Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Wilson and PG Distributed Proofreaders






[Frontispiece:
  LIFTING OFF HIS BROAD-BRIMMED HAT TO HER IN A GRACIOUS SWEEP]




                          THE
                     LIONS OF THE
                         LORD


                A Tale of the Old West

                 By HARRY LEON WILSON

               Author of "The Spenders"


           Illustrated by ROSE CECIL O'NEILL



                 Published June, 1903




                      TO MY WIFE




FOREWORD


In the days of '49 seven trails led from our Western frontier into the
Wonderland that lay far out under the setting sun and called to the
restless. Each of the seven had been blazed mile by mile through the
mighty romance of an empire's founding. Some of them for long stretches
are now overgrown by the herbage of the plain; some have faded back into
the desert they lined; and more than one has been shod with steel. But
along them all flit and brood the memory-ghosts of old, rich-coloured
days. To the shout of teamster, the yell of savage, the creaking of
tented ox-cart, and the rattle of the swifter mail-coach, there go dim
shapes of those who had thrilled to that call of the West;--strong,
brave men with the far look in their eyes, with those magic rude tools
of the pioneer, the rifle and the axe; women, too, equally heroic, of a
stock, fearless, ready, and staunch, bearing their sons and daughters in
fortitude; raising them to fear God, to love their country,--and to
labour. From the edge of our Republic these valiant ones toiled into the
dump of prairie and mountain to live the raw new days and weld them to
our history; to win fertile acres from the wilderness and charm the
desert to blossoming. And the time of these days and these people, with
their tragedies and their comedies, was a time of epic splendour;--more
vital with the stuff and colour of life, I think, than any since the
stubborn gray earth out there was made to yield its treasure.

Of these seven historic highways the one richest in story is the old
Salt Lake Trail: this because at its western end was woven a romance
within a romance;--a drama of human passions, of love and hate, of high
faith and low, of the beautiful and the ugly, of truth and lies; yet
with certain fine fidelities under it all; a drama so close-knit, so
amazingly true, that one who had lightly designed to make a tale there
was dismayed by fact. So much more thrilling was it than any fiction he
might have imagined, so more than human had been the cunning of the
Master Dramatist, that the little make-believe he was pondering seemed
clumsy and poor, and he turned from it to try to tell what had really
been.

In this story, then, the things that are strangest have most of truth.
The make-believe is hardly more than a cement to join the queerly
wrought stones of fact that were found ready. For, if the writer has now
and again had to divine certain things that did not show,--yet must have
been,--surely these are not less than truth. One of these deductions is
the Lute of the Holy Ghost who came in the end to be the Little Man of
Sorrows: who loved a woman, a child, and his God, but sinned through
pride of soul;--whose life, indeed, was a poem of sin and retribution.
Yet not less true was he than the Lion of the Lord, the Archer of
Paradise, the Wild Ram of the Mountains, or the gaunt, gray woman whom
hurt love had crazed. For even now, as the tale is done, comes a dry
little note in the daily press telling how such a one actually did the
other day a certain brave, great thing it had seemed the imagined one
must be driven to do. Only he and I, perhaps, will be conscious of the
struggle back of that which was printed; but at least we two shall know
that the Little Man of Sorrows is true, even though the cross where he
fled to say his last prayer in the body has long since fallen and its
bars crumbled to desert dust.

Yet there are others still living in a certain valley of the mountains
who will know why the soul-proud youth came to bend under invisible
burdens, and why he feared, as an angel of vengeance, that early cowboy
with the yellow hair, who came singing down from the high divide into
Amalon where a girl was waiting in her dream of a single love; others
who, to this day, will do not more than whisper with averted faces of
the crime that brought a curse upon the land; who still live in terror
of shapes that shuffle furtively behind them, fumbling sometimes at
their shoulders with weak hands, striving ever to come in front and turn
upon them. But these will know only one side of the Little Man of
Sorrows who was first the Lute of the Holy Ghost in the Poet's roster of
titles: since they have lacked his courage to try the great issue with
their God.

New York City, May 1st, 1903.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I.       THE DEAD CITY

II.      THE WILD RAM OF THE MOUNTAINS

III.     THE LUTE OF THE HOLY GHOST BREAKS HIS FAST

IV.      A FAIR APOSTATE

V.       GILES RAE BEAUTIFIES HIS INHERITANCE

VI.      THE LUTE OF THE HOLY GHOST IS FURTHER CHASTENED

VII.     SOME INNER MYSTERIES ARE EXPOUNDED

VIII.    A REVELATION FROM THE LORD AND A TOAST FROM BRIGHAM

IX.      INTO THE WILDERNESS

X.       THE PROMISED LAND

XI.      ANOTHER MIRACLE AND A TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS

XII.     A FIGHT FOR LIFE

XIII.    JOEL RAE IS TREATED FOR PRIDE OF SOUL

XIV.     HOW THE SAINTS WERE BROUGHT TO REPENTANCE

XV.      HOW THE SOULS OF APOSTATES WERE SAVED

XVI.     THE ORDER FROM HEADQUARTERS

XVII.    THE MEADOW SHAMBLES

XVIII.   IN THE DARK OF THE AFTERMATH

XIX.     THE HOST OF ISRAEL GOES FORTH TO BATTLE

XX.      HOW THE LION OF THE LORD ROARED SOFT

XXI.     THE BLOOD ON THE PAGE

XXII.    THE PICTURE IN THE SKY

XXIII.   THE SINNER CHASTENS HIMSELF

XXIV.    THE COMING OF THE WOMAN-CHILD

XXV.     THE ENTABLATURE OF TRUTH MAKES A DISCOVERY AT AMALON

XXVI.    HOW THE RED CAME BACK TO THE BLOOD TO BE A SNARE

XXVII.   A NEW CROSS TAKEN UP AND AN OLD ENEMY FORGIVEN

XXVIII.  JUST BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

XXIX.    THE WILD RAM OF THE MOUNTAINS OFFERS TO BECOME A SAVIOUR ON
           MOUNT ZION

XXX.     HOW THE WORLD DID NOT COME TO AN END

XXXI.    THE LION OF THE LORD SENDS AN ORDER

XXXII.   A NEW FACE IN THE DREAM

XXXIII.  THE GENTILE INVASION

XXXIV.   HOW THE AVENGER BUNGLED HIS VENGEANCE

XXXV.    RUEL FOLLETT'S WAY OF BUSINESS

XXXVI.   THE MISSION TO A DESERVING GENTILE

XXXVII.  THE GENTILE ISSUES AN ULTIMATUM

XXXVIII. THE MISSION SERVICE IN BOX CAÑON IS SUSPENDED

XXXIX.   A REVELATION CONCERNING THE TRUE ORDER OF MARRIAGE

XL.      A PROCESSION, A PURSUIT, AND A CAPTURE

XLI.     THE RISE AND FALL OF A BENT LITTLE PROPHET

XLII.    THE LITTLE BENT MAN AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS

XLIII.   THE GENTILE CARRIES OFF HIS SPOIL




ILLUSTRATIONS


Lifting off his broad-brimmed hat to her in a gracious sweep

"Her goal is Zion, not Babylon, sir--remember _that_!"

"_I'm_ the one will have to be caught"

"But you're not my really papa!"

Full of zest for the measure as any youth

"Oh, Man ... how I've longed for that bullet of yours!"




THE LIONS OF THE LORD




CHAPTER I.


_The Dead City_

The city without life lay handsomely along a river in the early sunlight
of a September morning. Death had seemingly not been long upon it, nor
had it made any scar. No breach or rent or disorder or sign of violence
could be seen. The long, shaded streets breathed the still airs of utter
peace and quiet. From the half-circle around which the broad river bent
its moody current, the neat houses, set in cool, green gardens, were
terraced up the high hill, and from the summit of this a stately marble
temple, glittering of newness, towered far above them in placid
benediction.

Mile after mile the streets lay silent, along the river-front, up to the
hilltop, and beyond into the level; no sound nor motion nor sign of life
throughout their length. And when they had run their length, and the
outlying fields were reached, there, too, was the same brooding spell as
the land stretched away in the hush and haze. The yellow grain,
heavy-headed with richness, lay beaten down and rotting, for there were
no reapers. The city, it seemed, had died calmly, painlessly, drowsily,
as if overcome by sleep.

From a skiff in mid-river, a young man rowing toward the dead city
rested on his oars and looked over his shoulder to the temple on the
hilltop. There was something very boyish in the reverent eagerness with
which his dark eyes rested upon the pile, tracing the splendid lines
from its broad, gray base to its lofty spire, radiant with white and
gold. As he looked long and intently, the colour of new life flushed
into a face that was pinched and drawn. With fresh resolution, he bent
again to his oars, noting with a quick eye that the current had carried
him far down-stream while he stopped to look upon the holy edifice.

Landing presently at the wharf, he was stunned by the hush of the
streets. This was not like the city of twenty thousand people he had
left three months before. In blank bewilderment he stood, turning to
each quarter for some solution of the mystery. Perceiving at length that
there was really no life either way along the river, he started
wonderingly up a street that led from the waterside,--a street which,
when he had last walked it, was quickening with the rush of a mighty
commerce.

Soon his expression of wonder was darkened by a shade of anxiety. There
was an unnerving quality in the trance-like stillness; and the mystery
of it pricked him to forebodings. He was now passing empty workshops,
hesitating at door after door with ever-mounting alarm. Then he began to
call, but the sound of his voice served only to aggravate the silence.

Growing bolder, he tried some of the doors and found them to yield,
letting him into a kind of smothered, troubled quietness even more
oppressive than that outside. He passed an empty ropewalk, the hemp
strewn untidily about, as if the workers had left hurriedly. He peered
curiously at idle looms and deserted spinning-wheels--deserted
apparently but the instant before he came. It seemed as if the people
were fled maliciously just in front, to leave him in this fearfullest of
all solitudes. He wondered if he did not hear their quick, furtive
steps, and see the vanishing shadows of them.

He entered a carpenter's shop. On the bench was an unfinished door, a
plane left where it had been shoved half the length of its edge, the
fresh pine shaving still curling over the side. He left with an uncanny
feeling that the carpenter, breathing softly, had watched him from some
hiding-place, and would now come stealthily out to push his plane again.

He turned into a baker's shop and saw freshly chopped kindling piled
against the oven, and dough actually on the kneading-tray. In a tanner's
vat he found fresh bark. In a blacksmith's shop he entered next the
fire was out, but there was coal heaped beside the forge, with the
ladling-pool and the crooked water-horn, and on the anvil was a
horseshoe that had cooled before it was finished.

With something akin to terror, he now turned from this street of shops
into one of those with the pleasant dwellings, eager to find something
alive, even a dog to bark an alarm. He entered one of the gardens,
clicking the gate-latch loudly after him, but no one challenged. He drew
a drink from the well with its loud-rattling chain and clumsy,
water-sodden bucket, but no one called. At the door of the house he
whistled, stamped, pounded, and at last flung it open with all the noise
he could make. Still his hungry ears fed on nothing but sinister echoes,
the barren husks of his own clamour. There was no curt voice of a man,
no quick, questioning tread of a woman. There were dead white ashes on
the hearth, and the silence was grimly kept by the dumb household gods.

His nervousness increased. So vividly did his memory people the streets
and shops and houses that the air was vibrant with sound,--low-toned
conversations, shouts, calls, laughter, the voices of children, the
creaking of wagons, pounding hammers, the clangour of many works; yet
all muffled away from him, as if coming from some phantom-land. His
eyes, too, were kept darting from side to side by vague forms that
flitted privily near by, around corners, behind him, lurking always a
little beyond his eyes, turn them quickly as he would. Now, facing the
street, he shouted, again and again, from sheer nervousness; but the
echoes came back alone.

He recalled a favourite day-dream of boyhood,--a dream in which he
became the sole person in the world, wandering with royal liberty
through strange cities, with no voice to chide or forbid, free to choose
and partake, as would a prince, of all the wonders and delights that
boyhood can picture; his own master and the master of all the marvels
and treasures of earth. This was like the dream come true; but it
distressed him. It was necessary to find the people at once. He had a
feeling that his instant duty was to break some malign spell that lay
upon the place--or upon himself. For one of them was surely bewitched.

Out he strode to the middle of the street, between two rows of yellowing
maples, and there he shouted again and still more loudly to evoke some
shape or sound of life, sending a full, high, ringing call up the empty
thoroughfare. Between the shouts he scanned the near-by houses intently.

At last, half-way up the next block, even as his lungs filled for
another peal, he thought his eyes caught for a short half-second the
mere thin shadow of a skulking figure. It had seemed to pass through a
grape arbour that all but shielded from the street a house slightly more
pretentious than its neighbours. He ran toward the spot, calling as he
went. But when he had vaulted over the low fence, run across the garden
and around the end of the arbour, dense with the green leaves and
clusters of purple grapes, the space in front of the house was bare. If
more than a trick-phantom of his eye had been there, it had vanished.

He stood gazing blankly at the front door of the house. Was it fancy
that he had heard it shut a second before he came? that his nerves still
responded to the shock of its closing? He had already imagined so many
noises of the kind, so many misty shapes fleeing before him with little
soft rustlings, so many whispers at his back and hushed cries behind the
closed doors. Yet this door had seemed to shut more tangibly, with a
warmer promise of life. He went quickly up the three wooden steps,
turned the knob, and pushed it open--very softly this time. No one
appeared. But, as he stood on the threshold, while the pupils of his
eyes dilated to the gloom of the hall into which he looked, his ears
seemed to detect somewhere in the house a muffled footfall and the sound
of another door closed softly.

He stepped inside and called. There was no answer, but above his head a
board creaked. He started up the stairs in front of him, and, as he did
so, he seemed to hear cautious steps across a bare floor above. He
stopped climbing; the steps ceased. He started up, and the steps came
again. He knew now they came from a room at the head of the stairs. He
bounded up the remaining steps and pushed open the door with a loud
"Halloo!"

The room was empty. Yet across it there was the indefinable trail of a
presence,--an odour, a vibration, he knew not what,--and where a bar of
sunlight cut the gloom under a half-raised curtain, he saw the motes in
the air all astir. Opposite the door he had opened was another, leading,
apparently, to a room at the back of the house. From behind it, he could
have sworn came the sounds of a stealthily moved body and softened
breathing. A presence, unseen but felt, was all about. Not without
effort did he conquer the impulse to look behind him at every breath.

Determined to be no longer eluded, he crossed the room on tiptoe and
gently tried the opposite door. It was locked. As he leaned against it,
almost in a terror of suspense, he knew he heard again those little
seemings of a presence a door's thickness away. He did not hesitate.
Still holding the turned knob in his hand, he quickly crouched back and
brought his flexed shoulder heavily against the door. It flew open with
a breaking sound, and, with a little gasp of triumph, he was in the room
to confront its unknown occupant.

To his dismay, he saw no one. He peered in bewilderment to the farther
side of the room, where light struggled dimly in at the sides of a
curtained window. There was no sound, and yet he could acutely feel that
presence; insistently his nerves tingled the warning of another's
nearness. Leaning forward, still peering to sound the dim corners of the
room, he called out again.

Then, from behind the door he had opened, a staggering blow was dealt
him, and, before he could recover, or had done more than blindly crook
one arm protectingly before his face, he was borne heavily to the floor,
writhing in a grasp that centered all its crushing power about his
throat.




CHAPTER II.


_The Wild Ram of the Mountains_

Slight though his figure was, it was lithe and active and well-muscled,
and he knew as they struggled that his assailant was possessed of no
greater advantage than had lain in his point of attack. In strength,
apparently, they were well-matched. Twice they rolled over on the
carpeted floor, and then, despite the big, bony hands pressing about his
throat, he turned his burden under him, and all but loosened the killing
clutch. This brought them close to the window, but again he was swiftly
drawn underneath. Then, as he felt his head must burst and his senses
were failing from the deadly grip at his throat, his feet caught in the
folds of the heavy curtain, and brought it down upon them in a cloud of
dust.

As the light flooded in, he saw the truth, even before his now panting
and sneezing antagonist did. Releasing the pressure from his throat with
a sudden access of strength born of the new knowledge, he managed to
gasp, though thickly and with pain, as they still strove:

"Seth Wright--wait--let go--wait, Seth--I'm Joel--Joel Rae!"

He managed it with difficulty.

"Joel Rae--Rae--Rae--don't you see?"

He felt the other's tension relax. With many a panting, puffing "Hey!"
and "What's that now?" he was loosed, and drew himself up into a chair
by the saving window. His assailant, a hale, genial-faced man of forty,
sat on the floor where the revelation of his victim's identity had
overtaken him. He was breathing hard and feeling tenderly of his neck.
This was ruffled ornamentally by a style of whisker much in vogue at the
time. It had proved, however, but an inferior defense against the
onslaught of the younger man in his frantic efforts to save his own
neck.

They looked at each other in panting amazement, until the older man
recovered his breath, and spoke:

"Gosh and all beeswax! The Wild Ram of the Mountains a-settin' on the
Lute of the Holy Ghost's stomach a-chokin' him to death. My sakes! I'm
a-pantin' like a tuckered hound--a-thinkin' he was a cussed milishy
mobocrat come to spoil his household!"

The younger man was now able to speak, albeit his breathing was still
heavy and the marks of the struggle plain upon him.

"What does it mean, Brother Wright--all this? Where are the Saints we
left here--why is the city deserted--and why this--this?"

He shook back the thick, brown hair that fell to his shoulders,
tenderly rubbed the livid fingerprints at his throat, and readjusted the
collar of his blue flannel shirt.

"Thought you was a milishy man, I tell you, from the careless way you
hollered--one of Brockman's devils come back a-snoopin', and I didn't
crave trouble, but when I saw the Lord appeared to reely want me to cope
with the powers of darkness, why, I jest gritted into you for the
consolation of Israel. You'd 'a' got your come-uppance, too, if you'd
'a' been a mobber. You was nigh a-ceasin' to breathe, Joel Rae. In
another minute I wouldn't 'a' give the ashes of a rye-straw for your
part in the tree of life!"

"Yes, yes, man, but go back a little. Where are our people, the sick,
the old, and the poor, that we had to leave till now? Tell me, quick."

The older man sprang up, the late struggle driven from his mind, his
face scowling. He turned upon his questioner.

"Does my fury swell up in me? No wonder! And you hain't guessed why?
Well, them pitiful remnant of Saints, the sick, the old, the poor,
waitin' to be helped yender to winter quarters, has been throwed out
into that there slough acrost the river, six hundred and forty of 'em."

"When we were keeping faith by going?"

"What does a mobocrat care for faith-keepin'? Have you brought back the
wagons?"

"Yes; they'll reach the other side to-night. I came ahead and made the
lower crossing. I've seen nothing and heard nothing. Go on--tell
me--talk, man!"

"Talk?--yes, I'll talk! We've had mobs and the very scum of hell to boil
over here. This is Saturday, the 19th, ain't it? Well, Brockman marched
against this stronghold of Israel jest a week ago, with eight hundred
men. They had cannons and demanded surrender. We was a scant two hundred
fightin' men, and the only artillery we had was what we made ourselves.
We broke up an old steamboat shaft and bored out the pieces so's they'd
take a six-pound shot--but we wasn't goin' to give up. We'd learned our
lesson about mobocrat milishies. Well, Brockman, when he got our defy,
sent out his Warsaw riflemen as flankers on the right and left, put the
Lima Guards to our front with one cannon, and marched his main body
through that corn-field and orchard to the south of here to the city
lines. Then we had it hot. Brockman shot away all his cannon-balls--he
had sixty-one--and drew back while he sent to Quincy for more. He'd
killed three of our men. Sunday and Monday we swopped a few shots. And
then Tuesday, along comes a committee of a hundred to negotiate peace.
Well, Wednesday evening they signed terms, spite of all I could do.
_I'd_ 'a' fought till the white crows come a-cawin', but the rest of 'em
wasn't so het up with the Holy Ghost, I reckon. Anyway, they signed. The
terms wasn't reely set till Thursday morning, but we knew they would be,
and so all Wednesday night we was movin' acrost the river, and it kept
up all next day,--day before yesterday. You'd ought to 'a' been here
then; you wouldn't wonder at my comin' down on you like a thousand of
brick jest now, takin' you for a mobocrat. You'd 'a' seen families druv
right out of their homes, with no horses, tents, money, nor a day's
provisions,--jest a little foolish household stuff they could carry in
their hands,--sick men and women carried on beds, mothers luggin' babies
and leadin' children. My sakes! but I did want to run some bullets and
fill my old horn with powder for the consolation of Israel! They're
lyin' out over there in the slough now, as many as ain't gone to glory.
It made me jest plumb murderous!"

The younger man uttered a sharp cry of anguish. "What, oh, what has been
our sin, that we must be proved again? Why have we got to be chastened?"

"Then Brockman's force marched in Thursday afternoon, and hell was let
loose. His devils have plundered the town, thrown out the bedridden that
jest couldn't move, thrown their goods out after 'em, burned, murdered,
tore up. You come up from the river, and you ain't seen that yet--they
ain't touched the lower part of town--and now they're bunkin' in the
temple, defacin' it, defilin' it,--that place we built to be a house of
rest for the Lord when he cometh again. They drove me acrost the river
yesterday, and promised to shoot me if I dast show myself again. I
sneaked over in a skiff last night and got here to get my two pistols
and some money and trinkets we'd hid out. I was goin' to cross again
to-night and wait for you and the wagons."

"My God! and this is the nineteenth century in a land of liberty!"

"State of Illinois, U.S.A., September 19, 1846--but what of that? We're
the Lord's chosen, and over yender is a generation of vipers warned to
flee from the wrath to come. But they won't flee, and so we're outcasts
for the present, driven forth like snakes. The best American blood is in
our veins. We're Plymouth Rock stock, the best New England graft; the
fathers of nine tenths of us was at Bunker Hill or Valley Forge or
Yorktown, but what of that, I ask you?"

The speaker became oratorical as his rage grew.

"What did Matty Van Buren say to Sidney Rigdon and Elias Higbee when
they laid our cause before him at Washington after our Missouri
persecutions--when the wicked hatred of them Missourians had as a besom
of fire swept before it into exile the whipped and plundered Saints of
Jackson County? Well, he said: 'Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can
do nothing for you.' That's what a President of the United States said
to descendants of _Mayflower_ crossers who'd been foully dealt with, and
been druv from their substance and their homes, their wheat burned in
the stack and in the shock, and themselves butchered or put into the
wilderness. And now the Lord's word to this people is to gether out
again."

The younger man had listened in deep dejection.

"Yes, it's to be the old story. I saw it coming. The Lord is proving us
again. But surely this will be the last. He will not again put us
through fire and blood."

He paused, and for a moment his quick brown eyes looked far away.

"And yet, do you know, Bishop, I've thought that he might mean us to
save ourselves against this Gentile persecution. Sometimes I find it
hard to control myself."

The Bishop grinned appreciatively.

"So I heer'd. The Lute of the Holy Ghost got too rambunctious back in
the States on the subject of our wrongs. And so they called you back
from your mission?"

"They said I must learn to school myself; that I might hurt the cause by
my ill-tempered zeal--and yet I brought in many--"

"I don't blame you. I got in trouble the first and only mission I went
on, and the first time I preached, at that. When I said, 'Joseph was
ordained by Peter, James, and John,' a drunken wag in the audience got
up and called me a damned liar. I started for him. I never reached him,
but I reached the end of my mission right there. The Twelve decided I
was usefuller here at home. They said I hadn't got enough of the Lord's
humility for outside work. That was why they put me at the head of--that
little organisation I wanted you to join last spring. And it's done good
work, too. You'll join now fast enough, I guess. You begin to see the
need of such doin's. I can give you the oath any time."

