ELDORADO, Texas -- Authorities in West Texas have imposed a gag order on what's happening in their standoff with members of a polygamist sect.

But there was word Sunday morning the confrontation was easing.

Law officers have been trying to contact a 16-year-old girl who reported she had been abused. Acting on a search warrant, authorities raided the compound, run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, this past week.

Members of the sect had refused to let them search the eight-story high temple at the heart of the 1,700-acre retreat. Now, they have apparently allowed a search, which was carried out peacefully Saturday night.

The move comes hours after authorities said they were "preparing for the worst," according to a published report from the San Angelo Standard-Times' Web site.

Ambulances that had been sent to the scene have now left.

It's not clear if officials have interviewed the girl. They think she is married to 50-year-old Dale Barlow and gave birth to a baby last year when she was 15. Texas law bars marriage for girls younger than 16.

State welfare officials on Friday removed 52 girls from the compound. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Child Protective Services, said another 131 residents were removed overnight. By Saturday afternoon, 137 children and 46 women were being housed and interviewed at local community centers.

"They seem to be doing fine," Meisner told The Associated Press. Investigators remained inside the compound looking for additional children, she said.

Officials in Texas declined to comment Saturday on whether they had found Barlow, citing the gag order, but the man's probation officer told The Salt Lake Tribune that he was in Arizona.

"He said the authorities had called him (in Colorado City, Ariz.) and some girl had accused him of assaulting her and he didn't even know who she was," said Bill Loader, a probation officer in Arizona.

Barlow was sentenced to jail time last year after pleading no contest to conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for three years while he is on probation.

His lawyer in that case, Bruce Griffen, said he had not spoken to Barlow in a year.

The search warrant instructed officers to look for marriage records or other evidence linking her to the man and the baby. The warrant authorized the seizure of computer drives, CDs, DVDs or photos.

Those inside the retreat did not respond to requests for comment.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.

The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in town. Only the 80-foot-high, gleaming white temple can be seen on the horizon. Authorities blocked access to the gate, keeping onlookers miles away.

The 1,700-acre property had been an exotic game ranch. It is surrounded by dusty, wind-swept land where sheep are raised and mohair produced.

Eldorado is a two-stoplight town of fewer than 2,000 people and located nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. It consists of a cluster of government buildings, a couple churches and a few blocks of houses.

State officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, although local officials estimated about 150 two years ago.

The FLDS has been led by Warren Jeffs since his father died in 2002. In November, Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.

In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.