Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1894-07-26
CHAPTER III.


Three weeks had passed since Jeffer-
SON Hope and his comrades had depart
ed from Salt Lake City. John Terriers
heart was sore within him when he
thought of the young mans return,
and of the impending loss of his adopt
ed child. Yet her bright and happy
face reconciled him to the arrangement
more than any argument could have
done. He had always determined.
deep down in his resolute heart, that
nothing would ever induce him to
allow his daughter to wed a Mormon.
Such marriage he regarded as no
marriage at all, but as shame and a
disgrace. Whatever he might think of
the Mormon doctrines, upon that one
point he was inflexible. He had to
seal his mouth on the subject. however,
for to express an orthodox opinion was
a dangerous matter in those days in
Land of the Saints.
Yes, a dangerous matter-so danger
Gus that even the most sanity dared
only whisper their religious opinions
with bated breath, lest something
which fell from their lips might be
misconstrued. and bring down swift
of persecution had now turned perSe-
cutors on their own account, and per-
secutors of the most terrible dcscrip-
ton. Not the Inquisi.ion of Seville,
nor the German Vehmgericht, nor the
secret societies of Italy, were ever able
to put more formidable machinery in
motion than that which cast a cloud
over the territory of Utah.
Its invisibility, and the mystery
which was attached to it, made this
organization doubly terrible. 1t ap-
peared to be omniscient and omnipo-
tent, and yet was neither seen nor
heard. The man who held out against
the church vanished away, and none
knew whittier he had gone or what had
befallen him. His wife ard children
awaited him at home, but no father
ever returned TO tell them how he had
Jared at the hands of his secret judges.
A rash word or hasty act was fol-
lowed by humiliation, and yet none
knew what the nature might be of this
terrible power which was suspended
over them. No wonder that men went
about in fear and trembling, and that
even in the heart OF the wilderness
they dared not whisper the doubts
which oppressed them.
AT first this vague and terrible power
was exercised only upon the recalci-
trants, who, having embraced the
Mormon faith, wished afterward to
pervert or to abandon it. Soon. how
ever. it took wider range. The sup
ply OF adult women was running short,
and polygamy, without female popu
lation ON which to draw, was barren
doctrine indeed. Strange -umors be-
gan to be banded about-rumors of
murdered immigrants and rifed camps
IN regions where Indians had never
been seem Fresh women appeared in
the hare-ns of the elderS-yroIacn who
pined and wept. and bore upon their
faces the traces of unextinguisl,able
horror. Belated wanderers upon the
mountains spoke of gangs of armed
men. masked, stealthy. and noiseless,
who fitted By them in the darkness.
These tales and rumors took substance
and shape, and were corroborated and
re-ccrroborated until they resolved
themselves into - definite name. To
this day, in the lonely ranches of the
west, the name of the DANTE Band, or
the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and
ill-omened one.
Fuller knowledge of the organiza-
ton which produced such terrible re-
suits served to increase rather than to
lessen the horror which it inspired in
the minds of men None knew who
belonged to this ruthless society. The
names Of the participators in the deeds
of blood and violerss, done under tho