"No, Bishop, I didn't mean that kind of resistance. It sounded too
practical for me; I'm still satisfied to be the Lute of the Holy Ghost."

"You can be a Son of Dan, too."

"Not yet, not yet. We must still be a little meek in the face of
Heaven."

"You're in a mighty poor place to practise meekness. What'd you cross
the river for, anyway?"

"Why, for father and mother, of course. They must be safe at Green
Plains. Can I get out there without trouble?"

The Bishop sneered.

"Be meek, will you? Well, mosey out to Green Plains and begin there.
It's a _burned_ plains you'll find, and Lima and Morley all the same,
and Bear Creek. The mobbers started out from Warsaw, and burned all in
their way, Morley first, then Green Plains, Bear Creek, and Lima. They'd
set fire to the houses and drive the folks in ahead. They killed Ed
Durfee at Morley for talkin' back to 'em."

"But father and mother, surely--"

"Your pa and ma was druv in here with the rest, like cattle to the
slaughter."

"You don't mean to say they're over there on the river bank?"

"Now, they are a kind of a mystery about that--why they wa'n't throwed
out with the rest. Your ma's sick abed--she ain't ever been peart since
the night your pa's house was fired and they had to walk in--but that
ain't the reason they wa'n't throwed out. They put out others sicker.
They flung families where every one was sick out into that slough. I
guess what's left of 'em wouldn't be a supper-spell for a bunch of
long-billed mosquitoes. But one of them milishy captains was certainly
partial to your folks for some reason. They was let to stay in Phin
Daggin's house till you come."

"And Prudence--the Corsons--Miss Prudence Corson?"

"Oh, ho! So she's the one, is she? Now that reminds me, mebbe I can
guess the cute of that captain's partiality. That girl's been kind of
lookin' after your pa and ma, and that same milishy captain's been kind
of lookin' after the girl. She got him to let her folks go to
Springfield."

"But that's the wrong way."

"Well, now, I don't want to spleen, but I never did believe Vince Corson
was anything more'n a hickory Saint--and there's been a lot of talk--but
you get yours from the girl. If I ain't been misled, she's got some
ready for you."

"Bishop, will there be a way for us to get into the temple, for her to
be sealed to me? I've looked forward to that, you know. It would be hard
to miss it."

"The mob's got the temple, even if you got the girl. There's a verse
writ in charcoal on the portal:--

  "'Large house, tall steeple,
    Silly priests, deluded people.'

"That's how it is for the temple, and the mob's bunked there. But the
girl may have changed her mind, too."

The young man's expression became wistful and gentle, yet serenely sure.

"I guess you never knew Prudence at all well," he said. "But come, can't
we go to them? Isn't Phin Daggin's house near?"

"You may git there all right. But I don't want _my_ part taken out of
the tree of life jest yet. I ain't aimin' to show myself none. Hark!"

From outside came the measured, swinging tramp of men.

"Come see how the Lord is proving us--and step light."

They tiptoed through the other rooms to the front of the house.

"There's a peek-hole I made this morning--take it. I'll make me one
here. Don't move the curtain."

They put their eyes to the holes and were still. The quick, rhythmic,
scuffling tread of feet drew nearer, and a company of armed men marched
by with bayonets fixed. The captain, a handsome, soldierly young fellow,
glanced keenly from right to left at the houses along the line of march.

"We're all right," said the Bishop, in low tones. "The cusses have been
here once--unless they happened to see us. They're startin' in now down
on the flat to make sure no poor sick critter is left in bed in any of
them houses. Now's your chance if you want to git up to Daggin's. Go out
the back way, follow up the alleys, and go in at the back when you git
there. But remember, 'Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the
path that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall
backward!' In Clay County we had to eat up the last mule from the tips
of his ears to the end of the fly-whipper. Now we got to pass through
the pinches again. We can't stand it for ever."

"The spirit may move us against it, Brother Seth."

"I wish to hell it would!" replied the Bishop.




CHAPTER III.


_The Lute of the Holy Ghost Breaks His Fast_

In his cautious approach to the Daggin house, he came upon her
unawares--a slight, slender, shapely thing of pink and golden flame, as
she poised where the sun came full upon her. One hand clutched her
flowing blue skirts snugly about her ankles; the other opened coaxingly
to a kitten crouched to spring on the limb of an apple-tree above her.
The head was thrown back, the vivid lips were parted, and he heard her
laugh low to herself. Near by was a towering rose-bush, from which she
had broken the last red rose, large, full, and lush, its petals already
loosened. Now she wrenched away a handful of these, and flung them
upward at the watchful kitten. The scarlet flecks drifted back around
her and upon her. Like little red butterflies hovering in golden
sunlight, they lodged in her many-braided yellow hair, or fluttered down
the long curls that hung in front of her ears. She laughed again under
the caressing shower. Then she tore away the remaining petals and tossed
them up with an elf-like daintiness, not at the crouched and expectant
kitten this time, but so that the whole red rain floated tenderly down
upon her upturned face and into the folds of the white kerchief crossed
upon her breast. She waited for the last feathery petal. Her hidden
lover saw it lodge in the little hollow at the base of her bare, curved
throat. He could hold no longer.

Stepping from the covert that had shielded him, he called softly to her.

"Prudence--Prue!"

She had reached again for the kitten, but at the sound of his low,
vigorous note, she turned quickly toward him, colouring with a glow that
spread from the corner of the crossed kerchief up to the yellow hair
above her brow. She answered with quick breaths.

"Joel--Joel--Joel!"

She laughed aloud, clapping her small hands, and he ran to her--over
beds of marigolds, heartsease, and lady's-slippers, through a row of
drowsy-looking, heavy-headed dahlias, and past other withering flowers,
all but choked out by the rank garden growths of late summer. Then his
arms opened and seemed to swallow the leaping little figure, though his
kisses fell with hardly more weight upon the yielded face than had the
rose-petals a moment since, so tenderly mindful was his ardour. She
submitted, a little as the pampered kitten had before submitted to her
own pettings.

"You dear old sobersides, you--how gaunt and careworn you look, and how
hungry, and what wild eyes you have to frighten one with! At first I
thought you were a crazy man."

He held her face up to his eager eyes, having no words to say, overcome
by the joy that surged through him like a mighty rush of waters. In the
moment's glorious certainty he rested until she stirred nervously under
his devouring look, and spoke.

"Come, kiss me now and let me go."

He kissed her eyes so that she shut them; then he kissed her
lips--long--letting her go at last, grudgingly, fearfully, unsatisfied.

"You scare me when you look that way. You mustn't be so fierce."

"I told him he didn't know you."

"Who didn't know me, sir?"

"A man who said I wasn't sure of you."

"So you _are_ sure of me, are you, Mr. Preacherman? Is it because we've
been sweethearts since so long? But remember you've been much away. I've
seen you--let me count--but one little time of two weeks in three years.
You _would_ go on that horrid mission."

"Is not religion made up of obedience, let life or death come?"

"Is there no room for loving one's sweetheart in it?"

"One must obey, and I am a better man for having denied myself and gone.
I can love you better. I have been taught to think of others. I was sent
to open up the gospel in the Eastern States because I had been endowed
with almost the open vision. It was my call to help in the setting up of
the Messiah's latter-day kingdom. Besides, we may never question the
commands of the holy priesthood, even if our wicked hearts rebel in
secret."

"If you had questioned the right person sharply enough, you might have
had an answer as to why you were sent."

"What do you mean? How could I have questioned? How could I have
rebelled against the stepping-stone of my exaltation?"

His face relaxed a little, and he concluded almost quizzically:

"Was not Satan hurled from high heaven for resisting authority?"

She pouted, caught him by the lapels of his coat and prettily tried to
shake him.

"There--horrid!--you're preaching again. Please remember you're not on
mission now. Indeed, sir, you were called back for being too--too--why,
do you know, even old Elder Munsel, 'Fire-brand Munsel,' they call him,
said you were too fanatical."

His face grew serious.

"I'm glad to be called back to you, at any rate,--and yet, think of all
those poor benighted infidels who believe there are no longer
revelations nor prophecies nor gifts nor healings nor speaking with
tongues,--this miserable generation so blind in these last days when the
time of God's wrath is at hand. Oh, I burn in my heart for them, night
after night, suffering for the tortures that must come upon
them--thrice direful because they have rejected the message of Moroni
and trampled upon the priesthood of high heaven, butchering the Saints
of the Most High, and hunting the prophets of God like Ahab of old."

"Oh, dear, please stop it! You sound like swearing!" Her two hands were
closing her ears in a pretty pretense.

He seemed hardly to hear her, but went on excitedly:

"Yet I have done what man could do. I am never done doing. I would
gladly give my body to be burned a thousand times if it would avail to
save them into the Kingdom. I have preached the word tirelessly--
fanatically, they say--but only as it burned in my bones. I have told
them of visions, dreams, revelations, miracles, and all the mercies of
this last dispensation. And I have prayed and fasted. Just now coming
from winter quarters, when I could not preach, I held twelve fasts and
twelve vigils. You will say it has weakened me, but it has weakened only
the bonds that the flesh puts upon the spirit. Even so, I fell short of
my vision--my tabernacle of flesh must have been too much profaned,
though how I cannot dream--believe me, I have kept myself as high and
clean as I knew. Yet there was promise. For only last night at the river
bank, the spirit came partially upon me. I was taken with a faintness,
and I heard above my head a sound like the rustling of silken robes,
and the spirit of God hovered over me, so that I could feel its
radiance. All in good time, then, it shall dwell within me, so that I
may know a way to save the worthy."

He grasped her wrist and bent eagerly forward, with the same wild look
in his eyes that had before disquieted her.

"Mark what I say now--I shall do great works for this generation; I am
strangely favoured of God; I have felt the spirit quicken wondrously
within me, and I know the Lord works not in vain; what great wonder of
grace I shall do, what miracle of salvation, I know not, but remember,
it shall be transcendent; tell it to no one, but I know in my inner
secret heart it shall be a greater work than man hath yet done."

He stopped and drew himself up, shaking his head, as if to shrug off the
spell of his own feeling.

"Now, now! stop it at once, and come to the house. I've been tending
your father and mother, and I'm going to tend you. What you need
directly is food. Your look may be holy, but I prefer full cheeks. Not
another word until you have eaten every crumb I put before you."

With an air of captor, daintily fierce, she led him toward the house and
up to the door, which she pushed open before him.

"Come softly, your mother may be still asleep--no, your father is
talking--listen!"

A querulous voice, rough with strong feeling, came from the inner room.

"Here, I tell you, is the prophecy of Joseph to prove it, away back in
1832: 'Verily thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly
come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will
terminate in the death and misery of many souls. The days will come that
war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at that place; for
behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern
States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the
nation of Great Britain, as it is called.' Now will you doubt again,
mother? For persecuting the Saints of the most high God, this republic
shall be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel. But we shall be safe.
The Lord will gather Israel home to the chambers of the mountains
against the day of wrath that is coming on the Gentile world. For all
flesh hath corrupted itself on the face of the earth, but the Saints
shall possess a purified land, upon which there shall be no curse when
the Lord cometh. Then shall the heavens open--"

He broke off, for the girl came leading in the son, who, as soon as he
saw the white-haired old man with his open book, sitting beside the
wasted woman on the bed, flew to them with a glad cry.

They embraced him and smoothed and patted him, tremulously, feebly, with
broken thanks for his safe return. The mother at last fell back upon her
pillow, her eyes shining with the joy of a great relief, while the
father was seized with a fit of coughing that cruelly racked his gaunt
frame and left him weak but smiling.

The girl had been placing food upon the table.

"Come, Joel," she urged, "you must eat--we have all breakfasted, so you
must sit alone, but we shall watch you."

She pushed him into the chair and filled his plate, in spite of his
protests.

"Not another word until you have eaten it all."

"The very sight of it is enough. I am not hungry."

But she coaxed and commanded, with her hands upon his shoulders, and he
let himself be persuaded to taste the bread and meat. After a few
mouthfuls, taken with obvious disrelish, she detected the awakening
fervour of a famished man, and knew she would have to urge no more.

As the son ate, the girl busied herself at the mother's pillow, while
the father talked and ruminated by intervals,--a text, a word of cheer
to the wasted mother, incidents of old days, memories of early revivals.
In 1828, he had hailed Dylkes, the "Leatherwood God," as the real
Messiah. Then he had been successively a Freewill Baptist, a
Winebrennerian, a Universalist, a Disciple, and finally an eloquent and
moving preacher in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now
he was a wild-eyed old dreamer with a high, narrow forehead depressed at
the temples, enfeebled, living much in the past. Once his voice would be
low, as if he spoke only to himself; again it would rise in warning to
an evil generation.

"The end of the world is at hand, laddie," he began, after looking
fondly at his son for a time. "Joseph said there are those now living
who shall not taste of death till Jesus comes. And then, oh, then--the
great white day! There is strong delusion among the wicked in the day in
which we live, but the seed of Abraham, the royal seed, the blessed seed
of the Lord, shall be told off to its separate glory. The Lord will
spread the curtains of Zion and gather it out to the fat valleys of
Ephraim, and there, with resurrected bodies it shall possess the
purified earth. I shall be away for a time before then, laddie--and the
dear mother here. Our crowns have been earned and will not long be
withheld. But you will be there for the glory of it, and who more
deserves it?"

"I pray to be made worthy of the exaltation, Father."

"You are, laddie. The word and the light came to me when I preached
another faith--for the spirit of Thomas Campbell had aforetime moved
me--but you, laddie, you have been bred in the word and the truth. The
Lord, as a mark of his favour, has kept you from the contamination of
doubters, infidels, heretics, and apostates. You have been educated
under the care of the priesthood, close here in Nauvoo the Beautiful,
and who could more deserve the fulness of thrones, dominions, and of
power--who of all those whose number the after-time shall unfold?"

He turned appealingly to the mother, whose fevered eyes rested fondly
upon her boy as she nodded confirmation of the words.

"Did he not march all the way from Kirtland to Missouri with us in
'34--the youngest soldier in the whole army of Zion? How old,
laddie?--twelve, was it?--so he marched a hundred miles for every one of
his little years--and so valiant--none more so--begging us to hasten and
give battle so he could fight upon the Lord's side. Twelve hundred miles
he walked to put back in their homes the persecuted Saints of Jackson
County. But, ah! There he saw liberty strangled in her sanctuary. Do you
mind, laddie, how in '38 we were driven by the mob from Jackson across
the river into Clay County? how they ran off our cattle, stole our
grain? how your poor old mother's mother died from exposure that night
in the rain and sleet? how we lived on mast and corn, the winter, in
tents and a few dugouts and rickety huts--we who had the keys of St.
Peter and the gifts of the apostolic age? Do you mind the sackings and
burnings at Adam-Ondi-Ahman? Do you mind the wife of Joseph's brother,
Don Carlos, she that was made by the soldiers to wade Grand River with
two helpless babes in her arms? They would not even let her warm
herself, before she started, at the flames of her own hut they had
fired. And, laddie, you mind Haun's mill. Ah, the bloody day!--you were
there, and one other, the sister, happy, beautiful as her in the Song of
Songs, when the brutes came--"

"Don't, father--stop there--you are making my throat shut against the
food."

"Then you came to Far West in time to see Joseph and his brethren sold
to the mobocrats by that devil's traitor, Hinkle,--you saw the fleeing
Saints forced to leave their all, hunted out of Missouri into
Illinois--their houses burned, the cattle stolen, their wives and
daughters--"

"Don't, father! Be quiet again. You and mother must be fit for our
journey, as fit as we younger folk."

He glanced fondly across the table, where the girl had leaned her chin
in her hands to watch him, speculatively. She avoided his eyes.

"Yes, yes," assented the old man, "and you know of our persecutions
here--how we had to finish the temple with our arms by our sides, even
as the faithful finished the walls of Jerusalem--and how we were driven
out by night--"

"Quiet, father!"

"Yes, yes. Ah, this gathering out! How far shall we go, laddie?"

"Four hundred miles to winter quarters. From there no one yet knows,--a
thousand, maybe two thousand."

"Aye, to the Rockies or beyond, even to the Pacific. Joseph prophesied
it--where we shall be left in peace until the great day."

The young man glanced quickly up.

"Or have time to grow mighty, if we should not be let alone. Surely this
is the last time the Lord would have us meek under the mob."

"Ho, ho! As you were twelve years ago, trudging by my side, valiant to
fight if the Lord but wills it! But have no fear, boy. This time we go
far beyond all that may tempt the spoiler. We go into the desert, where
no humans are but the wretched red Lamanites; no beasts but the wild
ones of four feet to hunger for our flesh; no verdure, no nourishment to
sustain us save the manna from on high,--a region of unknown perils and
unnamed deserts. Truly we make the supreme test. I do not overcolour it.
Prudence, hand me yonder scrap-book, there on the secretary. Here I
shall read you the words of no less a one than Senator Daniel Webster on
the floor of the Senate but a few months agone. He spoke on the proposal
to fix a mail-route from Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia River in
that far-off land. Hear this great man who knows whereof he speaks. He
is very bitter. 'What do we want with this vast, worthless area--this
region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and
whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie-dogs? To what use could we
ever hope to put these great deserts or those endless mountain ranges,
impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snows? What can
we ever hope to do with that Western coast, a coast of three thousand
miles, rock-bound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbour on it. Mr.
President, I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to place
the Pacific Coast one inch nearer to Boston than it now is!'"

The girl had been making little impatient flights about the room, as if
awaiting an opportunity to interrupt the old man's harangue, but even as
she paused to speak, he began again:

"There, laddie, do you hear him?--arid deserts, shifting sand, snow and
ice, wild beasts and wilder men--that is where Israel of the last days
shall be hidden to wait for the second coming of God's Christ. There,
having received our washings and anointings in the temple of God on
earth, we shall wait unmolested, and spread the curtains of Zion in due
circumspection. And what a migration to be recorded in another sacred
history ages hence! Surely the blood of our martyred Prophet hath not
smoked to heaven in vain. Where is there a parallel to this hegira? They
from Egypt went from a heathen land, a land of idolatry, to a fertile
home chosen for them by the Lord. But we go from a fair, smiling land of
plenty and pretended Christianity into the burning desert. They have
driven us to the edge; now they drive us in. But God works his way among
the peoples of earth, and we are strong. Who knows but that we shall in
our march throw up a highway of holiness to the rising generation? So
let us round up our backs to the burden!"

"Amen!" replied the young man fervently, as he rose from the table.

"And now we must be about our preparations for the journey. The time is
short--who is that?"

He sprang to the door. Outside, quick steps were heard approaching. The
girl, who had risen in some confusion, stood blushing and embarrassed
before him. The mother rose feebly on her elbow to reassure him.

"'Tis Captain Girnway, laddie. Have no alarm--he has befriended us. But
for him we should have been put out two days ago, without shelter and
without care. He let us be housed here until you should come."

There was a knock at the door, but Joel stood with his back to it. The
words of Seth Wright were running roughshod through his mind. He looked
sharply at Prudence.

"A mobocrat--our enemy--and you have taken favours from him--a minion of
the devil?--shame!"

The girl looked up.

"He was kind; you don't realise that he has probably saved their lives.
Indeed, you must let him in and thank him."

"Not I!"

The mother interposed hurriedly.

"Yes, yes, laddie! You know not how high-handed they have been. They
expelled all but us, and some they have maltreated shamefully. This one
has been kind to us. Open the door."

"I dare not face him--I may not contain myself!"

The knock was repeated more loudly. The girl went up to him and put her
hands on his shoulders to draw him away.

"Be reasonable," she pleaded, in low tones, "and above all, be polite to
him."

She put him gently aside and drew back the door. On the threshold smiled
the young captain he had watched from the window that morning, marching
at the head of his company. His cap was doffed, and his left hand rested
easily on the hilt of his sword. He stepped inside as one sure of his
welcome.

"Good morning, Miss Prudence, good morning, Mr. Rae, good morning,
madam--good morning--"

He looked questioningly at the stranger. Prudence stepped forward.

"This is Joel Rae, Captain Girnway."

They bowed, somewhat stiffly. Each was dark. Each had a face to attract
women. But the captain was at peace with the world, neatly uniformed,
well-fed, clean-shaven, smiling, pleasant to look upon, while the other
was unshaven, hollow-cheeked, gaunt, roughly dressed, a thing that had
been hunted and was now under ban. Each was at once sensible of the
contrast between them, and each was at once affected by it: the captain
to a greater jauntiness, a more effusive affability; the other to a
stonier sternness.

"I am glad to know you have come, Mr. Rae. Your people have worried a
little, owing to the unfortunate circumstances in which they have been
placed."

"I--I am obliged to you, sir, in their behalf, for your kindness to my
father and mother and to Miss Corson here."

"You are a thousand times welcome, sir. Can you tell me when you will
wish to cross the river?"

"At the very earliest moment that God and the mob will let us. To-morrow
morning, I hope."

"This has not been agreeable to me, believe me--"

"Far less so to us, you may be sure; but we shall be content again when
we can get away from all your whiggery, democratism, devilism, mobism!"

He spoke with rising tones, and the other flushed noticeably about the
temples.

"Have your wagons ready to-morrow morning, then, Mr. Rae--at eight? Very
well, I shall see that you are protected to the ferry. There has been so
much of that tone of talk, sir, that some of our men have resented it."

He turned pleasantly to Prudence.

"And you, Miss Prudence, you will be leaving Nauvoo for Springfield, I
suppose. As you go by Carthage, I shall wish to escort you that far
myself, to make sure of your safety."

The lover turned fiercely, seizing the girl's wrist and drawing her
toward him before she could answer.

"Her goal is Zion, not Babylon, sir--remember _that_!"

She stepped hastily between them.

"We will talk of that to-morrow, Captain," she said, quickly, and added,
"You may leave us now for we have much to do here in making ready for
the start."

"Until to-morrow morning, then, at eight."

He bowed low over the hand she gave him, gracefully saluted the others,
and was gone.

[Illustration: "HER GOAL IS ZION, NOT BABYLON, SIR--REMEMBER _THAT_!"]




CHAPTER IV.


_A Fair Apostate_

She stood flushed and quick-breathing when the door had shut, he bending
toward her with dark inquiry in his eyes. Before she spoke, he divined
that under her nervousness some resolution lay stubbornly fixed.

"Let us speak alone," she said, in a low voice. Then, to the old people,
"Joel and I will go into the garden awhile to talk. Be patient."

"Not for long, dear; our eyes are aching for him."

"Only a little while," and she smiled back at them. She went ahead
through the door by which they had first entered, and out into the
garden at the back of the house. He remembered, as he followed her, that
since he had arrived that morning she had always been leading him,
directing him as if to a certain end, with the air of meaning presently
to say something of moment to him.

They went past the rose-bush near which she had stood when he first saw
her, and down a walk through borders of marigolds. She picked one of
the flowers and fixed it in his coat.

"You are much too savage--you need a posy to soften you. There! Now come
to this seat."

She led him to a rustic double chair under the heavily fruited boughs of
an apple-tree, and made him sit down. She began with a vivacious
playfulness, poorly assumed, to hide her real feeling.

"Now, sobersides, it must end--this foolishness of yours--"

She stopped, waiting for some question of his to help her. But he said
nothing, though she could feel the burning of his eyes upon her.

"This superstitious folly, you know," she blurted out, looking up at him
in sudden desperation.

"Tell me what you mean--you must know I'm impatient."

She essayed to be playful again, pouting her dimpled face near to his
that he might kiss her. But he did not seem to see. He only waited.

