a child in the night. That night-picture, on the banks of the Mississippi, opposite Nauvoo, where his father had died, was the most vivid of his childhood memories, and it came to Horace now with added clearness. "They will not, they shan't," said he, and his teeth were set hard. "God will help us, will help us!" His cattle had even made bold to stop and eat of a tempting "bunch of grass, and this audacity on their part brought Horace back to the present. "Gee, there, Brindle, get around there. Buck." He had lost all desire to haul wood, so he turned around and went back home. Sidney had said the army was already on the road, how far was not known, but the fact explained something to Horace. The last letter he had received bearing the Danish stamp had contained

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the news that a certain young lady had sailed for America. This was early in the summer and he had heard nothing from her since. He had imagined all sorts of things, even to the sinking of the ship and the little round face lying at the bottom of the sea; but it was now explained. The soldiers were coming. They had By this time she stopped the mail, of course, and, perhaps, her too. would likely be on the plains. At this thought, Horace gave Buck a stinging slash with his buckskin whip, and away the oxen went as if they were bent on a rescue then and there, The invading army became an assured fact. The news flew from valley to valley like that of Revolutionary fame, which spread through the colonies from Lexington. The "Mormons" were again to be pillaged and plundered. Well, not this time, if they could help it, and if the God of Israel and of battles would espouse their cause. The Nauvoo Legion was organized and drilled for war. Horace belonged to Company He cleaned and oiled his gun, and .

in the not extensive wardrobe of his father, he found a real soldier's cap, and a blue coat, with brass buttons. The fact of the matter was that these articles had been through one campaign in the cause of freedom, but this Horace did not know. When Horace reported for duty, it was found that he was the best dressed man in the company. "It won't do to have such a uniform in the ranks," said tha captain. "We must make at least a sergeant of you;" and sa they did.

III.

When Horace Lusk marched away to the prospective seat of war, he had in his coat pocket a photograph which he had taken from a tin box in one corner of the red bureau drawer at home. One day he showed it to Sidney Jones, who asked him who it was. "0, it's a girl in Denmark. What do you think of her?" "Purty fine looking gal, I'd think; but she looks funny in them old-fashioned clothes. When's she comin'?" "She's on the way now, if the soldiers havn't got her."

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*0, 1 guess not! Say, Horace, how do you know she'll have ye f» "She as good as promised in her letters, and Fve paid her emigration." "That's nothin', when she gits out here, she's liable to give ye the go by, an' marry some other feller. Lots of 'em do it." "0, Olga won't do that." "Olga! Is that her name? Let's see her picture again. All right, I'll keep a look-out for her," said Sid, as he handed it back. The Utah militia marched up through the red cliffs of Echo Canyon. They had orders to stop the invading forces by harassing them in every manner possible, but they were to shed no blood. This was Brigham Young's policy. If the troops could be checked

until a commission could be sent to investigate the condition of things in Utah, it would certainlyjbe seen that there was no need for United States soldiers to enforce lav/ and preserve order. Echo canyon was, therefore, filled v/ith obstruction, and small scoutiug parties were sent out into Wyoming to watch the movements of the troops, and to impede their progress. Soldier duty and camp life was something strange to both Horace and Sidney; but they were used to roughing it in the mountains, and so they soon adapted themselves to their not altogether new conditions. Both boys were with a detachment of cavalry that pushed well on toward the front to get a glimpse of the enemy. On the way, they met a number of emigrant trains that were traveling as fast as possible to keep out of the reach of the troops who were not far behind. Horace made enquiries concerning Danish emigrants, but had thus far received no news of Olga, excepting that there was thought to be some Saints from Scandinavia in a small company behind. It happened one evening that the two friends, Horace and Sidney, were sent ahead to locate an old trail. The sun had set behind the mountains, but in the shadow of some scrubby v/illows, they saw a small camp. They could see very little movement, neither was there any fire to be observed, and as it looked rather suspicious, the young men determined to find out who they were. So they rode as near as they thought wise, fastened their horses in a clump of bushes, and made their way along the willows which

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The nerves of the young scouts were tense^ lined the little stream. you may be sure. Here was their first taste of actual work, and there was no telling what would be the result. They might be captured, and hanged as spies. They might be shot but come— what may, the boys were going to find out who were in that camp. So they crept along, cautiously, silently to within a short distance of the wagons. No picket guards were seen. "They have no idea we are so close," thought Horace. The camp was as quiet as one deserted. "This is the real thing," whispered Sidney. He rather enjoyed the peculiar exciting sensation of being a spy. "Sh— " said Horace, "who's that by the creek?" Through an opening in the willows, they had a full view of the opposite bank of the stream, and as they gazed, the bushes parted and a young woman stepped out on the stones, filled her pail with water and then, instead of returning, sat down on a large rock close by the water. A knitted shawl was wound around the bodice of her dress. The red kerchief tied over her head, she pushed back onto her neck, as she sat down and looked first into the water at her feet, and then up over the willow tops towards the gray mountains. At them she gazed; it seemed a long while to the boys on the opposite bank. Sidney guessed at once who the girl was, but to Horace she was but a sort of vague dream of someone he had seen before, but could not recall. As she stooped to pick up a pebble, the loose hair fell in light, wavy confusion over her face, half concealing the blue eyes. The pebbles she threw into the water, as if she enjoyed seeing the tiny splash. One or two, she threw over on the opposite bank, and then as if trying her skill, she tossed one right over the bushes.

"Look out, she'll hit ye in the eye," said Sidney, and he laughed aloud. The girl started. The boys stepped out into the opening. It was done in the spirit of gallantry, but when she saw the cap and brass-buttoned coat of Sergeant Lusk, she gave one piercing scream, and fled in terror into the camp where there were soon shouting and calling and a hurried preparation to resist an enemy. Before the boys had decided what to do, their comrades rode up to the camp on the other side of the creek. The confusion