"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, "Missouri, In her lawless fury, Without judge or jury, Drove the Saints and spilt their blood." Again the mind of Joseph Smith had overmastered Susannah's mind.

As Elvira had said, he, lying in a gaol far away, enduring hardship, imminent danger of torturing death, was by his spirit animating this motley crowd, and now at last again his will broke down the barriers of reason that Susannah had raised and fortified even against the love of her child and the long reverence she had yielded to her husband.