"Well--this religion--this Mormonism--"

She shot one swift look at him, then went on quickly.

"My people have left the church, and--I--too--they found things in
Joseph Smith's teachings that seemed bad to them. They went to
Springfield. I would have gone, too, but I told them I wanted first to
see you and--and see if you would not come with us--at least for awhile,
not taking the poor old father and mother through all that wretchedness.
They consented to let me stay with your parents on condition that
Captain Girnway would protect them and me. He--he--is very kind--and had
known us since last winter and had seen me--us--several times. I hadn't
the heart to tell your father; he was so set on going to the new Zion,
but you _will_ come, won't you?"

"Wait a moment!" He put a hand upon her arm as if to arrest her speech.
"You daze me. Let me think." She looked up at him, wondering at his
face, for it showed strength and bitterness and gentleness all in one
look--and he was suffering. She put her hand upon his, from an instinct
of pity. The touch recalled him.

"Now--for the beginning." He spoke with aroused energy, a little wistful
smile softening the strain of his face. "You were wise to give me food,
else I couldn't have solved this mystery. To the beginning, then: You,
Prudence Corson, betrothed to me these three years and more; you have
been buried in the waters of baptism and had your washings and
anointings in the temple of the most high God. Is it not so? Your eyes
were anointed that they might be quick to see, your ears that they might
be apt at hearing, your mouth that you might with wisdom speak the words
of eternal life, and your feet that they might be swift to run in the
ways of the Lord. You accepted thereby the truth that the angel of God
had delivered to Joseph Smith the sealing keys of power. You accepted
the glorious articles of the new covenant. You were about to be sealed
up to me for time and eternity. Now--I am lost--what is it?--your
father and mother have left the church, and because of what?"

"Because of bad things, because of this doctrine they practise--this
wickedness of spiritual wives, plural wives. Think of it, Joel--that if
I were your wife you might take another."

"I need not think of it. Surely you know my love. You know I could not
do that. Indeed I have heard at last that this doctrine so long gossiped
of is a true one. But I have been away and am not yet learned in its
mysteries. But this much I do know--and it is the very corner-stone of
my life: Peter, James, and John ordained Joseph Smith here on this
earth, and Joseph ordained the twelve. All other churches have been
established by the wisdom or folly of man. Ours is the only one on earth
established by direct revelation from God. It has a priesthood, and that
priesthood is a power we must reverence and obey, no matter what may be
its commands. When the truth is taught me of this doctrine you speak of,
I shall see it to be right for those to whom it is ordained. And
meantime, outside of my own little life--my love for you, which would be
always single--I can't measure the revealed will of God with my little
moral foot-rule. Joseph was endowed with the open vision. He saw God
face to face and heard His voice. Can the standards of society in its
present corruption measure and pass upon the revelations of so
white-souled a man?"

"I believe he was not white-souled," she replied, in a kind, animated
way, as one who was bent upon saving him from error. "I told you I knew
why you were sent away on mission. It was because you were my accepted
lover--and your white-souled Joseph Smith wanted me for himself."

"I can't believe it--you couldn't know such a thing"--his faith made a
brave rally--"but even so, if he sought you, why, the more honour to
you--and to me, if you still clung to me."

"Listen. I was afraid to tell you before--ashamed--but I told my people.
It's three years ago. I was seventeen. It was just after we had become
engaged. My people were then strong in the faith, as you know. One
morning after you had left for the East, Brigham Young and Heber Kimball
came to our house for me. They said the Prophet had long known me by
sight, and wished to talk with me. Would I go with them to visit him and
he would bless and counsel me? Of course I was flattered. I put on my
prettiest frock and fetchingest bonnet and set off with them, after
mamma had said yes. On the way they kept asking me if I was willing to
do all the Prophet required. I said I was sure of it, thinking they
meant to be good and worshipful. Then they would ask if I was ready to
take counsel, and they said, 'Many things are revealed unto us in these
last days that the world would scoff at,' but that it had been given to
them to know all the mysteries of the Kingdom. Then they said, 'You
will see Joseph and he will tell you what you are to do.'"

He was listening with a serious, confident eagerness, as if he knew she
could say nothing to dim the Prophet's lustre.

"When we reached the building where Joseph's store was, they led me
up-stairs to a small room and sent down to the store for the Prophet.
When he came up they introduced me and left me alone in the little room
with him. Their actions had seemed queer to me, but I remembered that
this man had talked face to face with God, so I tried to feel better.
But all at once he stood before me and asked me to be his wife. Think of
it! I was so frightened! I dared not say no, he looked at me so--I can't
tell you how; but I said it would not be lawful. He said, 'Yes,
Prudence, I have had a revelation from God that it is lawful and right
for a man to have as many wives as he wants--for as it was in the days
of Abraham, so it shall be in these days. Accept me and I shall take you
straight to the celestial Kingdom. Brother Brigham will marry us here,
right now, and you can go home to-night and keep it secret from your
parents if you like.' Then I said, 'But I am betrothed to Joel Rae, the
son of Giles Rae, who is away on mission.' 'I know that,' he said--'I
sent him away, and anyway you will be safer to marry me. You will then
be absolutely sure of your celestial reward, for in the next world, you
know, I am to have powers, thrones, and dominions, while Brother Joel
is very young and has not been tried in the Kingdom. He may fall away
and then you would be lost.'"

The man in him now was struggling with his faith, and he seemed about to
interrupt her, but she went on excitedly.

"I said I would not want to do anything of the kind without
deliberation. He urged me to have it over, trying to kiss me, and saying
he knew it would be right before God; that if there was any sin in it he
would take it upon himself. He said, 'You know I have the keys of the
Kingdom, and whatever I bind on earth is bound in heaven. Come,' he
said, 'nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let me call Brother Brigham to
seal us, and you shall be a star in my crown for ever.'

"Then I broke down and cried, for I was so afraid, and he put his arms
around me, but I pushed away, and after awhile I coaxed him to give me
until the next Sabbath to think it over, promising on my life to say not
one word to any person. I never let him see me alone again, you may be
sure, and at last when other awful tales were told about him here, of
wickedness and his drunkenness--he told in the pulpit that he had been
drunk, and that he did it to keep them from worshipping him as a God--I
saw he was a bad, common man, and I told my people everything, and soon
my father was denounced for an apostate. Now, sir, what do you say?"

When she finished he was silent for a time. Then he spoke, very gently,
but with undaunted firmness.

"Prudence, dearest, I have told you that this doctrine is new to me. I
do not yet know its justification. But that I shall see it to be
sanctified after they have taught me, this I know as certainly as I know
that Joseph Smith dug up the golden plates of Mormon and Moroni on the
hill of Cumorah when the angel of the Lord moved him. It will be
sanctified for those who choose it, I mean. You know I could never
choose it for myself. But as for others, I must not question. I know
only too well that eternal salvation for me depends upon my accepting
manfully and unquestioningly the authority of the temple priesthood."

"But I know Joseph was not a good man--and they tell such absurd stories
about the miracles the Elders pretend to work."

"I believe with all my heart Joseph was good; but even if not--we have
never pretended that he was anything more than a prophet of God. And was
not Moses a murderer when God called him to be a prophet? And as for
miracles, all religions have them--why not ours? Your people were
Methodists before Joseph baptised them. Didn't Wesley work miracles?
Didn't a cloud temper the sun in answer to his prayer? Wasn't his horse
cured of a lameness by his faith? Didn't he lay hands upon the blind
Catholic girl so that she saw plainly when her eyes rested upon the New
Testament and became blind again when she took up the mass book? Are
those stories absurd? My father himself saw Joseph cast a devil out of
Newell Knight."

"And this awful journey into a horrid desert. Why must you go? Surely
there are other ways of salvation." She hesitated a moment. "I have been
told that going to heaven is like going to mill. If your wheat is good,
the miller will never ask which way you came."

"Child, child, some one has tampered with you."

She retorted quickly.

"He did not tamper, he has never sought to--he was all kindness."

She stopped, her short upper lip holding its incautious mate a prisoner.
She blushed furiously under the sudden blaze of his eyes.

"So it's true, what Seth Wright hinted at? To think that you, of all
people--my sweetheart--gone over--won over by a cursed mobocrat--a fiend
with the blood of our people wet on his hands! Listen, Prue; I'm going
into the desert. Even though you beg me to stay, you must have
known--perhaps you hoped--that I would go. There are many reasons why I
must. For one, there are six hundred and forty poor hunted wretches over
there on the river bank, sick, cold, wet, starving, but enduring it all
to the death for their faith in Joseph Smith. They could have kept their
comfortable homes here and their substance, simply by renouncing
him--they are all voluntary exiles--they have only to say 'I do not
believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God,' and these same Gentiles
will receive them with open arms, give them clothing, food, and shelter,
put them again in possession of their own. But they are lying out over
there, fever-stricken, starving, chilled, all because they will not deny
their faith. Shall I be a craven, then, who have scarcely ever wanted
for food or shelter, and probably shall not? Of course you don't love me
or you couldn't ask me to do that. Those faithful wretched ones are
waiting over there for me to guide them on toward a spot that will
probably be still more desolate. They could find their way, almost, by
the trail of graves we left last spring, but they need my strength and
my spirit, and I am going. I am going, too, for my own salvation. I
would suffer anything for you, but by going I may save us both. Listen,
child; God is going to make a short work on earth. We shall both see the
end of this reign of sin. It is well if you take wheat to the mill, but
what if you fetch the miller chaff instead?"

She made a little protesting move with her hands, and would have spoken,
but he was not done.

"Now, listen further. You heard my father tell how I have seen this
people driven and persecuted since I was a boy. That, if nothing else,
would take me away from these accursed States and their mobs. Hatred of
them has been bred into my marrow. I know them for the most part to be
unregenerate and doomed, but even if it were otherwise--if they had the
true light--none the less would I be glad to go, because of what they
have done to us and to me and to mine. Oh, in the night I hear such
cries of butchered mothers with their babes, and see the flames of the
little cabins--hear the shots and the ribaldry and the cursings. My
father spoke to you of Haun's mill,--that massacre back in Missouri.
That was eight years ago. I was a boy of sixteen and my sister was a
year older. She had been left in my care while father and mother went on
to Far West. You have seen the portrait of her that mother has. You know
how delicately flower-like her beauty was, how like a lily, with a
purity and an innocence to disarm any villainy. Thirty families had
halted at the mill the day before, the mob checking their advance at
that point. All was quiet until about four in the afternoon. We were
camped on either side of Shoal Creek. Children were playing freely about
while their mothers and fathers worked at the little affairs of a
pilgrimage like that. Most of them had then been three months on the
road, enduring incredible hardships for the sake of their religion--for
him you believe to be a bad, common man. But they felt secure now
because one of the militia captains, officious like your captain here,
had given them assurance the day before that they would be protected
from all harm. I was helping Brother Joseph Young to repair his wagon
when I glanced up to the opposite side of Shoal Creek and saw a large
company of armed and mounted men coming toward our peaceful group at
full speed. One of our number, seeing that they were many and that we
were unarmed, ran out and cried, 'Peace!' but they came upon us and
fired their volley. Men, women, and little children fell under it. Those
surviving fled to the blacksmith's shop for shelter--huddling inside
like frightened sheep. But there were wide cracks between the logs, and
up to these the mob went, putting their guns through to do their work at
leisure. Then the plundering began--plundering and worse."

He stopped, trembling, and she put out her hand to him in sympathy. When
he had regained control of himself, he continued.

"At the first volley I had hurried sister to a place of concealment in
the underbrush, and she, hearing them search for the survivors after the
shooting was over, thought we were discovered, and sprang up to run
further. One of them saw her and shot. She fell half-fainting with a
bullet through her arm, and then half a dozen of them gathered quickly
about her. I ran to them, screaming and striking out with my fists, but
the devil was in them, and she, poor blossom, lay there helpless,
calling 'Boy, boy, boy!' as she had always called me since we were
babies together. Must I tell you the rest?--must I tell you--how those
devils--"

"Don't, don't! Oh, _no_!"

"I thought I must die! They held me there--"

He had gripped one of her wrists until she cried out in pain and he
released it.

"But the sight must have given me a man's strength, for my struggles
became so troublesome that one of them--I have always been grateful for
it--clubbed his musket and dealt me a blow that left me senseless. It
was dark when I came to, but I lay there until morning, unable to do
more than crawl. When the light came I found the poor little sister
there near where they had dragged us both, and she was _alive_. Can you
realise how awful that was--that she had lived through it? God be
thanked, she died before the day was out.

"After that the other mutilated bodies, the plundered wagons, all seemed
less horrible to me. My heart had been seared over. They had killed
twenty of the Saints, and the most of them we hurried to throw into a
well, fearful that the soldiers of Governor Boggs would come back at any
moment to strip and hack them. O God! and now you have gone over to one
of them!"

"Joel,--dear, _dear_ Joel!--indeed I pity and sympathise--and care
for--but I cannot go--even after all you say. And don't you see it will
always be so! My father says the priesthood will always be in trouble if
it sets itself above the United States. Dear Joel, I can't go, indeed I
_can't_ go!"

He spoke more softly now.

"Thank God I don't realise it yet--I mean, that we must part. You tell
me so and I hear you and my mind knows, but my heart hasn't sensed it
yet--I can feel it now going stupidly along singing its old happy song
of hope and gladness, while all this is going on here outside. But soon
the big hurt will come. Oh, Prue--Prue, girl!--can't you think what it
will mean to me? Don't you know how I shall sicken for the sight of you,
and my ears will listen for you! Prudence, Prue, darling--yet I must not
be womanish! I have a big work to do. I have known it with a new
clearness since that radiance rested above my head last night. The truth
burns in me like a fire. Your going can't take that from me. It must be
I was not meant to have you. With you perhaps I could not have had a
heart single to God's work. He permitted me to love you so I could be
tried and proved."

He looked at her fondly, and she could see striving and trembling in his
eyes a great desire to crush her in his arms, yet he fought it down, and
continued more calmly.

"But indeed I must be favoured more than common, to deserve that so
great a hurt be put upon me, and I shall not be found wanting. I shall
never wed any woman but you, though, dear. If not you, never any other."

He stood up.

"I must go in to them now. There must be work to do against the start
to-morrow."

"Joel!"

"May the Lord deafen my ears to you, darling!" and squaring his
shoulders resolutely away from her, he left her on the seat and went in.

The old man looked up from his Bible as his son entered.

"It's sore sad, laddie, we can't have the temple for your sealing-vows."

"Prudence will not be sealed to me, father." He spoke dazedly, as if
another like the morning's blow had been dealt him. "I--I am already
sealed to the Spirit for time and eternity."

"Was it Prudence's doings?" asked his mother, quickly.

"Yes; she has left the church with her people."

The long-faced, narrow-browed old man raised one hand solemnly.

"Then let her be banished from Israel and not numbered in the books of
the offspring of Abraham! And let her be delivered over to the
buffetings of Satan in the flesh!"




CHAPTER V.


_Giles Rae Beautifies His Inheritance_

By eight o'clock the next morning, out under a cloudy sky, the Raes were
ready and eager for their start to the new Jerusalem. Even the sick
woman's face wore a kind of soft and faded radiance in the excitement of
going. On her mattress, she had been tenderly installed in one of the
two covered wagons that carried their household goods. The wagon in
which she lay was to be taken across the river by Seth Wright,--for the
moment no Wild Ram of the Mountains, but a soft-cooing dove of peace.
Permission had been granted him by Brockman to recross the river on some
needful errands; and, having once proved the extreme sensitiveness, not
to say irritability, of those in temporary command, he was now resolved
to give as little éclat as possible to certain superior aspects of his
own sanctity. He spoke low and deferentially, and his mien was that of a
modest, retiring man who secretly thought ill of himself.

He mounted the wagon in which the sick woman lay, sat well back under
the bowed cover, clucked low to the horses, and drove off toward the
ferry. If discreet behaviour on his part could ensure it there would be
no conflict provoked with superior numbers; with numbers, moreover,
composed of violent-tempered and unprincipled persecutors who were
already acting with but the merest shadow of legal authority.

On the seat of the second wagon, whip in hand, was perched Giles Rae,
his coat buttoned warmly to the chin. He was slight and feeble to the
eye, yet he had been fired to new life by the certainty that now they
were to leave the territory of the persecuting Gentiles for a land to be
the Saints' very own. His son stood at the wheel, giving him final
directions. At the gate was Prudence Corson, gowned for travel, reticule
in hand, her prettiness shadowed, under the scoop of her bonnet, the toe
of one trim little boot meditatively rolling a pebble over the ground.

"Drive slowly, Daddy. Likely I shall overtake you before you reach the
ferry. I want but a word yet with Prudence; though"--he glanced over at
the bowed head of the girl--"no matter if I linger a little, since
Brother Seth will cross first and we must wait until the boat comes
back. Some of our people will be at the ferry to look after you,--and be
careful to have no words with any of the mob--no matter what insult they
may offer. You're feeling strong, aren't you?"

"Ay, laddie, that I am! Strong as an ox! The very thought of being free
out of this Babylon has exalted me in spirit and body. Think of it, boy!
Soon we shall be even beyond the limits of the United States--in a
foreign land out there to the west, where these bloodthirsty ones can no
longer reach us. Thank God they're like all snakes--they can't jump
beyond their own length!"

He leaned out of the wagon to shake a bloodless, trembling fist toward
the temple where the soldiers had made their barracks.

"Now let great and grievous judgments, desolations, by famine, sword,
and pestilence come upon you, generation of vipers!"

He cracked the whip, the horses took their load at his cheery call, and
as the wagon rolled away they heard him singing:--

  "Lo, the Gentile chain is broken!
   Freedom's banner waves on high!"

They watched him until the wagon swung around into the street that fell
away to the ferry. Then they faced each other, and he stepped to her
side as she leaned lightly on the gate.

"Prue, dear," he said, softly, "it's going hard with me. God must indeed
have a great work reserved for me to try me with such a sacrifice--so
much pain where I could least endure it. I prayed all the night to be
kept firm, for there are two ways open--one right and one wrong; but I
cannot sell my soul so early. That's why I wanted to say the last
good-bye out here. I was afraid to say it in there--I am so weak for
you, Prue--I ache so for you in all this trouble--why, if I could feel
your hands in my hair, I'd laugh at it all--I'm so _weak_ for you,
dearest."

She tossed her yellow head ever so slightly, and turned the scoop of her
bonnet a little away from his pain-lighted face.

"I am not complimented, though--you care more for your religion than for
me."

He looked at her hungrily.

"No, you are wrong there--I don't separate you at all--I couldn't--you
and my religion are one--but, if I must, I can love you in spirit as I
worship my God in spirit--"

"If it will satisfy you, very well!"

"My reward will come--I shall do a great work, I shall have a Witness
from the sky. Who am I that I should have thought to win a crown without
taking up a cross?"

"I am sorry for you."

"Oh, Prue, there must be a way to save the souls of such as you, even in
their blindness. Would God make a flower like you, only to let it be
lost? There must be a way. I shall pray until I force it from the secret
heavens."

"My soul will be very well, sir!" she retorted, with a distinct trace of
asperity. "I am not a heathen, I'd thank you to remember--and when I'm a
wife I shall be my husband's only wife--"

He winced in acutest pain.

"You have no right to taunt me so. Else you can't know what you have
meant to me. Oh, you were all the world, child--you, of your own dear
self--you would have been all the wives in the world to me--there are
many, many of you, and all in a heavenly one--"

"Oh, forgive me, dearest," she cried, and put out a little gloved hand
to comfort him. "I know, I know--all the sweetness and goodness of your
love, believe me. See, I have kept always by me the little Bible you
gave me on my birthday--I have treasured it, and I know it has made me a
better girl, because it makes me always think of your goodness--but I
couldn't have gone there, Joel--and it does seem as if you need not have
gone--and that marrying is so odious--"

"You shall see how little you had to fear of that doctrine which God has
seen fit to reveal to these good men. I tell you now, Prue, I shall wed
no woman but you. Nor am I giving you up. Don't think it. I am doing my
duty and trusting God to bring you to me. I know He will do it--I tell
you there is the spirit of some strange, awful strength in me, which
tells me to ask what I will and it shall be given--to seek to do
anything, how great or hard soever, and a giant's, a god's strength will
rest in me. And so I know you will come. You will always think of me
so,--waiting for you--somehow, somewhere. Every day you must think it,
at any idle moment when I come to your mind; every night when you waken
in the dark and silence, you must think, 'Wherever he is, he is waiting
for me, perhaps awake as I am now, praying, with a power that will
surely draw me.' You will come somehow. Perhaps, when I reach winter
quarters, you will have changed your mind. One never knows how God may
fashion these little providences. But He will bring you safe to me out
of that Gentile perdition. Remember, child, God has set his hand in
these last days to save the human family from the ruins of the fall, and
some way, He alone knows how, you will come to me and find me waiting."

"As if you needed to wait for me when I am here now ready for you,
willing to be taken!"

"Don't, don't, dear! There are two of me now, and one can't stand the
pain. There is a man in me, sworn to do a man's work like a man, and
duty to God and the priesthood has big chains around his heart dragging
it across the river. But, low, now--there is a little, forlorn boy in
me, too--a poor, crying, whimpering, babyish little boy, who dreamed of
you and longed for you and was promised you, and who will never get well
of losing you. Oh, I know it well enough--his tears will never dry, his
heart will always have a big hurt in it--and your face will always be so
fresh and clear in it!"

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into the face under
the bonnet.

"Let me make sure I shall lose no look of you, from little tilted chin,
and lips of scarlet thread, and little teeth like grains of rice, and
eyes into which I used to wander and wonder so far--"

She looked past him and stepped back.

"Captain Girnway is coming for me--yonder, away down the street. He
takes me to Carthage."

His face hardened as he looked over his shoulder.

"I shall never wed any woman but you. Can you feel as deeply as that?
Will you wed no man but me?"

She fluttered the cherry ribbons on the bonnet and fixed a stray curl in
front of one ear.

"Have you a right to ask that? I might wait a time for you to come
back--to your senses and to me, but--"

"Good-bye, darling!".

"What, will you go that way--not kiss me? He is still two blocks away."

"I am so weak for you, sweet--the little boy in me is crying for you,
but he must not have what he wants. What he wants would leave his heart
rebellious and not perfect with the Lord. It's best not," he continued,
with an effort at a smile and in a steadier tone. "It would mean so much
to me--oh, so very much to me--and so very little to you--and that's no
real kiss. I'd rather remember none of that kind--and don't think I was
churlish--it's only because the little boy--I will go after my father
now, and God bless you!"

He turned away. A few paces on he met Captain Girnway, jaunty, debonair,
smiling, handsome in his brass-buttoned uniform of the Carthage Grays.

"I have just left the ferry, Mr. Rae. The wagon with your mother has
gone over. The other had not yet come down. Some of the men appear to be
a little rough this morning. Your people are apt to provoke them by
being too outspoken, but I left special orders for the good treatment of
yourself and outfit."

With a half-smothered "thank you," he passed on, not trusting himself to
say more to one who was not only the enemy of his people, but bent,
seemingly, on deluding a young woman to the loss of her soul. He heard
their voices in cheerful greeting, but did not turn back. With eyes to
the front and shoulders squared he kept stiffly on his way through the
silent, deserted streets to the ferry.

Fifteen minutes' walk brought him to the now busy waterside. The ferry,
a flat boat propelled by long oars, was landing when he came into view,
and he saw his father's wagon driven on. He sped down the hill, pushed
through the crowd of soldiers standing about, and hurried forward on the
boat to let the old man know he had come. But on the seat was another
than his father. He recognised the man, and called to him.

