In 1929, Josiah Gibbs, then in his 80s, treasured the memory of such a friendship from his boyhood. Gibbs, who was born in Nauvoo, Ill., and immigrated to Utah with his parents, became a well-known, outspoken journalist in Millard and Piute counties.

But as a 12-year-old newly arrived in Utah Territory in 1857, he just liked to play. He and his friends were "unfortunate addicts" of the Warm Springs in North Salt Lake and spent several hours a day there during December. They would then throw on their cotton shirts and pants and shoes - if they had them - and race home.

"It was a miracle, the only one I ever encountered, that pneumonia so rarely resulted from those sudden exits from nearly boiling water to zero atmosphere," he said much later.

But Josiah did come down with severe "inflammatory rheumatism," which put him in bed for several weeks.

That was the spring that a federal army was marching toward Utah to control the Mormons. In response, the Mormons abandoned their homes in Salt Lake City and moved south. Josiah's family moved as far as Santaquin, where they built a wickiup of willows and mud near a creek. A group of Utes were camped a mile away.

On one beautiful spring day, the sick Josiah was finally able to sit outside and take a little sun. Propped up with pillows, he "looked out on my rediscovered world of majestic mountains, greening valley, with Utah Lake, a few miles distant to the north, glinting in the early morning sunlight."

He also saw a slender Ute boy approaching "with easy, swinging strides." The boy walked up and peered at Josiah. "His frank, happy, boyish face had not hardened into the grave, immobile features of the older men of his tribe." Nor did he seem to be poisoned by stories about why he should hate Euro Americans.

So this Ute boy had not been taught to hate and fear The Other. However, what happened next wasn't a result of his upbringing but of the kind of person he was.

"Heap sick?" he asked.

"No," Josiah replied. "Legs sick." He demonstrated that he could move fine above the hips, but his legs weren't working.

The boy nodded, then he set out to entertain and, perhaps unknowingly, rehabilitate Josiah.

He set up a target 25 feet away and started giving lessons on shooting with a bow and arrow. This had to be thrilling to Josiah. The Ute chased arrows for him for a couple of hours, "manifesting as keen delight when, by accident, I made a close or center shot, as if made by himself."

He came back the next day, and the day after that, chasing arrows, getting excited at Josiah's improvement. After a few days of this mild exercise, Josiah could get up on his feet again. His new friend helped him walk about. Soon, the two were roaming the foothills and hunting rabbits. Or they would visit the Indian camp.

Josiah wrote that during those all-day visits, "I heard no back talk from children to their parents, nor of quarreling. Socially, their intercourse was frank, open-hearted and generous - entirely free from affectation, egotism and hypocrisy."

One morning his new friend surprised him with a gift: a bow made from mountain sheep horn backed by sinew, and some cane arrows. It was a gift of craftsmanship and labor, "a priceless token of friendship."

Sadly, Josiah's family returned to Salt Lake City in June and the friends never saw each other again.

The Ute boy disappeared into the past, but his kind influence endured. Josiah became a friend to individual Utes and an advocate for Utes in general.

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* KRISTEN ROGERS-IVERSEN lives in Salt Lake City. Source: Utah Historical Quarterly