# Wife No. 19/Chapter 16
### CHAPTER XVI.
#### FRIGHTFUL DEEDS OF BLOOD. — MORMONISM IN ITS TRUE LIGHT.

* The Yates Murder.
* Brigham and the Leading Mormons Arrested for the Crime.
* Mr. Yates accused of being a Spy.
* He is Arrested and his Goods Seized.
* Bill Hickman takes possession of the Prisoner's Body.
* Brigham Embezzles his Gold.
* Another Saint steals his Watch.
* Hickman carries him to Jones's Camp.
* He is murdered there while Asleep.
* Hickman asks Brigham for a Share of the Spoil.
* The Prophet refuses; sticks to every Cent.
* Hickman's "faith" in Mormonism is Shaken.
* His fellow-murderer Apostatizes Outright.
* How Bill was finally "paid in Wives."
* He tries a little matter of Seventeen.
* Fiendish Outrage at San Pete.
* Bishop Snow contrives the Damnable Deed.
* The fate of his Victims.
* A Mysterious Marriage.
* The Feather-beds and the Prophet.
* Mrs. Lewis comes to Live with Me.
Brigham Young's Farm-house.BOUT this time, when the Aiken party were cut off, as I have just related, by Brigham Young's express command, another horrible murder was perpetrated under circumstances of equal atrocity, which has since attracted a considerable amount of public attention.
The reason of the Yates murder becoming so notorious, was not because it was so much worse than hundreds of other murders which have been committed in ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/292 ​tized at once; renounced Mormonism on the spot; it evidently didn't "pay" well enough to suit him, and Hickman himself was disgusted with the meanness of his master. Bill Hickman, Brigham's "Destroying Angel." He said that Brigham never gave him one dollar for all the "dirty work" he had done for him; he never made him the slightest present. But he paid him, it is said, in wives. I think he had seventeen, and a large number of children.
It was a class of men like this that the Reformation brought to the surface, and capital tools they made for a corrupt and bloodthirsty priesthood. They were earnest disciples of the "Blood-Atonement," and could slay an apostate or a Gentile with no compunctions of conscience. Yet, bad as they were, they did not equal in villany the men who employed them, and then refused to pay them.
Everything, even the most trifling, that a person did, which was at all offensive to any member of the priesthood, was accounted apostasy, and punishment administered as speedily as possible. Hundreds of innocent victims have been sacrificed in this way, merely to gratify a petty, personal revenge, or to remove some person who chanced to be distasteful. Fanaticism and bigotry were at that time at flood tide, and some of the most revolting and heart-sickening crimes were committed. Many of them were unknown outside the places where they occurred, and so common were they that, beyond an involuntary feeling of horror, and a vague sort of wonder as to who would be the next victim, nothing was thought of them; until, after the excitement began to die away, and the people had time to recall the scenes of horror, they began to realize, to a cer​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/294 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/295 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/296 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/297 ​thing if my duties would permit me to live there; but I am kept away by circumstances, and cannot even think of it as a permanent residence, ardently as I long to do so." He continued, "You can raise all the fowls there that you desire; it is a beautiful place for raising ducks and geese, and you may make as many feather-beds as you wish."
What greater inducements could he hold out to her? Dear to every old housekeeper's heart are her plump, soft, billowy feather-beds. We moderns are stifled by them; they are oppressive, and suggestive of dust; but she pats their rotundity with loving hands; gives them many punches Brigham wooing Widow Lewis. of affection, and builds a structure that is wonderful to behold — in which she hospitably smothers her chance visitor, and, while he is sweltering in its embraces, tells him proudly that "that bed is live geese!" The pride of Mrs. Lewis's heart was her feather-beds — she wavered.
Her sons were very reluctant to have her leave her own home, and expressed themselves quite strongly on the subject when she mentioned it to them and asked their advice. Yet, in spite of their disapprobation, she concluded to go. Her husband was also her Prophet, and it might be that he spoke from inspiration. At all events, she would give heed ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/299 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/300 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/301 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/302 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/303