"What are you doing there, Brother Keaton? Where's my father?"

The man had shrunk back under the wagon-cover, having seemingly been
frightened by the soldiers.

"I've taken your father's place, Brother Rae."

"Did he cross with Brother Wright?"

"Yes--he--" The man hesitated. Then came an interruption from the
shore.

"Come, clear the gangway there so we can load! Here are some more of the
damned rats we've hunted out of their holes!"

The speaker made a half-playful lunge with his bayonet at a gaunt,
yellow-faced spectre of a man who staggered on to the boat with a child
in his arms wrapped in a tattered blue quilt. A gust of the chilly wind
picked his shapeless, loose-fitting hat off as he leaped to avoid the
bayonet-point, and his head was seen to be shaven. The crowd on the bank
laughed loud at his clumsiness and at his grotesque head. Joel Rae ran
to help him forward on the boat.

"Thank you, Brother--I'm just up from the fever-bed--they shaved my head
for it--and so I lost my hat--thank you--here we shall be warm if only
the sun comes out."

Joel went back to help on others who came, a feeble, bedraggled dozen or
so that had clung despairingly to their only shelter until they were
driven out.

"You can stay here in safety, you know, if you renounce Joseph Smith and
his works--they will give you food and shelter." He repeated it to each
little group of the dispirited wretches as they staggered past him, but
they replied staunchly by word or look, and one man, in the throes of a
chill, swung his cap and uttered a feeble "Hurrah for the new Zion!"

When they were all on with their meagre belongings, he called again to
the man in the wagon.

"Brother Keaton, my father went across, did he?"

Several of the men on shore answered him.

"Yes"--"Old white-whiskered death's-head went over the river"--"Over
here"--"A sassy old codger he was"--"He got his needings, too"--"Got his
needings--"

They cast off the line and the oars began to dip.

"And you'll get your needings, too, if you come back, remember that!
That's the last of you, and we'll have no more vermin like you. Now see
what old Joe Smith, the white-hat prophet, can do for you in the Indian
territory!"

He stood at the stern of the boat, shivering as he looked at the
current, swift, cold, and gray under the sunless sky. He feared some
indignity had been offered to his father. They had looked at one another
queerly when they answered his questions. He went forward to the wagon
again.

"Brother Keaton, you're sure my father is all right?"

"I am sure he's all right, Brother Rae."

Content with this, at last, he watched the farther flat shore of the
Mississippi, with its low fringe of green along the edge, where they
were to land and be at last out of the mob's reach. He repeated his
father's words: "Thank God, they're like all snakes; they can't jump
beyond their own length."

The confusion of landing and the preparations for an immediate start
drove for the time all other thoughts from his mind. It had been
determined to get the little band at once out of the marshy spot where
the camp had been made. The teams were soon hitched, the wagons loaded,
and the train ready to move. He surveyed it, a hundred poor wagons, many
of them without cover, loaded to the full with such nondescript
belongings as a house-dwelling people, suddenly put out on the open
road, would hurriedly snatch as they fled. And the people made his heart
ache, even to the deadening of his own sorrow, as he noted their
wobegoneness. For these were the sick, the infirm, the poor, the
inefficient, who had been unable for one reason or another to migrate
with the main body of the Saints earlier in the season. Many of them
were now racked by fever from sleeping on the damp ground. These bade
fair not to outlast some of the lumbering carts that threatened at every
rough spot to jolt apart.

Yet the line bravely formed to the order of Seth Wright as captain, and
the march began. Looking back, he saw peaceful Nauvoo, its houses and
gardens, softened by the cloudy sky and the autumn haze, clustering
under the shelter of their temple spire,--their temple and their houses,
of which they were now despoiled by a mob's fury. Ahead he saw the road
to the West, a hard road, as he knew,--one he could not hope they should
cross without leaving more graves by the way; but Zion was at the end.

The wagons and carts creaked and strained and rattled under their
swaying loads, and the line gradually defined itself along the road from
the confused jumble at the camp. He remembered his father again now, and
hurried forward to assure himself that all was right. As he overtook
along the way the stumbling ones obliged to walk, he tried to cheer
them.

"Only a short march to-day, brothers. Our camp is at Sugar Creek, nine
miles--so take your time this first day."

Near the head of the train were his own two wagons, and beside the first
walked Seth Wright and Keaton, in low, earnest converse. As he came up
to them the Bishop spoke.

"I got Wes' and Alec Gregg to drive awhile so we could stretch our
legs." But then came a quick change of tone, as they halted by the road.

"Joel, there's no use beatin' about the bush--them devils at the ferry
jest now drowned your pa."

He went cold all over. Keaton, looking sympathetic but frightened, spoke
next.

"You ought to thank me, Brother Rae, for not telling you on the other
side, when you asked me. I knew better. Because, why? Because I knew
you'd fly off the handle and get yourself killed, and then your ma'd be
left all alone, that's why, now--and prob'ly they'd 'a' wound up by
dumping the whole passle of us bag and baggage into the stream. And it
wa'n't any use, your father bein' dead and gone."

The Bishop took up the burden, slapping him cordially on the back.

"Come, come,--hearten up, now! Your pa's been made a martyr--he's
beautified his inheritance in Zion--whinin' won't do no good."

He drew himself up with a shrug, as if to throw off an invisible burden,
and answered, calmly:

"I'm not whining, Bishop. Perhaps you were right not to tell me over
there, Keaton. I'd have made trouble for you all." He smiled painfully
in his effort to control himself. "Were you there, Bishop?"

"No, I'd already gone acrost. Keaton here saw it."

Keaton took up the tale.

"I was there when the old gentleman drove down singing, 'Lo, the Gentile
chain is broken.' He was awful chipper. Then one of 'em called him old
Father Time, and he answered back. I disremember what, but, any way, one
word fired another until they was cussin' Giles Rae up hill and down
dale, and instead of keepin' his head shet like he had ought to have
done, he was prophesyin' curses, desolations, famines, and pestilences
on 'em all, and callin' 'em enemies of Christ. He was sassy--I can't
deny that--and that's where he wa'n't wise. Some of the mobocrats was
drunk and some was mad; they was all in their high-heeled boots one way
or another, and he enraged 'em more. So he says, finally, 'The Jews
fell,' he says, 'because they wouldn't receive their Messiah, the
Shiloh, the Saviour. They wet their hands,' he says, 'in the best blood
that had flowed through the lineage of Judah, and they had to pay the
cost. And so will you cowards of Illinois,' he says, 'have to pay the
penalty for sheddin' the blood of Joseph Smith, the best blood that has
flowed since the Lord's Christ,' he says. 'The wrath of God,' he says,
'will abide upon you.' The old gentleman was a powerful denouncer when
he was in the spirit of it--"

"Come, come, Keaton, hurry, for God's sake--get on!"

"And he made 'em so mad, a-settin' up there so peart and brave before
'em, givin' 'em as good as they sent--givin' 'em hell right to their
faces, you might say, that at last they made for him, some of them that
you could see had been puttin' a new faucet into the cider barrel. I saw
they meant to do him a mischief--but Lord! what could I do against
fifty, being then in the midst of a chill? Well, they drug him off the
seat, and said, 'Now, you old rat, own up that Holy Joe was a danged
fraud;' or something like that. But he was that sanctified and
stubborn--' Better to suffer stripes for the testimony of Christ,' he
says, 'than to fall by the sin of denial!' Then they drug him to the
bank, one on each side, and says, 'We baptise you in the holy name of
Brockman,' and in they dumped him--backwards, mind you! I saw then they
was in a slippery place where it was deep and the current awful strong.
But they hauled him out, and says again, 'Do you renounce Holy Joe Smith
and all his works?' The poor old fellow couldn't talk a word for the
chill, but he shook his head like sixty--as stubborn as you'd wish. So
they said, 'Damn you! here's another, then. We baptise you in the name
of James K. Polk, President of the United States!' and in they threw him
again. Whether they done it on purpose or not, I wouldn't like to say,
but that time his coat collar slipped out of their hands and down he
went. He came up ten feet down-stream and quite a ways out, and they
hooted at him. I seen him come up once after that, and then they see he
couldn't swim a stroke, but little they cared. And I never saw him
again. I jest took hold of the team and drove it on the boat, scared to
death for what you'd do when you come,--so I kept still and they kept
still. But remember, it's only another debt the blood of the Gentiles
will have to pay--"

"Either here on earth or in hell," said the Bishop.

"And the soul of your poor pa is now warm and dry and happy in the
presence of his Lord God."




CHAPTER VI.


_The Lute of the Holy Ghost Is Further Chastened_

Listening to Keaton's tale, he had dimly seen the caravan of hunted
creatures crawl past him over the fading green of the prairie; the
wagons with their bowed white covers; a heavy cart, jolting, creaking,
lumbering mysteriously along, a sick driver hidden somewhere back under
its makeshift cover of torn counterpanes; a battered carriage,
reminiscent of past luxury, drawn by oxen; more wagons, some without
covers; a two-wheeled cart, designed in the ingenuity of desperation,
laden with meal-sacks, a bundle of bedding, a sleeping child, and drawn
by a little dry-dugged heifer; then more wagons with stooping figures
trudging doggedly beside them, here a man, there a woman leading a
child. He saw them as shapes floating by in a dream, blurred and
inconsequent. But between himself and the train, more clearly outlined
to his gaze, he saw the worn face of his father tossed on the cold, dark
waters, being swept down by the stream, the weak old hands clutching for
some support in the muddy current, the white head with the chin held up
sinking lower at each failure, then at last going under, gulping, to
leave a little row of bubbles down the stream.

In a craze of rage and grief he turned toward the river, when he heard
the sharp voice of the Bishop calling him back.

"It ain't any use, Joel."

"Couldn't we find his body?"

"Not a chance in a thousand. It was carried down by the current. It
would mean days and mebbe weeks. Besides, we need you here. Here's your
duty. Sakes alive! If we only had about twenty minutes with them cusses
like it was in the old days! When you're ready to be a Son of Dan you'll
know what I mean. But never mind, we'll see the day yet when Israel will
be the head and not the tail."

"My mother? Has any one told her?"

"Wal, now, I'm right sorry about that, but it got out before you come
over. Tarlton McKenny's boy, Nephi, rowed over in a skiff and brought
the news, and some of the women went and tattled it to your ma. I guess
it upset her considerable. You go up and see her."

He ran forward toward the head of the train, hearing as he went words of
sympathy hurried to him by those he passed. Mounting the wagon, he
climbed over the seat to where his mother lay. She seemed to sleep in
spite of the jolting. The driver called back to him:

"She took on terrible for a spell, Brother Rae. She's only jest now got
herself pacified."

He put his hand on her forehead and found it burning. She stirred and
moaned and muttered disjointed sentences. He heard his father's name,
his sister's, and his own, and he knew she was delirious. He eased her
bed as well as he could, and made a place for himself beside her where
he could sit and take one of the pale, thin hands between his own and
try to endow her with some of his abundant life. He stayed by her until
their camping-place was reached.

Once for a moment she opened her eyes with what seemed to him a more
than normal clearness and understanding and memory in them. Though she
looked at him long without speaking, she seemed to say all there was to
say, so that the brief span was full of anguish for him. He sighed with
relief when the consciousness faded again from her look, and she fell to
babbling once more of some long gone day in her girlhood.

When the wagon halted he was called outside by the driver, who wished
instructions regarding the camp to be made. A few moments later he was
back, and raised the side of the wagon cover to let in the light. The
look on her face alarmed him. It seemed to tell unmistakably that the
great change was near. Already she looked moribund. An irregular gasping
for breath, an occasional delirious mutter, were the only signs of life.
She was too weak to show restlessness. Her pinched and faded face was
covered with tiny cold beads. The pupils of her eyes were strangely
dilated, and the eyes themselves were glazed. There was no pulse at her
wrist, and from her heart only the faintest beating could be heard. In
quick terror he called to a boy working at a wagon near by.

"Go for Bishop Wright and tell him to bring that apothecary with him."

The two came up briskly a few moments later, and he stood aside for them
in an agony of suspense. The Bishop turned toward him after a long look
into the wagon.

"She's gone to be with your pa, Joel. You can't do anything--only
remember they're both happy now for bein' together."

It made little stir in the busy encampment. There had been other deaths
while they lay out on the marshy river flats. Others of the sorry band
were now sick unto death, and many more would die on the long march
across the Iowa prairie, dropping out one by one of fever, starvation,
exposure. He stood helpless in this chaos of woe, shut up within
himself, knowing not where to turn.

Some women came presently from the other wagons to prepare the body for
burial. He watched them dumbly, from a maze of incredulity, feeling that
some wretched pretense was being acted before him.

The Bishop and Keaton came up. They brought with them the makeshift
coffin. They had cut a log, split it, and stripped off its bark in two
half-cylinders. They led him to the other side of the wagon, out of
sight. Then they placed the strips of bark around the body, bound them
with hickory withes, and over the rough surface the women made a little
show of black cloth.

For the burial they could do no more than consign the body to one of the
waves in the great billowy land sea about them. They had no tombstone,
nor were there even rocks to make a simple cairn. He saw them bury her,
and thought there was little to choose between hers and the grave of his
father, whose body was being now carried noiselessly down in the bed of
the river. The general locality would be kept by landmarks, by the
bearing of valley bends, headlands, or the fork and angles of constant
streams. But the spot itself would in a few weeks be lost.

When the last office had been performed, the prayer said, a psalm sung,
and the black dirt thrown in, they waited by him in sympathy. His
feeling was that they had done a monstrous thing; that the mother he had
known was somewhere alive and well. He stood a moment so, watching the
sun sink below the far rim of the prairie while the white moon swung
into sight in the east. Then the Bishop led him gently by the arm to his
own camp.

There cheer abounded. They had a huge camp-fire tended by the Bishop's
numerous children. Near by was a smaller fire over which the good man's
four wives, able-bodied, glowing, and cordial, cooked the supper. In
little ways they sought to lighten his sorrow or to put his mind away
from it. To this end the Bishop contributed by pouring him drink from a
large brown jug.

"Not that I approve of it, boy, but it'll hearten you,--some of the best
peach brandy I ever sniffed. I got it at the still-house last week for
use in time of trouble,--and this here time is _it_."

He drank the fiery stuff from the gourd in which it was given him, and
choked until they brought him water. But presently the warmth stole
along his cold, dead nerves so that he became intensely alive from head
to foot, and strangely exalted. And when they offered him food he ate
eagerly and talked. It seemed to him there had been a thousand matters
that he had long wished to speak of; matters of moment in which he felt
deeply; yet on which he had strangely neglected to touch till now.

He talked long with the Bishop when the women had climbed into their
wagon for the night. He amazed that good man by asking him if the Lord
would not be pleased to have them, now, as they were, go back to Nauvoo
and descend upon the Gentiles to smite them. The Bishop counselled him
to have patience.

"What could we do how with these few old fusees and cheap arms that we
managed to smuggle across--to say nothing of half of us being down
sick?"

"But we are Israel, and surely Israel's God--"

"The Lord had His chance the other day if He'd wanted it, when they
took the town. No, Joel, He means us to gether out and become strong
enough to beat 'em in our own might. But you _wait_; our day will come,
and all the more credit to us then for doin' it ourselves. Then we'll
consecrate the herds and flocks of the Gentile and his store and basket,
his gold and silver, and his myrrh and frankincense. But for the
present--well, we got to be politic and kind of modest about such
doin's. The big Fan, the Sons of Dan, done good work in Missouri and
better in Nauvoo, and it'll do still better where we're goin'. But we
must be patient. Only next time we'll get to work quicker. If the
Gentiles had been seen to quicker in Nauvoo, Joseph would be with us
now. We learned our lesson there. Now the Lord has unfurled a Standard
of Zion for the gathering of Israel, and this time we'll fix the
Gentiles early."

"Amen! Brother Seth."

A look of deep hatred had clouded the older man's face as he spoke. He
continued.

"Let the wrath of God abide upon 'em, and remember that we're bein'
tried and proved for a purpose. And we got to be more practical. You
been too theoretical yourself and too high-flyin' in your notions. The
Kingdom ain't to be set up on earth by faith alone. The Lord has got to
have _works_, like I told you about the other day."

"You were right, Bishop, I need to be more practical. The olive-branch
and not the sword would Ephraim extend to Japheth, but if--"

"If Japheth don't toe the mark the Lord's will must be worked upon
him."

"So be it, Brother Seth! I am ready now to be a Son of Dan."

The Bishop rose from in front of their fire and looked about. No one was
near. Here and there a fire blazed, and the embers of many more could be
seen dying out in the distance. The nearest camp was that of the
fever-stricken man who had fled on to the boat that morning with his
child in his arms. They could see his shaven head in the firelight, and
a woman hovering over him as he lay on the ground with a tattered quilt
fixed over him in lieu of a tent. From another group came the strains of
an accordion and the chorus of a hymn.

"That's right," said the Bishop. "I knew you'd come to it. I saw that
long ago. Brother Brigham saw it, too. We knew you could be relied on.
You want the oath, do you?"

"Yes, yes, Brother Seth. I was ready for it this morning when they told
me about father."

"Hold up your right hand and repeat after me:

"'In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I do covenant and agree
to support the first Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, in all things right or wrong; I will faithfully guard
them and report to them the acts of all men as far as in my power lies;
I will assist in executing all the decrees of the first President,
Patriarch, or President of the Twelve, and I will cause all who speak
evil of the Presidency or Heads of the Church to die the death of
dissenters or apostates, unless they speedily confess and repent, for
pestilence, persecution, and death shall follow the enemies of Zion. I
will be a swift herald of salvation and messenger of peace to the
Saints, and I will never make known the secret purposes of this Society
called the Sons of Dan, my life being the forfeiture in a fire of
burning tar and brimstone. So help me God and keep me steadfast.'"

He repeated the words without hesitation, with fervour in his voice, and
the light of a holy and implacable zeal in his face.

"Now I'll give you the blessing, too. Wait till I get my bottle of oil."

He stepped to the nearest wagon, felt under the cover, and came back
with a small bottle in his hand.

"Stand jest here--so--now!"

They stood at the edge of the wavering firelight, and he put his hand on
the other's head.

"'In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and by the authority of
the Holy Priesthood, the first President, Patriarch, and High Priest of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, representing the first,
second, and third Gods in Heaven, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I do
now anoint you with holy consecrated oil, and by the imposition of my
hands do ordain and set you apart for the holy calling whereunto you are
called; that you may consecrate the riches of the Gentiles to the House
of Israel, bring swift destruction upon apostate sinners, and execute
the decrees of Heaven without fear of what man can do with you. So mote
it be. Amen.'

"There, boy, if I ain't mistaken, that's the best work for Zion that I
done for some time. Now be off to your rest!"

"Good night, Bishop, and thank you for being kind to me! The Church Poet
called me the Lute of the Holy Ghost, but I feel to-night, that I must
be another Lion of the Lord. Good night!"

He went out of the firelight and stumbled through the dark to his own
wagons. But when he came to them he could not stop. Under all the
exhilaration he had been conscious of the great pain within him, drugged
for the moment, but never wholly stifled. Now the stimulus of the drink
had gone, and the pain had awakened to be his master.

He went past the wagons and out on to the prairie that stretched away, a
sea of silvery gray in the moonlight. As he walked, the whole stupendous
load of sorrow settled upon him. His breath caught and his eyes burned
with the tears that lay behind them. He walked faster to flee from it,
but it came upon him more heavily until it made a breaking load,--the
loss of his sister by worse than death, his father and mother driven out
at night and their home burned, his father killed by a mob whose aim had
lacked even the dignity of the murderer's--for they had seemingly
intended but a brutal piece of horse-play; his mother dead from
exposure due to Gentile persecutions; the girl he had loved taken from
him by Gentile persuasions. If only she had been left him so that now he
could put his head down upon her shoulder, slight as that shoulder was,
and feel the supreme soothing of a woman's touch; if only the hurts had
not all come at once! The pain sickened him. He was far out on the
prairie now, away from the sleeping encampment, and he threw himself
down to give way to his grief. Almost silently he wept, yet with sobs
that choked him and cramped him from head to foot. He called to his
mother and to his father and to the sister who had gone before them,
crying their names over and over in the night. But under all his sorrow
he felt as great a rage against the Gentile nation that had driven them
into the wilderness.

When the spasm of grief had passed, he still lay there a long time. Then
becoming chilled he walked again over the prairie, watching the moon go
down and darkness come to make the stars brighter, and then the day show
gray in the east. And as he walked against his sorrow, the burden of his
thought came to be: "God has tried me more than most men; therefore he
expects more of me; and my reward shall be greater. New visions shall be
given to me, and a new power, and this poor, hunted, plundered remnant
of Israel shall find me their staff. Much has been taken from me, but
much will be given unto me."

And under this ran a minor strain born of the rage that still burned
within him:

"But, oh, the day of wrath that shall dawn on yonder Gentiles!"

So did he chasten himself through the night; and when the morning came
he took his place in the train, strangely exalted by this new sense of
the singular favour that was to be conferred upon him.

For seven weeks the little caravan crept over the prairies of Iowa, and
day after day his conviction strengthened that he had been chosen for
large works. In this fervour he cheered the sick and the weak of the
party by picturing for them a great day to come when the Lord should
exalt the valleys of humility and abase the mountains of Gentile pride;
when the Saints should have their reward, and retribution should descend
upon the wicked nation they were leaving behind. Scourges, afflictions,
and depredations by fire, famine, and the tyrant's hand he besought them
to regard as marks of Heaven's especial favour.

The company came to look upon him as its cloud by day and its pillar of
fire by night. Old women--mothers in Israel--lavished attentions upon
him as a motherless boy; young women smiled at him with soft pity, and
were meek and hushed when he spoke. And the men believed that the things
he told them concerning their great day to come were true revelations
from God. They did not hesitate to agree with the good Bishop Wright,
who declared in words of pointed admiration, "When that young man gets
all het up with the Holy Ghost, the Angel of the Lord jest _has_ to give
down!"




CHAPTER VII.


_Some Inner Mysteries Are Expounded_

The hosts of Israel had been forced to tarry for the winter on the banks
of the Missouri. A few were on the east side at Council Bluffs on the
land of the Pottawattamie Indians. Across the river on the land of the
Omahas the greater part of the force had settled at what was known as
Winter Quarters. Here in huts of logs, turf, and other primitive
materials, their town had been laid out with streets and byways, a large
council-house, a mill, a stockade, and blockhouses. The Indians had
received them with great friendliness, feeling with them a common cause
of grievance, since the heavy hand of the Gentile had pushed them also
to this bleak frontier.

To this settlement early in November came the last train from Nauvoo,
its members wearied and wasted by the long march, but staunch in their
faith and with hope undimmed. It was told in after years how there had
leaped from the van of this train a very earnest young man, who had at
once sought an audience with Brigham Young and certain other members of
the Twelve who had chanced to be present at the train's arrival; and
how, being closeted with these, he had eagerly inquired if it might not
be the will of the Lord that they should go no farther into the
wilderness, but stand their ground and give battle to the Gentiles
forthwith. He made the proposal as one who had a flawless faith that the
God of Battles would be with them, and he appeared to believe that
something might be done that very day to force the matter to an issue.
When he had made his proposal, he waited in a modest attitude to hear
their views of it. To his chagrin, all but two of those who had listened
laughed. One of these two, Bishop Snow,--a man of holy aspect whom the
Church Poet had felicitously entitled the Entablature of Truth,--had
looked at him searchingly, then put his hand upon his own head and
shaken it hopelessly to the others.

The other who had not laughed was Brigham himself. For to this great man
had been given the gift to look upon men and to know in one slow sweep
of his wonderful eyes all their strength and all their weakness. He had
listened with close attention to the remarkable plan suggested by this
fiery young zealot, and he studied him now with a gaze that was kind. A
noticeable result of this attitude of Brigham's was that those who had
laughed became more or less awkwardly silent, while the Entablature of
Truth, in the midst of his pantomime, froze into amazement.

"We'd better consider that a little," said Brigham, finally. "You can
talk it over with me tonight. But first you go get your stuff unloaded
and get kind of settled. There's a cabin just beyond my two up the
street here that you can move into." He put his large hand kindly on the
other's shoulder. "Now run and get fixed and come to my house for supper
along about dark."

Somewhat cooled by the laughter of the others, but flattered by this
consideration from the Prophet, the young man had gone thoughtfully out
to his wagons and driven on to the cabin indicated.

"I _did_ think he was plumb crazy," said Bishop Snow, doubtfully, as if
the reasons for changing his mind were even yet less than compelling.

"He _ain't_ crazy," said Brigham. "All that's the matter with him, he's
got more faith than the whole pack of us put together. You just remember
he ain't like us. We was all converted after we got our second teeth,
while he's had it from the cradle up. He's the first one we've caught
young. He's what the priesthood can turn out when they get a full swing
with the rising generation. We got to remember that. We old birds had to
learn to crow in middle life. These young ones will crow stronger;
they'll out-crow us. But all the better for that. They'll be mighty
brash at first, but all they need is to be held in a little, and then
they'll be a power in the Kingdom."

"Well, of course you're right, Brother Brigham, but that boy certainly
needs a check-rein and a curb-bit right now," said Snow.

"He'll have his needings," answered Brigham, shortly, and the informal
council dispersed.

Brigham talked to him late that night, advancing many cogent reasons why
it should be unwise to make war at once upon the nation of Gentiles to
the east. Of these reasons the one that had greatest weight with his
listener was the assurance that such a course would not at present be
pleasing in the sight of God. To others, touching upon the matter of
superior forces they might have to contend with, he was loftily
inattentive.

Having made this much clear, Brigham went on in his fatherly way to
impress him anew with the sinfulness of all temporal governments outside
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Again he learned from
the lips of authority that any people presuming to govern themselves by
laws of their own making and officers of their own appointing, are in
wicked rebellion against the Kingdom of God; that for seventeen hundred
years the nations of the Western Hemisphere have been destitute of this
Kingdom and destitute of all legal government; and that the Lord was now
about to rend all earthly governments, to cast down thrones, overthrow
nations, and make a way for the establishment of the everlasting
Kingdom, to which all others would have to yield, or be prostrated never
more to rise. Thus was the rebuff of the afternoon gracefully atoned
for.

From matters of civil government the talk ranged to affairs domestic.

"Tell me," said the young man, "the truth of this new order of celestial
marriage." And Brigham had become animated at once.

"Yes," he said, "when the family organisation was revealed from Heaven,
and Joseph began on the right and the left to add to his family, oh,
dear, what a quaking there was in Israel! But there it was, plain
enough. When you have received your endowments, keys, blessings, all the
tokens, signs, and every preparatory ordinance that can be given to a
man for his entrance through the celestial gate, then you can see it."

He gazed a moment into the fire of hickory logs before which they sat,
and then went on, more confidentially:

"Now you take that promise to Abraham--'Lift up your eyes and behold the
stars. So shall thy seed be as numberless as the stars. Go to the
seashore and look at the sand, and behold the smallness of the particles
thereof'--I am giving you the gist of the Lord's words, you
understand--'and then realise that your seed shall be as numberless as
those sands.' Now think for a minute how many particles there are, say
in a cubit foot of sand--about one thousand million particles. Think of
that! In eight thousand years, if the inhabitants of earth increased one
trillion a century, three cubic yards of sand would still contain more
particles than there would be people on the whole globe. Yet there you
got the promise of the Lord in black and white. Now how was Abraham to
manage to get a foundation laid for this mighty kingdom? Was he to get
it all through one wife? Don't you see how ridiculous that is? Sarah saw
it, and Sarah knew that unless seed was raised to Abraham he would come
short of his glory. So what did Sarah do? She gave Abraham a certain
woman whose name was Hagar, and by her a seed was to be raised up unto
him. And was that all? No. We read of his wife Keturah, and also of a
plurality of wives which he had in the sight and favour of God, and from
whom he raised up many sons. There, then, was a foundation laid for the
fulfilment of that grand promise concerning his seed."

He peered again into the fire, and added, by way of clenching his
argument: "I guess it would have been rather slow-going, if the Lord had
confined Abraham to one wife, like some of these narrow, contracted
nations of modern Christianity. You see, they don't know that a man's
posterity in this world is to constitute his glory and kingdom and
dominion in the world to come, and they don't know, either, that there
are thousands of choice spirits in the spirit world waiting to
tabernacle in the flesh. Of course, there are lots of these things that
you ain't ready to hear yet, but now you know that polygamy is necessary
for our exaltation to the fulness of the Lord's glory in the eternal
world, and after you study it you'll like the doctrine. I do; I can
swallow it without greasing _my_ mouth!"

He prayed that night to be made "holy as Thy servant Brigham is holy;
to hear Thy voice as he hears it; to be made as wise as he, as true as
he, even as another Lion of the Lord, so that I may be a rod and staff
and comforter to these buffeted children of Thine."

His prayer also touched on one of the matters of their talk. "But, O
Lord, teach me to be content without thrones and dominion in Thy Kingdom
if to gain these I must have many wives. Teach me to abase myself, to be
a servant, a lowly sweeper in the temple of the Most High, for I would
rather be lowly with her I love than exalted to any place whatsoever
with many. Keep in my sinful heart the face of her who has left me to
dwell among the Gentiles, whose hair is melted gold, whose eyes are
azure deep as the sky, and whose arms once opened warm for me. Guard her
especially, O Lord, while she must company with Gentiles, for she is not
wonted to their wiles; and in Thine own good time bring her head
unharmed to its home on Thy servant's breast."

He fasted often, that winter, waiting and watching for his great
Witness--something that should testify to his mortal eyes the direct
favour of Heaven. He fasted and kept vigils and studied the mysteries;
for now he was among the favoured to whom light had been given in
abundance--men at whose feet he was eager to sit. He learned of baptism
for the dead; of the Godship of Adam, and his plurality of wives; of the
laws of adoption and the process by which the Saints were to people,
and be Gods to, earths yet formless.

There was much work out of doors to be done, and of this he performed
his share, working side by side with the tireless Brigham. But there
were late afternoons and long evenings in which he sat with the Prophet
to his great advantage. For, strangely enough, the two men, so unlike,
were drawn closely together--Brigham Young, the broad-headed,
square-chinned buttress of physical vitality, the full-blooded,
clarion-voiced Lion of the Lord, self-contained, watchful, radiating the
power that men feel and obey without knowing why, and Joel Rae, of the
long, narrow, delicately featured face, sensitive, nervous, glowing with
a spiritual zeal, the Lute of the Holy Ghost, whose veins ran fire
instead of blood. One born to command, to domineer; the other to
believe, to worship, and to obey. For the younger man it was a winter of
limitless aspiration and chastening discipline. In spite of the great
sorrows that weighed upon him, the sudden sweeping away of those he had
held most dear and the blasting of his love hopes, he remembered it
through all the eventful years that followed as a time of strange
happiness. Memories of it came gratefully to him even on the awful day
when at last his Witness came; when, as he lay fainting in the desert,
driven thence by his sin, the heavens unfolded and a vision was
vouchsafed him;--when the foundations of his world were shattered, the
tables of the law destroyed, and but one little feather saved to his
famished soul from the wings of the dove of truth. After all these
years, the memory of this winter was a spot of joy that never failed to
glow when he recalled it.

At night he went to his bunk in the little straw-roofed hut and fell
asleep to the howling of the wolves, his mind cradled in the thought of
his mission. He had a part in the great work of bringing into harmony
the labours of the prophets and apostles of all ages. In due time, by
the especial favour of Heaven, he would be wrapped in a sea of vision,
shown an eternity of knowledge, and be intrusted with singular powers.
And he was content to wait out the days in which he must school,
chasten, and prove himself.

"You have built me up," he confided to Brigham, one day. "I feel to
rejoice in my strength." And Brigham was highly pleased.

"That's good, Brother Joel. The host of Israel will soon be on the move,
and I shouldn't wonder if the Lord had a great work for you. I can see
places where you'll be just the tool he needs. I mistrust we sha'n't
have everything peaceful even now. The priest in the pulpit is thorning
the politician against us, gouging him from underneath--he'd never dare
do it openly, for our Elders could crimson his face with shame--and the
minions of the mob may be after us again. If they do, I can see where
you will be a tower of strength in your own way."

"It's all of my life, Brother Brigham."

"I believe it. I guess the time has come to make you an Elder."

And so on a late winter afternoon in the quiet of the Council-House,
Joel Rae was ordained an Elder after the order of Melchisedek; with
power to preach and administer in all the ordinances of the Church, to
lay on hands, to confirm all baptised persons, to anoint the afflicted
with oil, and to seal upon them the blessings of health.

In his hard, narrow bed that night, where the cold came through the
unchinked logs and the wind brought him the wailing of the wolves, he
prayed that he might not be too much elated by this extraordinary
distinction.




CHAPTER VIII.


_A Revelation from the Lord and a Toast from Brigham_

From his little one-roomed cabin, dark, smoky, littered with hay, old
blankets, and skins, he heard excited voices outside, one early morning
in January. He opened the door and found a group of men discussing a
miracle that had been wrought overnight. The Lord had spoken to Brigham
and word had come to Zion to move toward the west.

He hurried over to Brigham's house and by that good man was shown the
word of the Lord as it had been written down from his lips. With
emotions of reverential awe he read the inspired document.

"The Word and Will of the Lord Concerning the Camp of Israel in its
Journeyings to the West." Such was its title.

"Let all the people," it began, "of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, be organised into companies with a covenant and a
promise to keep all the statutes of the Lord our God.

"Let the companies be organised with captains of hundreds and captains
of fifties and captains of tens, with a President and Counsellor at
their head under the direction of the Twelve Apostles.

"Let each company provide itself with all the teams, wagons, provisions,
and all other necessaries for the journey.

"Let every man use all of his influence and property to remove this
people to the place where the Lord shall locate a stake of Zion, and let
them share equally in taking the poor, the widows, and the fatherless,
so that their cries come not up into the ears of the Lord against His
people.

"And if ye do this with a pure heart, with all faithfulness, ye shall be
blessed in your flocks and in your herds and in your fields and in your
families. For I am the Lord your God, even the God of your fathers, the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob. I am He who led the children of
Israel out of the land of Egypt, and my arm is stretched out in these
last days to save my people of Israel.

"Fear not thine enemies, for they are in my hands, and I will do my
pleasure with them.

"My people must be tried in all things, that they may be worthy to
receive the glory that I have in store for them, even the glory of Zion;
and he that will not receive chastisement is not worthy of my Kingdom.
So no more at present. Amen and Amen!"

This was what he had longed for each winter night when he had seen the
sun go down,--the word of the Lord to follow that sun on over the rim
into the pathless wilderness, infested by savage tribes and ravenous
beasts, abounding in terrors unknown. There was an adventure worth while
in the sight of God. It had never ceased to thrill him since he first
heard it broached,--the mad plan of a handful of persecuted believers,
setting out from civilisation to found Zion in the wilderness,--to go
forth a thousand miles from Christendom with nothing but stout arms and
a very living faith in the God of Israel, and in Joseph Smith as his
prophet, meeting death in famine, plagues, and fevers, freezing in the
snows of the mountains, thirsting to death on the burning deserts, being
devoured by ravening beasts or tortured to death by the sinful
Lamanites; but persisting through it all with dauntless courage to a
final triumph so glorious that the very Gods would be compelled to
applaud the spectacle of their devoted heroism.

And now he was face to face with the awful, the glorious, the divinely
ordained fact. It was like standing before the Throne of Grace itself.
Out over that western skyline was a spot, now hidden and defended by all
the powers of Satan, where the Ten Tribes would be restored, where Zion
would be rebuilt, where Christ would reign personally on earth a
thousand years, and from whence the earth would be renewed and receive
again its paradisiac glory. The thought overwhelmed.

"If we could only start at once!" he said to Bishop Wright, who had
read the revelation with him. But the canny Bishop's religious zeal was
henceforth to be tempered by the wisdom of the children of darkness.

"No more travelling in this kind of a time for the Saints," the Bishop
replied. "We got our full of that when we first left Nauvoo. We had to
scrape snow from the ground and set up tents when it was fifteen or
twenty below zero, and nine children born one night in that weather. Of
course it was better than staying at Nauvoo to be shot; but no one is
going to shoot us here, so here we'll tarry till grass grows and water
runs."

"But there was a chance to show devotion, Brother Seth. Think how
precious it must have been in the sight of the Lord."

"Well, the Lord knows we're devoted now, so we'll wait till it fairs up.
We'll have Zion built in good time and a good gospel fence built around
it, elk-high and bull-tight, like we used to say in Missouri. But it's a
long ways over yender, and while I ain't ever had any revelations
myself, I'm pretty sure the Lord means to have me toler'bly well fed,
and my back kept bone-dry on the way. And we got to have fat horses and
fat cattle, not these bony critters with no juice in 'em. Did you hear
what Brother Heber got off the other day? He butchered a beef and was
sawing it up when Brother Brigham passed by. 'Looks hard, Brother
Heber,' says Brother Brigham. 'Hard, Brother Brigham? Why, I've had to
grease the saw to make it work!' Yes, sir, had to grease his saw to
make it work through that bony old heifer. Now we already passed through
enough pinches not to go out lookin' for 'em any more. Why, I tell you,
young man, if I knew any place where the pinches was at, you'd see me
comin' the other way like a bat out of hell!"

And so the ardent young Elder was compelled to curb his spirit until the
time when grass should grow and water run. Yet he was not alone in
feeling this impatience for the start. Through all the settlement had
thrilled a response to the Lord's word as revealed to his servant
Brigham. The God of Israel was to be with them on the march, and old and
young were alike impatient.

Early in April the life began to stir more briskly in the great camp
that sprawled along either side of the swollen, muddy river. From dawn
to dark each day the hills echoed with the noise of many works, the
streets were alive with men and women going and coming on endless
errands, and with excited children playing at games inspired by the
occasion. Wagons were mended and loaded with provisions and tools, oxen
shod, ox-bows renewed, guns put in order, bullets moulded, and the
thousand details perfected of a migration so hazardous. They were busy,
noisy, excited, happy days.

At last, in the middle of April, the signs were seen to be right. Grass
grew and water ran, and their part, allotted by the Lord, was to brave
the dangers of that forbidding land that lay under the western sun.
Then came a day of farewells and merry-making. In the afternoon, the day
being mild and sunny, there was a dance in the bowery,--a great arbour
made of poles and brush and wattling. Here, where the ground had been
trodden firm, the age and maturity as well as the youth and beauty of
Israel gathered in such poor festal array as they had been able to save
from their ravaged stores.

The Twelve Apostles led off in a double cotillion, to the moving strains
of a violin and horn, the lively jingle of a string of sleigh-bells, and
the genial snoring of a tambourine. Then came dextrous displays in the
dances of our forbears, who followed the fiddle to the Fox-chase Inn or
Garden of Gray's Ferry. There were French Fours, Copenhagen jigs,
Virginia reels,--spirited figures blithely stepped. And the grave-faced,
square-jawed Elders seemed as eager as the unthinking youths and maidens
to throw off for the moment the burden of their cares.

From midday until the April sun dipped below the sharp skyline of the
Omaha hills, the modest revel endured. Then silence was called by a
grim-faced, hard-voiced Elder, who announced:

"The Lute of the Holy Ghost will now say a word of farewell from our
pioneers to those who must stay behind."

He stood before them erect, brave, confident; and the fire of his faith
warmed his voice into their hearts.

"Children of Israel, we are going into the wilderness to lay the
foundations of a temple to the most high God, so that when his Son, our
elder Brother, shall come on earth again, He may have a place where He
can lay His head and spend, not only a night or a day, but rest until He
can say, 'I am satisfied!'--a place, too, where you can obtain the
ordinances of salvation for yourselves, your living, and your dead. Let
your prayers go with us. We have been thrust out of Babylon, but to our
eternal salvation. We care no more for persecution than for the whistle
of the north wind, the croaking of the crane that flies over our heads,
or the crackling of thorns under a pot. True, some of our dearest, our
best-loved, have dropped by the way; they have fallen asleep, but what
of that?--and who cares? It is as well to live as to die, or to die as
to live--as well to sleep as to be awake. It is all one. They have only
gone a little before us; and we shall soon strike hands with them across
those poor, mean, empty graves back there on the forlorn prairies of
Iowa. For you must let me clench this God's truth into your minds; that
you stand now in your last lot, in the end of your days when the Son of
Man cometh again. Afflictions shall be sent to humble and to prove you,
but oh! stand fast to your teachings so that not one of you may be lost.
May sinners in Zion become afraid henceforth, and fearfulness surprise
the hypocrite from this hour! And now may the favour and blessing of
God be manifest upon you while we are absent from one another!"

When the fervent amens had died away they sang the farewell hymn:--

  "Thrones shall totter, Babel fall,
   Satan reign no more at all;

  "Saints shall gain the victory,
   Truth prevail o'er land and sea;

  "Gentile tyrants sink to hell;
   Now's the day of Israel."

The words of the young Elder were felt to be highly consoling; but a
toast given by Brigham that night was longer talked of. It was at a
farewell party at the house of Bishop Wright. On the hay-covered floor
of the banquet-room, amid the lights of many candles hung from the
ceiling and about the walls in their candelabra of hollowed turnips, the
great man had been pleased to prophesy blessings profusely upon the
assembled guests.

"I am awful proud," he began, "of the way the Lord has favoured us. I am
proud all the time of his Elders, his servants, and his handmaids. And
when they do well I am prouder still. I don't know but I'll get so proud
that I'll be four or five times prouder than I am now. As I once said to
Sidney Rigdon, our boat is an old snag boat and has never been out of
Snag-harbour. But it will root up the snags, run them down, split them,
and scatter them to the four quarters. Our ship is the old ship of
Zion; and nothing that runs foul of her can withstand her shock and
fury."

Then had followed the toast, which was long remembered for its dauntless
spirit.

"Here's wishing that all the mobocrats of the nineteenth century were in
the middle of the sea, in a stone canoe, with an iron paddle; that a
shark would swallow the canoe, and the shark be thrust into the
nethermost part of hell, with the door locked, the key lost, and a blind
man looking for it!"




CHAPTER IX.


_Into the Wilderness_

Onto the West at last to build the house of God in the mountains. On to
what Daniel Webster had lately styled "a region of savages and wild
beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus
and prairie-dogs."

The little band of pioneers chosen to break a way for the main body of
the Saints consisted of a hundred and forty-three men, three women, and
two children. They were to travel in seventy-three wagons, drawn by
horses and oxen. They knew not where they were to stop, but they were
men of eager initiative, fearless and determined; and their consolation
was that, while their exodus into the desert meant hardship and grievous
suffering, it also promised them freedom from Gentile interference. It
was not a fat land into which they were venturing; but at least it was a
land without a past, lying clean as it came from the hand of its maker,
where they could be free to worship God without fearing the narrow
judgment of the frivolous. Instructed in the sacred mysteries revealed
to Joseph Smith through the magic light of the Urim and Thummim, and
sustained by the divine message engraved on the golden plates he had dug
up from the hill of Cumorah, they were now ready to feel their way
across the continent and blaze a trail to the new Jerusalem.

They went in military style with due precautions against surprise by the
Lamanites--the wretched red remnant of Abraham's seed--that swarmed on
every side.

Brigham Young was lieutenant-general; Stephen Markham was colonel; the
redoubtable John Pack was first major, and Shadrach Roundy, second.
There were two captains of hundreds and fourteen captains of tens. The
orders of the lieutenant-general required each man to walk constantly
beside his wagon, leaving it only by his officer's commands. To make the
force compact, the wagons were to move two abreast where they could.
Every man was to keep his weapons loaded. If the gun was a caplock, the
cap was to be taken off and a piece of leather put on to exclude
moisture and dirt; if a flintlock, the filling was to be taken out and
the pan filled with tow or cotton.

Their march was not only cautious but orderly. At five A.M. the bugle
sounded for rising, two hours being allowed for prayers and breakfast.
At night each man had to retire to his wagon for prayer at eight-thirty,
and to rest at nine. If they camped by a river they drew the wagons into
a semicircle with the river at its base. Other times the wagons made a
circle, a fore-wheel of one touching a rear wheel of the next, thus
providing a corral for the stock. In such manner was the wisdom of the
Lord concerning this hegira supplemented in detail by the worldly
forethought of his servant Brigham.

They started along the north bank of the Platte River under the
auspicious shine of an April sun. A better route was along the south
bank where grass was more plentiful and the Indians less troublesome.
But along the south bank parties of migrating Gentiles might also be
met, and these sons of perdition were to be avoided at any cost--"at
least for the present," said Brigham, in tones of sage significance.

And so for two hundred miles they broke a new way over the plains, to be
known years after as "the old Mormon trail," to be broadened later by
the gold-seekers of forty-nine, and still later to be shod with steel,
when the miracle of a railway was worked in the desert.

To Joel Rae, Elder after the order of Melchisedek, unsullied product of
the temple priesthood, it was a time of wondrous soul-growth. In that
mysterious realm of pathless deserts, of illimitable prairies and
boundless plains, of nameless rivers and colossal hills, a land of
dreams, of romance, of marvellous adventure, he felt strange powers
growing within him. It seemed that in such a place the one who opened
his soul to heaven must become endowed with all those singular gifts he
had longed for. He looked confidently forward to the time when they
should regard him as a man who could work miracles.

At the head of Grand Island they came to vast herds of buffalo--restless
brown seas of humped, shaggy backs and fiercely lowered heads. In their
first efforts to slay these they shot them full in the forehead, and
were dismayed to find that their bullets rebounded harmlessly. They
solved the mystery later, discovering the hide on the skull of a dead
bull to be an inch thick and covered with a mat of gnarled hair in
itself almost a shield against bullets. Joel Rae, with the divine right
of youth, drew for them from this circumstance an instructive parallel.

So was the head of their own church protected against Gentile shafts by
the hide of righteousness and the matted hair of faith.

The Indians killed buffalo by riding close and striking them with an
arrow at the base of the spine; whereupon the beast would fall
paralysed, to be hamstrung at leisure. Only by some such infernal
strategy, the young Elder assured them, could the Gentiles ever
henceforth cast them down.

For many days their way lay through these herds of buffalo--herds so
far-reaching that none could count their numbers or even see their
farther line, lost in the distance over the swell of the plains. Often
their way was barred until a herd would pass, making the earth tremble,
and with a noise like muffled thunder. They waited gladly, feeling that
these were obstacles on the way to Zion.

Thus far it had been a land of moderate plenty, one in which they were,
at least, not compelled to look to Heaven for manna. Besides the buffalo
which the hunters learned to kill, they found deer, antelope, great
flocks of geese and splendid bronzed wild turkeys. Even the truculent
grizzly came to be numbered among their trophies.

Day after day marched the bearded host,--farmers with ploughs, mechanics
with tools, builders, craftsmen, woodsmen, all the needed factors of a
colony, led by the greatest coloniser of modern times, their one great
aim being to make ready some spot in the wilderness for the second
advent of the Messiah. All about them was the prairie, its long grass
gently billowed by the spring breeze. On the far right, blue in the
haze, was a continuous range of lofty bluffs. On the left the waters of
the Platte, muddied by the spring freshets, flowed over beds of
quicksand between groves of cottonwood that pleasantly fringed its
banks. The hard labour and the constant care demanded by the dangers
that surrounded them prevented any from feeling the monotony of the
landscape.

Besides the regular trials of the march there were wagons to be "snaked"
across the streams, tires to be reset and yokes to be mended at each
"lay-by," strayed stock to be hunted, and a thousand contingencies
sufficient to drive from their minds all but the one thought that they
had been thrown forth from a Christian land for the offence of
worshipping God according to the dictates of their own consciences.

Joel Rae, walking beside his wagon, meditated chiefly upon the manner in
which his Witness would first manifest itself. The wonder came, in a
way, while he thus meditated. Late one afternoon the scouts thrown in
advance came hurrying back to report a large band of Indians strung out
in battle array a few miles ahead. The wagons were at once formed five
abreast, their one cannon was wheeled to the front, and the company
advanced in close formation. Perceiving these aggressive manoeuvres, the
Indians seemed to change their plan and, instead of coming on to attack,
were seen to be setting fire to the prairie.

The result might well have been disastrous, as the wind was blowing
toward the train. Joel Rae saw it; saw that the time had come for a
miracle if the little company of Saints was to be saved a serious
rebuff. He quickly entered his wagon and began to pray. He prayed that
the Lord might avert this calamity and permit the handful of faithful
ones to proceed in peace to fashion His temple on earth.

When he began to pray there had been outside a woful confusion of
sounds,--scared and plunging horses, bellowing oxen, excited men
shouting to the stock and to one another, the barking of dogs and the
rattling of the wagons. Through this din he prayed, scarcely hearing his
own voice, yet feeling within himself the faith that he knew must
prevail. And then as he prayed he became conscious that these noises
had subsided to a wonderful silence. A moment this lasted, and then he
heard it broken by a mighty shout of gladness, followed by excited calls
from one man to another.

He looked out in calm certainty to observe in what manner the Lord had
consented to answer his petition. He saw that the wind had veered and,
even as he looked, large drops of rain came pounding musically upon his
wagon-cover. Far in front of them a long, low line of flame was crawling
to the west, while above it lurid clouds of smoke rolled away from them.
In another moment the full force of the shower was upon them from a sky
that half an hour before had been cloudless. Far off to the right
scurried the Indians, their feathery figures lying low upon the backs of
their small ponies. His heart swelled within him, and he fell again to
his knees with many earnest words of thanksgiving for the intercession.

They at once made camp for the night, and by Brigham's fire later in the
evening Joel Rae confided the truth of his miracle to that good man,
taking care not to utter the words with any delight or pride in himself.
He considered that Brigham was unduly surprised by the occurrence;
almost displeased in fact; showing a tendency to attribute the day's
good fortune to phenomena wholly natural. Although the miracle had
seemed to him a small, simple thing, he now felt a little ashamed of his
performance. He was pleased to note, however, that Brigham became more
gracious to him after a short period of reflection. He praised him
indeed for the merit which he seemed to have gained in the Lord's sight;
taking occasion to remind him, however, that he, Brigham, had meant to
produce the same effects by a prayer of his own in due time to save the
train from destruction; that he had chosen to wait, however, in order to
try the faith of the Saints.

"As a matter of fact, Brother Joel," he concluded, "I don't know as
there is any limit to the power with which the Lord has blessed me. I
tell you I feel equal to any miracle--even to raising the dead, I
sometimes think--I feel that fired up with the Holy Ghost!"

"I am sure you will do even that, Brother Brigham." And the young man's
eyes swam with mingled gratitude and admiration. He resolved in his
wagon that night, that when the time came for another miracle, he would
not selfishly usurp the honour of performing it. He would not again
forestall the able Brigham.

By the first of June they had wormed their way over five hundred miles
of plain to the trading post of Fort Laramie. Here they were at last
forced to cross the Platte and to take up their march along the Oregon
trail. They were now in the land of alkaline deserts, of sage-brush and
greasewood, of sad, bleak, deadly stretches; a land where the favour of
Heaven might have to be called upon if they were to survive. Yet it was
a land not without inspiration,--a land of immense distances, of long,
dim perspectives, and of dreamy visions in the far, vague haze. In such
a land, thought Joel Rae, the spirit of the Lord must draw closer to the
children of earth. In such a land no miracle should be too difficult.
And so it came that he was presently enabled to put in Brigham's way the
opportunity of performing a work of mercy which he himself would have
been glad to do, but for the fear of affronting the Prophet.

A band of mounted Sioux had met them one day with friendly advances and
stopped to trade. Among the gaudy warriors Joel Rae's attention was
called to a boy who had lost an arm. He made inquiries, and found him to
be the son of the chief. The chief himself made it plain to Joel that
the young man had lost his arm ten moons before in a combat with a
grizzly bear. Whereupon the young Elder cordially bade the chief bring
his crippled son to their own great chief, who would, by the gracious
power of God, miraculously restore the missing member.

A few moments later the three were before Brigham, who was standing by
his wagon; Joel Rae, glowing with a glad and confident serenity; the
tawny chief with his sable braids falling each side of his painted face,
gay in his head-dress of dyed eagle plumes, his buckskin shirt jewelled
with blue beads and elk's teeth, warlike with his bow and steel-pointed
arrows; and the young man, but little less ornate than his splendid
father, stoical, yet scarce able to subdue the flash of hope in his
eyes as he looked up to the great white chief.

Brigham looked at them questioningly. Joel announced their errand.

"It's a rare opportunity, Brother Brigham, to bring light to these
wretched Lamanites. This boy had his arm torn off a year ago in a fight
with a grizzly. You know you told me that day I brought the rain-storm
that you could well-nigh raise the dead, so this will be easy for you."

Brigham still looked puzzled, so the young man added with a flash of
enthusiasm: "Restore this poor creature's arm and the noise of the
miracle will go all through these tribes;" he paused expectantly.

It is the mark of true greatness that it may never be found unprepared.
Now and again it may be made to temporise for a moment, cunningly
adopting one expedient or another to hide its unreadiness--but never
more than briefly.

Brigham had looked slowly from the speaker to the Indians and slowly
back again. Then he surveyed several bystanders who had been attracted
to the group, and his eyelids were seen to work rapidly, as if in
sympathetic pace with his thoughts. Then all at once he faced Joel.

"Brother Rae, have you reflected about this?"

"Why--Brother Brigham--no--not reflected--perhaps if we both prayed with
hearts full of faith, the Lord might--"

"Brother Rae!"

There was sternness in the voice now, and the young man trembled before
the Lion of the Lord.

"You mistake me. I guess I'm a good enough servant of the Lord, so my
own prayer would restore this arm without any of your help; yes, I guess
the Lord and me could do it without _you_--if we thought it was best.
Now pay attention. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body?"

"I do, Brother Brigham, and of course I didn't mean to"--he was blushing
now.

"Do you believe the day of judgment is at hand?"

"I do."

"How near?"

"You and our priests and Elders say it will come in 1870."

"Correct! How many years is that from now?"

"Twenty-three, Brother Brigham."

"Yes, twenty-three. Now then, how many years are there to be after
that?"

"How many--surely an eternity!"

"More than twenty-three years, then--much more?"

"Eternity means endless time."

"Oh, it does, does it?"

There had been gradually sounding in his voice a ring of triumph which
now became distinct.

"Well, then, answer me this--and remember it shall be as you say to the
best of my influence with the Lord--you shall be responsible for this
poor remnant of the seed of Cain. Now, don't be rash! Is it better for
this poor creature to continue with his one arm here for the
twenty-three years the world is to endure, and then pass on to eternity
where he will have his two arms forever; or, do you want me to renew his
arm now and let him go through eternity a freak, a monstrosity? Do you
want him to suffer a little inconvenience these few days he has here, or
do you want him to go through an endless hereafter with _three arms_?"

The young man gazed at him blankly with a dropped jaw.

"Come, what do you say? I'm full of faith. Shall I--"

"No--no, Brother Brigham; don't--for God's sake, don't! Of course he
would be resurrected with three arms. You think of everything, Brother
Brigham!"

The Indians had meanwhile been growing puzzled and impatient. He now
motioned them to follow him.

By dint of many crude efforts in the sign language and an earnest use of
the few words known to both, he succeeded, after a long time, in putting
the facts before the chief and his son; They, after an animated
conversation, succeeded with much use of the sign language in conveying
to Joel Rae the information that the young man was not at all dismayed
by the prospect of having three arms during the next life. He gathered,
indeed, that both father and son would be rather elated than otherwise
by this circumstance, seeming to suspect that the extra member must
confer superior prowess and high distinction upon its possessor.

But he shook his head with much determination, and refused to take them
again before the great white chief. The thought troubled him exceedingly
and would not be gone--yet he knew not how to account for it--that
Brigham would not receive this novel view of the matter with any
cordiality.

When they were camped that night, Brigham made a suggestion to him.

"Brother Rae, it ain't just the best plan in the world to come on a man
sudden that way for so downright a miracle. A man can't be always fired
up with the Holy Ghost, with all the cares of this train on his mind.
You come and have a private talk with me beforehand after this, when you
got a miracle you want done."

He prayed more fervently than ever that night to be made "wise and good
like thy servant Brigham"--also for the gift of tongues to come upon him
so that he might instruct the Indians in the threefold character of the
Godhead and in other matters pertaining to their salvation.




CHAPTER X.


_The Promised Land_

So far on their march the Lord had protected them from all but ordinary
hardships. True, some members of the company had suffered from a fever
which they attributed to the clouds of dust that enveloped the column of
wagons when in motion, and to the great change of temperature from day
to night. Again, the most of them were for many weeks without bread,
saving for the sick the little flour they had and subsisting upon the
meat provided by the hunters. Before reaching Fort Laramie, too, their
stock had become weakened for want of food; an extended drought, the
vast herds of buffalo, and the Indian fires having combined to destroy
the pasturage.

This weakness of the animals made the march for many days not more than
five or six miles a day. At the last they had fed to the stock not only
all their grain but the most of their crackers and other breadstuffs.
But these were slight matters to a persecuted people gathering out of
Babylon.

Late in June they reached the South Pass. For many hundred miles they
had been climbing the backbone of the continent. Now they had reached
the summit, the dividing ridge between streams that flowed to the
Atlantic and streams that flowed to the Pacific. From the level prairies
they had toiled up into the fearsome Rockies where bleak, grim crags
lowered upon them from afar, and distant summits glistening with snow
warned them of the perils ahead.

Through all this time of marching the place where they should pitch the
tent of Israel was not fixed upon. When Brigham was questioned around
the camp-fire at night, his only reply was that he would know the site
of their new home when he saw it. And it came to be told among the men
that he had beheld in vision a tent settling down from heaven and
resting over a certain spot; and that a voice had said to him, "Here is
the place where my people Israel shall pitch their tents and spread wide
the curtains of Zion!" It was enough. He would recognise the spot when
they reached it.

From the trappers, scouts, and guides encountered along the road they
had received much advice as to eligible locations; and while this was
various as to sites recommended, the opinion had been unanimous that the
Salt Lake Valley was impossible. It was, they were told, sandy, barren,
rainless, destitute of timber and vegetation, infested with hordes of
hungry crickets, and roamed over by bands of the most savage Indians. In
short, no colony could endure there.

One by one the trappers they met voiced this opinion. There was
Bordeaux, the grizzled old Frenchman, clad in ragged buckskin; Moses
Harris; "Pegleg" Smith, whose habit of profanity was shocking; Miles
Goodyear, fresh from captivity among the Blackfeet; and James Bridger.
The latter had discovered Great Salt Lake twenty-five years before, and
was especially vehement in his condemnation of the valley. They had
halted a day at his "fort," two adjoining log houses with dirt roofs,
surrounded by a high stockade of logs, and built on one of several small
islands formed by the branches of Black's Fork. Here they had found the
old trapper amid a score of nondescript human beings, white men, Indian
women, and half-breed children.

Bridger had told them very concisely that he would pay them a thousand
dollars for the first ear of corn raised in Salt Lake Valley. It is true
that Bridger seemed to have become pessimistic in many matters. For one,
the West was becoming overcrowded and the price of furs was falling at a
rate to alarm the most conservative trapper. He referred feelingly to
the good old days when one got ten dollars a pound for prime beaver
skins in St. Louis; but "now it's a skin for a plug of tobacco, and
three for a cup of powder, and other fancies in the same proportion."
And so, had his testimony been unsupported, they might have suspected he
was underestimating the advantages of the Salt Lake Valley. But,
corroborated as he had been by his brother trappers, they began to
descend the western slope of the Rockies strong in the opinion that this
same Salt Lake Valley was the land that had been chosen for them by the
Lord.

They dared not, indeed, go to a fertile land, for there the Gentiles
would be tempted to follow them--with the old bloody end. Only in a
desert such as these men had described the Salt Lake Valley to be could
they hope for peace. From Fort Bridger, then, their route bent to the
southwest along the rocky spurs of the Uintah Mountains, whose snow-clad
tops gleamed a bluish white in the July sun.

By the middle of July the vanguard of the company began the descent of
Echo Cañon,--a narrow slit cut straight down a thousand feet into the
red sandstone,--the pass which a handful of them was to hold a few years
later against a whole army of the hated Gentiles.

The hardest part of their journey was still before them. Their road had
now to be made as they went, lying wholly among the mountains. Lofty
hills, deep ravines with jagged sides, forbidding cañons, all but
impassable streams, rock-bound and brush-choked,--up and down, through
or over all these obstacles they had now to force a passage, cutting
here, digging there; now double-locking the wheels of their wagons to
prevent their crashing down some steep incline; now putting five teams
to one load to haul it up the rock-strewn side of some water-way.

From Echo Cañon they went down the Weber, then toward East Cañon, a
dozen of the bearded host going forward with spades and axes as sappers.
Sometimes they made a mile in five hours; sometimes they were less
lucky. But at length they were fighting their way up the choked East
Cañon, starting fierce gray wolves from their lairs in the rocks and
hearing at every rod of their hard-fought way the swift and unnerving
song of the coiled rattlesnake.

Eight fearful miles they toiled through this gash in the mountain; then
over another summit,--Big Mountain; down this dangerous slide, all
wheels double-locked, on to the summit of another lofty hill,--Little
Mountain; and abruptly down again into the rocky gorge afterwards to
become historic as Immigration Cañon.

Following down this gorge, never doubting they should come at last to
their haven, they found its mouth to be impassable. Rocks, brush, and
timber choked the way. Crossing to the south side, they went sheerly up
the steep hill--so steep that it was all but impossible for the
straining animals to drag up the heavy wagons, and so narrow that a
false step might have dashed wagon and team half a thousand feet on to
the rocks below.

But at last they stood on the summit,--and broke into shouts of rapture
as they looked. For the wilderness home of Israel had been found. Far
and wide below them stretched their promised land,--a broad, open
valley hemmed in by high mountains that lay cold and far and still in
the blue haze. Some of these had slept since the world began under their
canopies of snow, and these flashed a sunlit glory into the eager eyes
of the pilgrims. Others reared bare, scathed peaks above slopes that
were shaggy with timber. And out in front lay the wondrous lake,--a
shield of deepest glittering turquois held to the dull, gray breast of
the valley.

Again and again they cried out, "Hosanna to God and the Lamb!" and many
of the bearded host shed tears, for the hardships of the way had
weakened them.

Then Brigham came, lying pale and wasted in his wagon, and when they saw
him gaze long, and heard him finally say, "Enough--drive on!" they knew
that on this morning of July 24, 1847, they had found the spot where in
vision he had seen the tent of the Lord come down to earth.

Joel Rae had waited with a beating heart for Brigham's word of
confirmation, and when he heard it his soul was filled to overflowing.
He knew that here the open vision would enfold him; here the angel of
the Lord would come to him fetching his great Witness. Here he would
rise to immeasurable zeniths of spirituality. And here his people would
become a mighty people of the Lord. He foresaw the hundred unwalled
cities that Brigham was to found, and the green gardens that were to
make the now desert valley a fit setting for the temple of God. Here
was a stricken Rachel, a barren Sarah to be transformed by the touch of
the Saints to a mother of many children. Here would the lambs of the
Lord be safe at last from the Gentile wolves--safe for a time at least,
until so long as it might take the Lions of the Lord to come to their
growth. And that was to be no indefinite period; for had not Brigham
just said, with a snap of his great jaws and a cold flash of his blue
eyes, "Let us alone ten years here, and we'll ask no odds of Uncle Sam
or the Devil!"

There on the summit they knelt to entreat the mercy of God upon the
land. The next day, by their leader's direction, they consecrated the
valley to the Lord, and planted six acres of potatoes.




CHAPTER XI.


_Another Miracle and a Temptation in the Wilderness_

The floor of the valley was an arid waste, flat and treeless, a far
sweep of gray and gold, of sage-brush spangled with sunflowers, patched
here and there with glistening beds of salt and soda, or pools of the
deadly alkali. Here crawled the lizard and the rattlesnake; and there
was no music to the desolation save the petulant chirp of the cricket.
At the sides an occasional stream tumbled out of the mountains to be all
but drunk away at once by the thirsty sands. Along the banks of these
was the only green to be found, sparse fringes of willow and wild rose.
On the borders of the valley, where the steeps arose, were little
patches of purple and dusty brown, oak-bush, squaw-berry, a few dwarfed
cedars, and other scant growths. At long intervals could be found a
marsh of wire-grass, or a few acres of withered bunch-grass. But these
served only to emphasise the prevailing desert tones.

The sun-baked earth was so hard that it broke their ploughs when they
tried to turn it. Not until they had spread water upon it from the river
they had named Jordan could the ploughs be used. Such was the new
Canaan, the land held in reserve by the Lord for His chosen people since
the foundations of the world were laid.

Dreary though it was, they were elated. Had not a Moses led them out of
bondage up into this chamber of the mountains against the day of wrath
that was to consume the Gentile world? And would he not smite the rocks
for water? Would he not also be a Joshua to sit in judgment and divide
to Israel his inheritance?

They waited not nor demurred, but fell to work. Within a week they had
explored the valley and its cañons, made a road to the timber eight
miles away, built a saw-pit, sawed lumber for a skiff, ploughed,
planted, and irrigated half a hundred acres of the parched soil, and
begun the erection of many dwellings, some of logs, some of adobes.
Ground had also been chosen and consecrated by Brigham, whereon, in due
time, they would build up their temple to the God of Jacob.

Meantime, they would continue to gather out of Babylon. During the late
summer and fall many wagons arrived from the Missouri, so that by the
beginning of winter their number was nearly two thousand. They lived
rudely, a lucky few in the huts they had built; more in tents and
wagon-boxes. Nor did they fail to thank Providence for the mild winter
vouchsafed to them during this unprotected period, permitting them not
only to survive, but to continue their labours--of logging,
home-building, the making of rough furniture, and the repairing of
wagons and tools.

When the early spring came they were again quickly at the land with
their seeds. Over five thousand acres were sown to needful produce. When
this began to sprout with every promise of a full harvest, their joy was
boundless; for their stock of breadstuffs and provisions had fallen low
during the winter, and could not last later than harvest-time, even with
rigid economy.

But early in June, in the full flush of this springtide of promise, it
appeared that the Lord was minded to chasten them. For into their broad,
green fields came the ravenous crickets in wide, black streams down the
mountain sides. Over the growing grain they spread as a pall, and the
tender sprouts were consumed to the ground. In their track they left no
stalk nor growing blade.

Starvation now faced the Saints. In their panic they sought to fight the
all-devouring pest. While some went wildly through the fields killing
the crickets, others ran trenches and tried to drown them. Still others
beat them back with sticks and brooms, or burned them by fires set in
the fields. But against the oncoming horde these efforts were
unavailing. Where hundreds were destroyed hundreds of thousands
appeared.

Despair seized the Saints, the bitter despair of a cheated, famished
people--deluded even by their God. In their shorn fields they wept and
cursed, knowing at last they could not stay the pest.

Then into the fields came Joel Rae, rebuking the frenzied men and women.
The light of a high faith was upon him as he called out to them:

"Have I not preached to you all winter the way to salvation in times
like this? Does faith mean one thing in my mouth and another thing here?
Why waste yourselves with those foolish tricks of fire and water? They
only make you forget Jehovah--you fools--you poor, blind fools--to
palter so!"

He raised his voice, and the wondering group about him grew large.

"Down, down on your knees and pray--pray--pray! I tell you the Lord
shall _not_ suffer you to perish!"

Then, as but one or two obeyed him--

"So your hearts have been hardened? Then my own prayer shall save you!"

Down he knelt in the midst of the group, while they instinctively drew
back from him on all sides. But as his voice rose, a voice that had
never failed to move them, they, too, began to kneel, at first those
near him, then others back of them, until a hundred knelt about him.

He had not observed them, but with eyes closed he prayed on, pouring out
his heart in penitent supplication.

"These people are but little children, after all, seeing not, groping
blindly, attempting weakly, blundering always, yet never faltering in
love for Thee. Now I, Thy servant, humble and lowly, from whom Thou hast
already taken in hardest ways all that his heart held dear, who will
to-day give his body to be crucified, if need be, for this people--I
implore Thee to save these blundering children now, in this very moment.
I ask nothing for myself but that--"

As his words rang out, there had been quick, low, startled murmurs from
the kneeling group about him; and now loud shouts interrupted his
prayer. He opened his eyes. From off toward the lake great flocks of
gulls had appeared, whitening the sky, and now dulling all other sounds
with the beating of their wings and their high, plaintive cries. Quickly
they settled upon the fields in swirling drifts, so that the land all
about lay white as with snow.

A groan went up,--"They will finish what the crickets have left."

He had risen to his feet, looking intently. Then he gave an exultant
shout.

"No! No!--they are eating only the _crickets_!--the white birds are
devouring the black pests; the hosts of heaven and hell have met, and
the powers of light have triumphed once more over darkness! _Pray_--pray
now with all your hearts in thanksgiving for this mercy!"

And again they knelt, many with streaming eyes, while he led them in a
prayer of gratitude for this wondrous miracle.

All day long the white birds fed upon the crickets, and when they left
at night the harvest had been saved. Thus had Heaven vouchsafed a second
miracle to the Lute of the Holy Ghost. It is small wonder then if his
views of the esteem in which he was held by that power were now greatly
enlarged.

In August, thanks to the Heaven-sent gulls, they were able to celebrate
with a feast their first "Harvest Home." In the centre of the big
stockade a bowery was built, and under its shade tables were spread and
richly laden with the first fruits their labours had won from the
desert,--white bread and golden butter, green corn, watermelons, and
many varieties of vegetables. Hoisted on poles for exhibition were
immense sheaves of wheat, rye, barley, and oats, coaxed from the arid
level with the water they had cunningly spread upon it.

There were prayers and public thanksgiving, songs and speeches and
dancing. It was the flush of their first triumph over the desert. Until
nightfall the festival lasted, and at its close Elder Rae stood up to
address them on the subject of their past trials and present blessings.
The silence was instant, and the faces were all turned eagerly upon him,
for it was beginning to be suspected that he had more than even priestly
power.

"To-day," he said, "the favour and blessing of God have been manifest
upon us. But let us not forget our debts and duties in this feasting of
the flesh. Afflictions are necessary to humble and prove us, and we
shall have them as often as they are needed. Oh, never doubt it! I have,
indeed, but one fear concerning this people in the valleys of the
mountains--but one trembling fear in the nerves of my spirit--and that
is lest we do not live the religion we profess. If we will only cleave
to that faith in our practise, I tell you we are at the defiance of all
hell. But if we transgress the law God has given us, and trample His
mercies, blessings, and ordinances under our feet, treating them with
the indifference I have thought some occasionally do, not realising
their sins, I tell you that in consequence we shall be overcome, and the
Lord will let us be again smitten and scattered. Take it to heart. May
the God of heaven fill you with the Holy Ghost and give you light and
joy in His Kingdom."

When he was done many pressed forward to take his hand, the young and
the old, for they had both learned to reverence him.

Near the outer edge of the throng was a red-lipped Juno, superbly
rounded, who had gleaned in the fields until she was all a Gipsy brown,
and her movements of a Gipsy grace in their freeness. She did not greet
the young Elder as did the others, seeming, indeed, to be unconscious of
his presence. Yet she lingered near as they scattered off into the dusk,
in little groups or one by one; and still she stood there when all were
gone, now venturing just a glance at him from deep gray eyes set under
black brows, turning her splendid head a little to bring him into view.
He saw the figure and came forward, peeringly.

"Mara Cavan--yes, yes, so it is!" He took her hand, somewhat timidly, an
observer would have said. "Your father is not able to be out? I shall
walk down with you to see him--if you're ready now."

She had been standing much like a statue, in guarded restraint, but at
his words and the touch of his hand she seemed to melt and flow into
eager acquiescence, murmuring some hurried little words of thanks for
her father, and stepping by his side with eyes down.

They went out into the soft summer night, past the open doors where
rejoicing groups still lingered, the young standing, the old sitting in
chairs by the doors of their huts. Then they were out of the stockade
and off toward the southern end of the settlement. A big, golden moon
had come up over the jagged edge of the eastern hills,--a moon that left
the valley in a mystic sheen of gold and blue, and threw their shadows
madly into one as they walked. They heard the drowsy chirp of the
cricket, now harmless, and the low cry of an owl. They felt the
languorous warmth of the night, spiced with a hint of chilliness, and
they felt each other near. They had felt this nearness before. One of
them had learned to fear it, to tremble for himself at the thought of
it. The other had learned to dream of it, and to long for it, and to
wonder why it should be denied.

Now, as they stepped side by side, their hands brushed together, and he
caught hers in his grasp, turning to look full upon her. Her ecstasy was
poignant; she trembled in her walk. But she looked straight
ahead,--waiting. To both of them it seemed that the earth rocked under
their feet. He looked long at her profile, softened in the magic light.
She felt his eyes upon her, and still she waited, in a trembling
ecstasy, stepping closely by his side. She felt him draw a long breath,
and then another, quickly,--and then he spoke.

In words that were well-chosen but somewhat hurried, he proceeded to
instruct her in the threefold character of the Godhead. The voice at
first was not like his own, but as he went on it grew steadier. After
she drew her hand gently out of his, which she presently did, it seemed
to regain its normal pitch and calmness.

He saw her to the door of the cabin on the outskirts of the settlement,
and there he spoke a few words of cheer to her ailing father.

Then he was off into the desert, pacing swiftly into the grim, sandy
solitude beyond the farthest cabin light and the bark of the outmost
watch-dog. Feverishly he walked, and far, until at last, as if naught in
himself could avail, he threw himself to the ground and prayed.

"Keep me _good_! Keep me to my vows! Help me till my own strength grows,
for I am weak and wanting. Let me endure the pain until this wicked
fire within me hath burned itself out. Keep me for _her_!"

Back where the houses were, in the shadow of one of them, was the
flushed, full-breathing woman, hurt but dumb, wondering, in her bruised
tenderness, why it must be so.

Still farther back, inside the stockade, where the gossiping groups yet
lingered, they were saying it was strange that Elder Rae waited so long
to take him a wife or two.




CHAPTER XII.


_A Fight for Life_

The stream of Saints to the Great Basin had become well-nigh
continuous--Saints of all degrees of prosperity, from Parley Pratt, the
Archer of Paradise, with his wealth of wives, wagons, and cattle, to
Barney Bigler, unblessed with wives or herds, who put his earthly goods
on a wheelbarrow, and, to the everlasting glory of God, trundled it from
the Missouri River to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Train after
train set out for the new Zion with faith that God would drop manna
before them.

Each train was a little migrating State in itself. And never was the
natural readiness of the American pioneer more luminously displayed. At
every halt of the wagons a shoemaker would be seen searching for a
lapstone; a gunsmith would be mending a rifle, and weavers would be at
their wheels or looms. The women early discovered that the jolting
wagons would churn their cream to butter; and for bread, very soon after
the halt was made, the oven hollowed out of the hillside was heated, and
the dough, already raised, was in to bake. One mother in Israel brought
proudly to the Lake a piece of cloth, the wool for which she had
sheared, dyed, spun, and woven during her march.

Nor did the marches ever cease to be fraught with peril and, hardship.
There were tempests, droughts, famines, stampedes of the stock, prairie
fires, and Indian forays. Hundreds of miles across the plain and through
the mountains the Indians would trail after them, like sharks in the
wake of a ship, tirelessly watching, waiting for the right moment to
stampede the stock, to fire the prairie, or to descend upon stragglers.

One by one the trains worked down into the valley, the tired Saints
making fresh their covenants by rebaptism as they came. In the waters of
the River Jordan, Joel Rae made hundreds to be renewed in the Kingdom,
swearing them to obey Brigham, the Lord's anointed, in all his orders,
spiritual or temporal, and the priesthood or either of them, and all
church authorities in like manner; to regard this obligation as superior
to all laws of the United States and all earthly laws whatsoever; to
cherish enmity against the government of the United States, that the
blood of Joseph Smith and the Apostles slain in that generation might be
avenged; and to keep the matter of this oath a profound secret then and
forever. And from these waters of baptism the purified Saints went to
their inheritances in Zion--took their humble places, and began to sweat
and bleed in the upbuilding of the new Jerusalem.

[Illustration: "_I'M_ THE ONE WILL HAVE TO BE CAUGHT"]

From a high, tented wagon in one such train, creaking its rough way
down Emigration Cañon, with straining oxen and tired but eager people,
there had leaped one late afternoon the girl whose eyes were to call to
him so potently,--incomparable eyes, large and deep, of a velvety
grayness, under black brows splendidly bent. Nor had the eyes alone
voiced that call to his starved senses. He had caught the free, fearless
confidence of her leap over the wheel, and her graceful abandon as she
stood there, finely erect and full-curved, her head with its Greek lines
thrown well back, and her strong hands raised to readjust the dusky hair
that tumbled about her head like a storm-cloud.

Men from the train were all about, and others from the settlement, and
these spoke to her, some in serious greeting, some with jesting words.
She returned it all in good part without embarrassment,--even the sally
of the winking wag who called out, "Now then, Mara Cavan! Here we are,
and a girl like yourself ought to catch an Elder, at the very lowest."

She laughed with easy good-nature, still fumbling in the dusk of blown
hair at the back of her head, showing a full-lipped mouth, beautifully
large, with strong-looking, white teeth. "I'll catch never a one myself,
if you please, Nathan Tanner! I'll do no catching at _all_, now! _I'm_
the one will have to be caught!"

Her voice was a contralto, with the little hint of roughness that made
it warm and richly golden; that made it fall, indeed, upon the ears of
the listening Elder like a cathedral chime calling him to forget all and
worship--forget all but that he was five and twenty with the hot blood
surging and crowding and crying out in his veins.

Now, having a little subdued the tossing storm-cloud of hair, she stood
with one hand upon her hip and the other shading her eyes, looking
intently into the streets of the new settlement. And again there was
bantering jest from the men about, and the ready, careless response from
her, with gestures of an impishly reckless unconcern, of a full
readiness to give and take in easy good-fellowship. But then, in the
very midst of a light response to one of the bantering men, her gray
eyes met for the first time the very living look of the young Elder
standing near. She was at once confused, breaking off her speech with an
awkward laugh, and looking down. But, his eyes keeping steadily upon
her, she, as if defiantly, returned his look for a fluttering second,
trying to make her eyes survey him slowly from head to foot with her
late cool carelessness; but she had to let them fall again, and he saw
the colour come under the clear skin.

He knew by these tokens that he possessed a power over this splendid
woman that none of the other men could wield,--she had lowered her eyes
to no other but him--and all the man in him sang exultantly under the
knowledge. He greeted her father, the little Seumas Cavan of indomitable
spirit, fresh, for all his march of a thousand miles, and he welcomed
them both to Zion. Again and again while he talked to them he caught
quick glances from the wonderful eyes;--glances of interest, of
inquiry,--now of half-hearted defiance, now of wondering submission.

The succeeding months had been a time of struggle with him--a struggle
to maintain his character of Elder after the Order of Melchisedek in the
full gaze of those velvety gray eyes, and in the light of her reckless,
full-lipped smile; to present to the temptress a shield of austere piety
which her softest glances should not avail to melt. For something in her
manner told him that she divined all his weakness; that, if she
acknowledged his power over her, she recognised her own power over him,
a power equal to and justly balancing the other. Even when he discoursed
from the pulpit, his glance would fasten upon hers, as if there were but
the one face before him instead of a thousand, and he knew that she
mocked him in her heart; knew she divined there was that within him
which strongly would have had her and himself far away--alone.

Nor was the girl's own mind all of a piece. For, if she flaunted herself
before him, as if with an impish resolve to be his undoing, there were
still times when he awed her by his words of fire, and by his high,
determined stand in some circle to which she knew she could never mount.
That night when he walked with her in the moonlight, she knew he had
trembled on the edge of the gulf fixed so mysteriously between them. She
had even felt herself leaning over to draw him down with her own warm
arms; and then all at once he had strangely moved away, widening this
mysterious gulf that always separated them, leaving her solitary, hurt,
and wondering. She could not understand it. Life called through them so
strongly. How could he breast the mighty rush? And why, why must it be
so?

During the winter that now came upon them, it became even a greater
wonder to her; for it was a time when all of them were drawn closer in a
common suffering--a time of dark days which she felt they might have
lightened for each other, and a time when she knew that more than ever
she drew him.

For hardly had the feast of the Harvest Home gone by when food once more
became scarce. The heaven-sent gulls had, after all, saved but half a
crop. Drought and early frost had diminished this; and those who came in
from the East came all too trustingly with empty meal-sacks.

By the beginning of winter there were five thousand people in the valley
to be fed with miraculous loaves and fishes. Half of these were without
decent shelter, dwelling under wagon-covers or in flimsy tents, and
forced much of the time to be without fuel; for wood had to be hauled
through the snow from the distant cañons, and so was precious stuff. For
three months the cutting winds came down from the north, and the
pitiless winter snows raged about them. An inventory was early taken of
the food-stuffs, and thereafter rations were issued alike to all,
whether rich or poor. Otherwise many of the latter must have perished.
It was a time of hard expedients, such as men are content to face only
for the love of God. They ranged the hills and benches to dig sego and
thistle roots, and in the last days of winter many took the rawhides
from their roofs, boiling and eating them. When spring came, they
watched hungrily for the first green vegetation, which they gathered and
cooked. Truly it seemed they had stopped in a desert as cruel in its way
as the human foes from whom they had fled.

It was now that the genius of their leader showed. He was no longer
Brigham Young, the preacher, but a father in Israel to his starving
children. When prayers availed not for a miracle, his indomitable spirit
saved them. Starvation was upon them and nakedness to the blast; yet
when they desponded or complained, the Lion of the Lord was there to
check them. He scolded, pleaded, threatened, roared prophecies, and
overcame them, silencing every murmur. He made them work, and worked
himself, a daily example before them of tireless energy. He told them
what to do, and how, both for their material salvation and their
spiritual; when to haul wood, and how to distinguish between false and
true spirits; how to thatch roofs and in what manner the resurrection
would occur; how to cook thistle roots to best advantage, and how God
was man made perfect; he reminded them of the day of wrath, and told
them mirthful anecdotes to make them laugh. He pictured God's anger upon
the sinful, and encouraged them to dance and to make merry; instructed
them in the mysteries of the Kingdom and instigated theatrical
performances to distract their minds. He was bland and bullying by
turns; affable and gruff; jocose and solemn--always what he thought
their fainting spirits needed. He was feared and loved--feared first.
They learned to dread the iron of his hand and the steel of his
heart--the dauntless spirit of him that left them no longer their own
masters, yet kept them loving their bondage. Through the dreadful cold
and famine, the five thousand of them ceased not to pray nor lost their
faith--their great faith that they had been especially favoured of God
and were at the last to be saved alone from the wreck of the world.

The efforts of Brigham to put heart into the people were ably seconded
by Joel Rae. He was loved like Brigham, but not feared. He preached like
Brigham submission to the divine will as interpreted by the priesthood,
but he was more extravagant than Brigham in his promises of blessings in
store for them. He never resorted to vagueness in his pictures of what
the Lord was about to do for them. He was literal and circumstantial to
a degree that made Brigham and the older men in authority sometimes
writhe in public and chide him in private. They were appalled at the
sweeping victories he promised the Saints over the hated Gentiles at an
early day. They suggested, too, that the Lord might withhold an
abundance from them for a few years until He had more thoroughly tried
them. But their counsel seemed only to inflame him to fresh absurdities.
In the very days of their greatest scarcity that winter, when almost
every man was dressed in skins, and the daily fare was thistle roots, he
declared to them at a Sunday service:

"A time of plenty is at hand--of great plenty. I cannot tell you how I
know these things. I do not know how they come to me. I pray--and they
come to life in my spirit; that is how I have found this fact: in less
than a year States-goods of all needed kinds will be sold here cheaper
than they can be bought in Eastern cities. You shall have an abundance
at prices that will amaze you."

And the people thrilled to hear him, partaking of his faith, remembering
the gulls that ate the crickets, and the rain and wind that came to save
the pioneer train from fire. To the leaders such prophesying was merely
reckless, inviting further chastisements from heaven, and calculated to
cause a loss of faith in the priesthood.

And yet, wild as it was, they saw this latter prophecy fulfilled; for
now, so soon after the birth of this new empire, while it suffered and
grew weak and bade fair to perish in its cradle of faith, there was made
for it a golden spoon of plenty.

Over across the mountains the year before, on the decayed granite
bed-rock of the tail-race at the mill of one Sutter, a man had picked up
a few particles of gold, the largest as big as grains of wheat. The
news of the wonder had spread to the East, and now came frenzied hordes
of gold-seekers. The valley of the mountains where the Saints had hoped
to hide was directly in their path, and there they stopped their richly
laden trains to rest and to renew their supplies.

The harvest of '49 was bountiful in all the valley; and thus was the
wild prophecy of Joel Rae made sober truth. Many of the gold-seekers had
loaded their wagons with merchandise for the mining' camps; but in their
haste to be at the golden hills, they now sold it at a sacrifice in
order to lighten their loads. The movement across the Sierras became a
wild race; clothing, provisions, tools, and arms--things most needful to
the half-clad, half-starved community on the shores of the lake--were
bartered to them at less than half-price for fresh horses and light
wagons. Where a twenty-five dollar pack-mule was sold for two hundred
dollars, a set of joiner's tools that had cost a hundred dollars back in
St. Louis would be bought for twenty-five.

The next year the gain to the Saints was even greater, as the tide of
gold-seekers rose. Early that summer they sold flour to the oncoming
legions for a dollar a pound, taking their pay in the supplies they most
needed on almost their own terms.

Thus was the valley of the mountains a little fattened, and thus was
Joel Rae exalted in the sight of men as one to whom the secrets of
heaven might at any time be unfolded. But the potent hand of Brigham
was still needed to hold the Saints in their place and in their faith.

Many would have joined the rush for sudden riches. A few did so. Brigham
issued a mild warning, in which such persons were described as
"gainsayers in behalf of Mammon." They were warned, also, that the
valley of the Sacramento was unhealthful, and that, in any event, "the
true use of gold is for paving streets, covering houses, and making
culinary dishes; and when the Saints shall have preached the gospel,
raised grain, and built cities enough, the Lord will open up the way for
a supply of gold to the satisfaction of his people."

A few greed-stung Saints persisted in leaving in the face of this
friendly admonition. Then the Lion of the Lord roared: "Let such men
remember that they are not wanted in our midst. Let them leave their
carcasses where they do their work. We want not our burying-grounds
polluted with such hypocrites. Let the souls of them go down to hell,
poverty-stricken and naked, and lie there until they are burned out like
an old pipe!" The defections ceased from that moment, and Zion was
preserved intact. Brigham was satisfied. If he could hold them together
under the alluring tales of gold-finds that were brought over the
mountains, he had no longer any fear that they might fall away under
mere physical hardship. And he held them,--the supreme test of his power
over the bodies and minds of his people.

This passing of the gold-seekers was not, however, a blessing without
drawbacks. For the Saints had hoped to wax strong unobserved,
unmolested, forgotten, in this mountain retreat. But now obscurity could
no longer be their lot. The hated Gentiles had again to be reckoned
with.

First, the United States had expanded on the west to include their
territory--the fruit of the Mexican War--the poor bleak desert they were
making to blossom. Next, the government at Washington had sent to
construe and administer their laws men who were aliens from the
Commonwealth of Israel. True, Millard Fillmore had appointed Brigham
governor of the new Territory--but there were chief justices and
associate justices, secretaries, attorneys, marshals, and Indian agents
from the wicked and benighted East; men who frankly disbelieved that the
voice of Brigham was as the voice of God, and who did not hesitate to
let their heresy be known. A stream of these came and went--
trouble-mongers who despised and insulted the Saints, and returned to
Washington with calumnies on their lips. It was true that Brigham had
continued, as was right, to be the only power in the Territory; but the
narrow-minded appointees of the Federal government persisted in
misconstruing this circumstance; refusing to look upon it as the just
mark of Heaven's favour, and declaring it to be the arrogance of a mere
civil usurper.

Under such provocation Joel Rae longed more than ever to be a Lion of
the Lord, for those above him in the Church endured too easily, he
considered, the indignities that were put upon them by these
evil-minded Gentile politicians. He would have rejected them forthwith,
as he believed the Lord would have had them do,--nay, as he believed the
Lord would sooner or later punish them for not doing. He would have
thrust them into the desert, and called upon the Lord for strength to
meet the storm that would doubtless be raised by such a course. He was
impatient when the older men cautioned moderation and the petty wiles of
diplomacy. Yet he was not altogether discouraged; for even they lost
patience at times, and were almost as outspoken as he could have wished.

Even Brigham, on one notable occasion, had thrilled him, when in the
tabernacle he had bearded Brocchus and left him white and cowering
before all the people, trembling for his life,--Brocchus, the unworthy
Associate Justice, who had derided their faith, insulted their prophet,
and slandered their women. How he rejoiced in that moment when Brigham
for once lost his temper and let his eyes flash their hate upon the
frightened official.

"But you," Brigham had roared, "standing there white and shaking at the
hornets' nest you have stirred up--you are a coward--and that is why you
praise men that are not cowards--why you praise Zachary Taylor!"

Brigham had a little time before declared that Zachary Taylor was dead
and in hell, and that he, Brigham, was glad of it.

"President Taylor you can't praise," he had gone on to the gradually
whitening Brocchus. "What was he? A mere soldier with regular army
buttons on--no better to go at the head of troops than a dozen men I
could pick up between Leavenworth and Laramie. As to what you have
intimated about our morals--you miserable cringing coward, you--I won't
notice it except to make my personal request of every brother and
husband present not to give your back what your impudence deserves. You
talk of things you have on hearsay since you came among us. I'll talk of
hearsay, then--the hearsay that you are mad and will go home because we
can't make it worth your while to stay. What it would satisfy you to get
out of us it wouldn't be hard to tell; but I know it's more than you'll
get. We don't want you. You are such a baby-calf that we would have to
sugar your soap to coax you to wash yourself on Saturday night. Go home
to your mammy, straightaway, and the sooner the better."

This was the manner, thought Joel Rae, that Federal officials should be
treated when they were out of sympathy with Zion--though he thought he
might perhaps have chosen words that would be more dignified had the
task been entrusted to him. He told Brigham his satisfaction with the
address when the excited congregation had dispersed, and the alarmed
Brocchus had gone.

"That is the course we must take, Brother Brigham--do more of it. Unless
we take our stand now against aggression, the Lord will surely smite us
again with famine and pestilence." And Brigham had answered, in the
tones of a man who knows, "Wait just a little!"

But there came famine upon them again; in punishment, declared Joel Rae,
for their ungodly temporising with the minions of the United States
government. In '54 the grasshoppers ate their growing crops. In '55 they
came again with insatiate maws--and on what they left the drought and
frost worked their malignant spells. The following winter great numbers
of their cattle and sheep perished on the range in the heavy snows.

The spring of '56 found them again digging roots and resorting to all
the old pitiful makeshifts of famine.

"This," declared Joel Rae, to the starving people, "is a judgment of
Heaven upon us for permitting Gentile aggression. It is meant to clench
into our minds the God's truth that we must stand by our faith with the
arms of war if need be."

"Brother Rae is just a little mite soul-proud," Brigham thereupon
confided to his counsellors, "and I wouldn't wonder if the Lord would be
glad to see some of it taken out of him. Anyway, I've got a job for him
that will just about do it."




CHAPTER XIII.


_Joel Rae Is Treated for Pride of Soul_

Brigham sent for him the next day and did him the honour to entrust to
him an important mission. He was to go back to the Missouri River and
bring on one of the hand-cart parties that were to leave there that
summer. The three years of famine had left the Saints in the valley
poor, so that the immigration fund was depleted. The oncoming Saints,
therefore, who were not able to pay their own way, were this summer,
instead of riding in ox-carts, to walk across the plains and mountains,
and push their belongings before them in hand-carts. It had become
Brigham's pet scheme, and the Lord had revealed to him that it would
work out auspiciously. Joel prepared to obey, though it was not without
aversion that he went again to the edge of the Gentile country.

He was full of bitterness while he was obliged to tarry on the banks of
the Missouri. The hatred of those who had persecuted him and his people,
bred into him from boyhood, flashed up in his heart with more fire than
ever. Even when a late comer from Nauvoo told him that Prudence Corson
had married Captain Girnway of the Carthage Grays, two years after the
exodus from Nauvoo, his first feeling was one of blazing anger against
the mobocrats rather than regret for his lost love.

"They moved down to Jackson County, Missouri, too," concluded his
informant, thus adding to the flame. They had gone to set up their home
in the very Zion that the Gentiles with so much bloodshed had wrested
from the Saints.

Even when the first anger cooled and he could face the thing calmly in
all its deeper aspects, he was still very bitter. While he had stanchly
kept himself for her, cherishing with a single heart all the old
memories of her dearness, she had been a wife these seven years,--the
wife, moreover, of a mob-leader whose minions had put them out of their
home, and then wantonly tossed his father like a dead branch into the
waters. She had loved this uniformed murderer--his little Prue--perhaps
borne him children, while he, Joel Rae, had been all too scrupulously
true to her memory, fighting against even the pleased look at a woman;
fighting--only the One above could know with what desperate
valour--against the warm-hearted girl with the gray eyes and the red
lips, who laughed in her knowledge that she drew him--fighting her away
for a sentimental figment, until she had married another.

Now when he might have let himself turn to her, his heart freed of the
image of that yellow-haired girl so long cherished, this other was the
wife of Elder Pixley--the fifth wife--and an unloving wife as he knew.

She had sought him before the marriage, and there had been some wholly
frank and simple talk between them. It had ended by his advising her to
marry Elder Pixley so that she might be saved into the Kingdom, and by
her replying, with the old reckless laugh, a little dry and strained,
and with the wonderful gray eyes full upon him,--"Oh, I'll marry him!
Small difference to me what man of them I marry at all,--now!"

And while he, by a mighty effort, had held down his arms and let her
turn away, the woman for whose memory he did it was the wife of an
enemy, caring nothing for his fidelity, sure to feel not more than
amused pity for him should she ever know of it. Surely, it had been a
brave struggle--for nothing.

But again the saving thought came that he was being tried for a purpose,
for some great work. And now it seemed that the time of it must be near.
As to what it was there could be little question: it must be to free his
people forever from Gentile aggression or interference. Everything
pointed to that. He was to be entrusted with great powers, and be made a
Lion of the Lord to lead them to their rightful glory.

He was eager to be back to the mountains where he could fitly receive
this new power, and becomingly make it known that he had been chosen of
Heaven to free them forever from the harassing Gentile. He felt
instinctively that a climax was close at hand--some dread moment of
turning that would try the faith of the Saints once for all--try his own
faith as well, and at last bring his great Witness before him, if his
soul should survive the perilous ordeal. For he had never ceased to wait
for this heavenly Witness--something he needed--he knew not what--some
great want of his soul unsatisfied despite all the teachings of the
temple priesthood. The hunger gnawed in his heart,--a hunger that only
his Witness could feed.

When the hand-cart party came in across the prairies of Iowa he made all
haste to be off with it to the valley of the Lake. Several such parties
had left the Missouri earlier in the season. His own was to be the last.
There were six hundred of them, young and old, men, women, and children.
Their carts moved on two light wheels with two projecting shafts of
hickory joined by a cross-piece. He was indignant to learn that the
Gentiles along the route of their march across Iowa had tried to beguile
these people from their faith. And even while they were in camp on the
Missouri there were still ungodly ones to warn them that they were
incurring grave dangers by starting across the plains so late in the
season.

With rare fervour he rallied the company from these attacks, pointed out
the divine source of the hand-cart plan, prophesied blessings and
abundance upon them for their faith in starting, and dwelt warningly
upon the sin they would be guilty of should they disobey their leader
and refuse to start.

They responded bravely, and by the middle of August all was ready for
the march. He divided them into hundreds, allotting to each hundred five
tents, twenty hand-carts, and one wagon, drawn by three yokes of oxen,
to carry the tents and provisions. Families with more young men than
were needed to push their own carts helped families not so well
provided; but many carts had to be pushed by young girls and women.

He put the company on rations at the time of starting; ten ounces of
flour to each adult, four ounces to children, with bacon, sugar, coffee,
and rice served occasionally; for he had been unable to obtain a full
supply of provisions. Even in the first days of the march some of the
men would eat their day's allowance for breakfast, depending on the
generosity of settlers by the way, so long as there were any, for what
food they had until another morning. They were sternly rebuked by their
leader for thus, without shame, eating the bread of ungodliness.

Their first trouble after leaving the Missouri was with the carts; their
construction in all its details had been dictated from on high, but the
dust of the parched prairie sifted into the wooden hubs, and ground the
axles so that they broke. This caused delay for repairs, and as there
was no axle grease, many of them, hungry as they were, used their scanty
allowance of bacon to grease the wheels.

Yet in spite of these hardships they were cheerful, and in the early
days of the march they sang with spirit, to the tune of "A Little More
Cider," the hymn of the hand-cart written by one of their number:

  "Hurrah for the Camp of Israel!
   Hurrah for the hand-cart scheme!
   Hurrah, hurrah! 'tis better far
   Than the wagon and ox-team.

  "Oh, our faith goes with the hand-carts,
   And they have our hearts' best love;
   'Tis a novel mode of travelling
   Designed by the Gods above.

  "And Brigham's their executive,
   He told us their design;
   And the Saints are proudly marching on
   Along the hand-cart line.

  "Who cares to go with the wagons?
   Not we who are free and strong.
   Our faith and arms with a right good will
   Shall push our carts along."

At Wood River the plains seethed with buffalo, a frightened herd of
which one night caused a stampede of their cattle. After that the frail
carts had to relieve the wagons of a part of their loads, in order that
the remaining animals could draw them, each cart taking on a hundred
more pounds.

Thus, overworked and insufficiently fed, they pushed valiantly on under
burning suns, climbing the hills and wading the streams with their
burdens, the vigorous in the van. For a mile behind the train straggled
the lame and the sick. Here would be an aged sire in Israel walking
painfully, supported by a son or daughter; there a mother carrying a
child at her breast, with others holding by her skirts; a few went on
crutches.

As they toiled painfully forward in this wise, they were heartened by a
visit from a number of Elders who overtook them in returning to the
valley. These good men counselled them to be faithful, prayerful, and
obedient to their leader in all things, prophesying that they should
reach Zion in safety,--that though it might storm on their right and on
their left, the Lord would open their way before them. They cried
"Amen!" to this, and, at the request of the Elders, killed one of their
few remaining cattle for them, cheering them as they drove on in the
morning in their carriages.

They took up the march with new courage; but then in a few days came a
new danger to threaten them,--the cold. A rule made by Brigham had
limited each cart's outfit of clothing and bedding to seventeen pounds.
This had now become insufficient. As they advanced up the Sweetwater,
the mountains on either side took on snow. Frequent wading of the
streams chilled them. Morning would find them numb, haggard, spiritless,
unfitted for the march of the day.

A week of this cold weather, lack of food, and overwork produced their
effect. The old and the weak became too feeble to walk; then they began
to die, peacefully, smoothly, as a lamp ceases to burn when the oil is
gone. At first the deaths occurred irregularly; then they were frequent;
soon it was rarely that they left a camp-ground without burying one or
more of their number.

Nor was death long confined to the old and the infirm. Young men, strong
at the start, worn out now by the rigours of the march, began to drop. A
father would pull his cart all day, perhaps with his children in it, and
die at night when camp was reached. Each day lessened their number.

But they died full of faith, murmuring little, and having for their
chief regret, apparently, that they must be left on the plains or
mountains, instead of resting in the consecrated ground of Zion--this,
and that they must die without looking upon the face of their prophet,
seer, and revelator.

Their leader cheered them as best he could. He was at first puzzled at
the severity of their hardships in the face of past prophecies. But
light at last came to him. He stopped one day to comfort a wan, weak man
who had halted in dejection by the road.

"You have had trouble?" he asked him, and the man had answered, wearily:

"No, not what you could call trouble. When we left Florence my mother
could walk eighteen or twenty miles a day. She did it for weeks. But
then she wore out, and I had to haul her in my cart; but it was only for
three days. She gave up and died before we started out, the morning of
the fourth day. We buried her by the roadside without a coffin--that was
hard, to put her old, gray head right down into the ground with no
protection. It made us mourn, for she had always been such a good
friend. Then we went on a few days, and my sister gave out. I carried
her in the cart a few days, but she died too. Then my youngest child,
Ephraim, died. Then I fell sick myself, and my wife has pushed the cart
with me in it for two days. She looked so tired to-day that I got out to
rest her. But we don't call it trouble, only for the cold--my wife has a
chill every time she has to wade one of those icy streams. She's not
very used to rough life."

As he listened to the man's tale, the truth came to him in a great
light. Famine not sufficing, the Lord was sending this further
affliction upon them. He was going to goad them into asserting and
maintaining their independence of his enemies, the Gentiles. The
inspiration of this thought nerved him anew. Though they all died, to
the last child, he would live to carry back to Zion the message that now
burned within him. They had temporised with the Gentile and had grown
lax among themselves. They must be aroused to repentance, and God would
save him to do the work.

So, when the snow came at last, the final touch of hardship, driving
furiously about the unprotected women and children, putting wild fear
into the heart of every man, he remained calm and sure and defiant. The
next morning the snow lay heavily about them, and they had to dig
through it to bury five of their number in one grave. The morning
before, they had issued their last ration of flour. Now he divided
among the company a little hard bread they had kept, and waited in the
snow, for they could travel no further without food.

One of their number was sent ahead to bring aid. After a day in which
they ate nothing, supplies reached them from the valley; but now they
were so weakened that food could not fortify them against the extreme
cold that had set in. They wrapped themselves in their few poor quilts,
and struggled bravely on into a white, stinging fog of snow. Each
morning there were more and more of them to bury. And even the burial
was a mockery, for wolves were digging at the graves almost before the
last debilitated straggler had left the camping-place. The heavy snows
continued, but movement was necessary. Into the white jaws of the
beautiful, merciless demon they went.

Among the papers of a man he helped to bury, Joel Rae found a journal
that the dead man had kept until within a few days of his death. By the
light of his last candle he read it until late into the night.

       *       *       *       *       *

"The weather grew colder each day; and many got their feet so badly
frozen that they could not walk and had to be lifted from place to
place. Some got their fingers frozen; others their ears; and one woman
lost her sight by the frost. These severities of the weather also
increased our number of deaths, so that we buried several each day.

"The day we crossed the Rocky Ridge it was snowing a little--the wind
hard from the northwest, and blowing so keenly that it almost pierced us
through. We had to wrap ourselves closely in blankets, quilts, or
whatever else we could get, to keep from freezing. Elder Rae this day
appointed me to bring up the rear. My duty was to stay behind everything
and see that nobody was left along the road. I had to bury a man who had
died in my hundred, and I finished doing so after the company had
started. In about half an hour I set out on foot alone to do my duty as
rear-guard to the camp. The ascent of the ridge commenced soon after
leaving camp, and I had not gone far up it before I overtook the carts
that the folks could not pull through the snow, here about knee-deep. I
helped them along, and we soon overtook another. By all hands getting to
one cart we could travel; so we moved one of the carts a few rods, and
then went back and brought up the others. After moving in this way for
awhile, we overtook other carts at different points of the hill, until
we had six carts, not one of which could be moved by the parties owning
it. I put our collective strength to three carts at a time, took them a
short distance, and then brought up the other three. Thus by travelling
over the hill three times--twice forward and once back--I succeeded
after hours of toil in bringing my little company to the summit. The
carts were then trotted on gaily down-hill, the intense cold stirring us
to action.

"One or two parties who were with these carts gave up entirely, and but
for the fact that we overtook one of our ox-teams that had been detained
on the road, they must have perished on the Rocky Ridge. One old man
named James, a farmer from Gloucestershire, who had a large family, and
who had worked very hard all the way, I found sitting by the roadside
unable to pull his cart any farther. I could not get him into the wagon,
as it was already overcrowded. He had a shotgun, which he had brought
from England, and which had been a great blessing to him and his family,
for he was a good shot, and often had a mess of sage-hens or rabbits for
his family. I took the gun from his cart, put a bundle on the end of it,
placed it on his shoulder, and started him out with his little boy,
twelve years old. His wife and two daughters, older than the boy, took
the cart along finely after reaching the summit.

"We travelled along with the ox-team and overtook others, all so laden
with the sick and helpless that they moved very slowly. The oxen had
almost given out. Some of our folks with carts went ahead of the team,
for where the roads were good they could out-travel oxen; but we
constantly overtook stragglers, some with carts, some without, who had
been unable to keep pace with the body of the company. We struggled
along in this weary way until after dark, and by this time our rear
numbered three wagons, eight hand-carts, and nearly forty persons.

"With the wagons were Millen Atwood, Levi Savage, and William Woodward,
captains of hundreds, faithful men who had worked all the way. We
finally came to a stream of water which was frozen over. We could not
see where the company had crossed. If at the point where we struck the
creek, then it had frozen over since they passed it. We started one team
across, but the oxen broke through the ice, and would not go over. No
amount of shouting and whipping could induce them to stir an inch. We
were afraid to try the other teams, for even could they cross, we could
not leave the one in the creek and go on.

"There was no wood in the vicinity, so we could make no fire, and we
were uncertain what to do. We did not know the distance to the camp, but
supposed it to be three or four miles. After consulting about it, we
resolved that some one should go on foot to the camp to inform the
captain of our situation. I was selected to perform the duty, and I set
out with all speed. In crossing the creek I slipped through the ice and
got my feet wet, my boots being nearly worn out. I had not gone far when
I saw some one sitting by the roadside. I stopped to see who it was, and
discovered the old man, James, and his little boy. The poor old man was
quite worn out.

"I got him to his feet and had him lean on me, and he walked a little
distance, but not very far. I partly dragged, partly carried, him a
short distance farther, but he was quite helpless, and my strength
failed me. Being obliged to leave him to go forward on my own errand, I
put down a quilt I had wrapped around me, rolled him in it, and told the
little boy to walk up and down by his father, and on no account to sit
down, or he would be frozen to death. He asked me very bravely why God
or Brigham Young had not sent us some food or blankets.

"I again set out for the camp, running all the way and frequently
falling down, for there were many obstructions and holes in the road. My
boots were frozen stiff, so that I had not the free use of my feet, and
it was only by rapid motion that I kept them from being badly frozen. As
it was, both feet have been nipped.

"After some time, I came in sight of the camp-fires, which encouraged
me. As I neared the camp, I frequently overtook stragglers on foot, all
pressing forward slowly. I stopped to speak to each one, cautioning them
all against resting, as they would surely freeze to death. Finally,
about eleven P.M., I reached the camp almost exhausted. I had exerted
myself very much during the day, and had not eaten anything since
breakfast. I reported to Elder Rae the situation of the folks behind. He
immediately got up some horses, and the boys from the valley started
back about midnight to help the ox-teams in. The night was very severe,
and many of the animals were frozen. It was five A.M. before the last
team reached the camp.

"I told my companions about the old man James and his little boy. They
found the little fellow keeping faithful watch over his father, who lay
sleeping in my quilt just as I left him. They lifted him into a wagon,
still alive, but in a sort of stupor, and he died just as they got him
up by the fire. His last words were an inquiry as to the safety of his
shotgun.

"There were so many dead and dying that it was decided to lay by for the
day. In the forenoon I was appointed to go around the camp and collect
the dead. I took with me two young men to assist me in the sad task, and
we collected together, of all ages and both sexes, thirteen corpses, all
stiffly frozen. We had a large square hole dug, in which we buried these
thirteen people, three or four abreast and three deep. When they did not
fit in, we put one or two crosswise at the head or feet of the others.
We covered them with willows and then with the earth. When we buried
these thirteen people, some of their relatives refused to attend the
services. They manifested an utter indifference about it. The numbness
and cold in their physical natures seemed to have reached the soul, and
to have crushed out natural feeling and affection. Had I not myself
witnessed it, I could not have believed that suffering could produce
such terrible results. But so it was. Two others died during the day,
and we buried them in the same big grave, making fifteen in all. Even so
it has been better for them than to stay where their souls would have
been among the rejected at the day of resurrection.

"But for Elder Rae, our leader, we should all have perished by now. He
is at times severe and stern with those who falter, but only for their
good. He is all along the line, helping the women, who well-nigh worship
him, and urging on the men. He cheers us by prophesying that we shall
soon prevail over all conditions and all our enemies. I think he must
never sleep and never eat. At all hours of the night he is awake. As to
eating, a girl in our hundred, Fidelia, daughter of Jabez Merrismith,
who has been much attracted by him and stays near him when she can,
called him aside the other day, so she has told me, and gave him a
biscuit--_soaked, perfectly soaked, with bacon grease_. She had saved it
for many days. He took it and thanked her, but later she saw him giving
it to the wife of Henry Glines, who is hauling Henry and the two babies
in the cart. She taxed him with not eating it himself; but he told her
that she had given him more than bread, which was the power to _give_
bread. The _giving_ happiness, he told her, is always a little more than
the _taking_ happiness, even when we are starving. He says the one kind
of happiness always keeps a little ahead of the other."

       *       *       *       *       *

December 1st, the remnant of the caravan reached the city of the Saints.
Of six hundred setting out from the Missouri River, over one quarter had
died by the way.

And to Joel Rae had now come another mission,--one that would not let
him wait, for the spirit was moving him strangely and strongly,--a
mission of reformation.




CHAPTER XIV.


_How the Saints Were Brought to Repentance_

He put his torch to the tinder of irreligion at the first Sunday meeting
after his return. There were no premonitions, no warnings, no signs.

A few of the Elders had preceded him to rejoice at the escape of the
last hand-cart party from death in the mountains; and Brigham, after
giving the newcomers some practical hints about their shelter during the
winter now upon them, had invited Elder Rae to address the congregation.

He arose and came uncertainly forward, apparently weak, able hardly to
stand without leaning upon the desk in front of him; his face waxen and
drawn, hollowed at the cheeks and temples, his long hands thin to
transparency. Life was betrayed in him only by the eyes. These burned
darkly, far back under his brows, and flashed fiercely, as his glance
darted swiftly from side to side.

At first he spoke weakly and slowly, his opening words almost inaudible,
so that the throng of people before him leaned forward in sympathetic
intentness, and silence became absolute in the great hall except for
the high quavering of his tones. But then came a miracle of
reinvigoration. Little by little his voice swelled until it was full,
sonorous, richly warm and compelling, the words pouring from him with a
fluency that enchained. Little by little his leaning, drooping posture
of weakness became one of towering strength, the head flung back, the
gestures free and potent. Little by little his burning eyes seemed to
send their flash and glow through all his body, so that he became a
creature of life and fire.

They heard each word now, but still they leaned forward as when he spoke
at first, inaudibly--caught thrilled and breathless in his spell, even
to the Elders, Priests, and Apostles sitting near him. Nor was his
manner alone impressive. His words were new. He was calling them sinners
and covenant-breakers, guilty of pride, covetousness, contention, lying,
stealing, moral uncleanness--and launching upon them the curse of
Israel's God unless they should repent.

"It has been told you again and again," he thundered, "that if you wish
to be great in the Kingdom of God you must be good. It has been told you
many times, and now I burn the words once more into the bones of your
soul, that in this kingdom which the great Elohim has again set up on
earth, no man, no woman, can become great without being good, without
being true to his integrity, faithful to his trust, full of charity and
good works.

"Hear it now: if you do not order your lives to do all the good you
can, if you are false to one trust, you shall be stripped naked before
Jehovah of all your anticipations of greatness. And you have failed in
your work; you have been false to your trust; you have been lax and
wicked, and you have temporised, nay, affiliated with Gentiles. I have
asked myself if this, after all, may not have been the chief cause of
God's present wrath upon us. The flesh is weak. I have had my own hours
of wrestling with Satan. We all know his cunning to take shapes that
most weaken, beguile, and unman us, and small wonder if many of us
succumb. But this other sin is wilful. Not only have Gentile officers,
Federal officers, come among us and been let to insult, abuse,
calumniate, and to trample upon our most sacred ordinances, but we have
consorted, traded, and held relations with the Gentiles that pass by us.
You have the term 'winter Mormons,' a generation of vipers who come
here, marry your daughters in the fall, rest with you during the winter,
and pass on to the gold fields in the spring, never to return. You,
yourselves, coined the Godless phrase. But how can you utter it without
crimson faces? I tell you now, God is to make a short work upon this
earth. His lines are being drawn, and many of you before me will be left
outside. The curtains of Zion have been spread, but you are gone beyond
their folds. You are no longer numbered in the household of faith. For
your weak souls the sealing keys of power have been delivered in vain.
You have become waymarks to the kingdom of folly. This is truth I tell
you. It has been frozen and starved into me, but it will be burned into
you. For your sins, the road between here and the Missouri River is a
road between two lines of graves. For your sins, from the little band I
have just brought in, one hundred and fifty faithful ones fell asleep by
the wayside, and their bodies went to be gnawed by the wolves. How long
shall others die for you? Forever, think you? No! Your last day is come.
Repent, confess your sins in all haste, be buried again in the waters of
baptism, then cast out the Gentile, and throw off his yoke,--and
thereafter walk in trembling all your days,--for your wickedness has
been great."

Such was the opening gun in what became known as the "reformation." The
conditions had been ripe for it, and in that very moment a fever of
repentance spread through the two thousand people who had cowered under
his words. Alike with the people below, the leaders about him had been
fired with his spirit, and when he sat down each of them arose in turn
and echoed his words, denouncing the people for their sins and exhorting
them to repentance.

After another hour of this excitement, priests and people became alike
demoralised, and the meeting broke up in a confusion of terror.

As the doors of the tabernacle flew open, and the Saints pushed out of
that stifling atmosphere of denunciation, a cry came to the lips of the
dozen that first escaped:

"To the river--the waters of baptism!"

The words were being taken up by others until the cry had run back
through the crowd to the leaders, still talking in excited groups about
the pulpit. These comprehended when they heard it, and straightway a
line of conscience-stricken Saints was headed toward the river.

There in the icy Jordan, on that chill December afternoon, when the
snows lay thick on the ground, the leaders stood and buried the sinful
ones anew in the cleansing waters. From the sinners themselves came
cries of self-accusation; from the crowd on the banks came the strains
of hymns to fortify them for the icy ordeal and the public confession.

There in the freezing current stood Joel Rae until long after the
December sun had gone below the Oquirrh hills, performing his office of
baptism, and reviving hope in those his words had smitten with fear.

His strength already depleted by the long march with the hand-cart party
and by the exhausting strain of the day, he was early chilled by the
water into which he plunged the repentant sinners. For the last hour
that he stood in the stream, his whole body was numb; he had ceased to
feel life in his feet, and his arms worked with a mechanical stiffness
like the arms of some automaton over which his mind had control.

For there was no numbness as yet in his mind. It was wonderfully clear
and active. He had begun a great work. His words had been words of fire,
and the flames of them had spread so that in a little while every sinner
in Zion should burn in them and be purified. Even the leaders--a great
wave of exultation surged through him at this thought--even Brigham had
felt the glow, and henceforth would be a fiercer Lion of the Lord to
resist the Godless Gentile.

Long after sensation had left his body his thoughts were rushing in this
fever of realisation, while his chilled hands made new in the Kingdom
such sinners as came there repenting.

Not until night fell did the hymns cease and the crowd dwindle away. The
air grew colder, and he began to feel pain again, the water cutting
against his legs like a blade. Little groups were now hurrying off in
the darkness, and the last Saint he had baptised was standing for the
moment, chill and dripping, on the bank.

Seeing there was no one else to come, he staggered out of the stream
where he had stood for three hours, finding his feet curiously clumsy
and uncontrollable. Below him in the stream another Elder still waited
to baptise a man and woman; but those who had been above him in the
river were gone, and his own work was done.

He ascended the bank, and stood looking back at the Elder who remained
in the stream. This man was now coming out of the water, having
performed his office for the last one who waited. He called to Joel
Rae:

"Don't stand there, Brother Rae. Hurry and get to your fire and your
warm drink and your supper, or you'll be bed-fast with the chills."

"It has been a glorious day, Brother Maltby!"

"Truly, a great work has been begun, thanks to you--but hurry, man! you
are freezing. Get to your fireside. We can't lose you now."

With a parting word he turned and set off down the dark street, walking
unsteadily through the snow, for his feet had to be tossed ahead of him,
and he could not always do it accurately. And the cold, now that he was
out of the water, came more keenly upon him, only it seemed to burn him
through and through with a white heat. He felt his arms stiffening in
his wet sleeves, and his knees grow weak. He staggered on past a row of
cabins, from which the light of fires shone out on the snow. At almost
every step he stumbled out of the narrow path that had been trodden.

"To your own fireside." He recalled the words of Elder Maltby, and
remembered his own lone, dark cabin, himself perhaps without strength to
build a fire or to get food, perhaps without even strength to reach the
place, for he felt weaker now, all at once, and put his hand out to
support himself against the fence.

He had been hearing footsteps behind him, creaking rapidly over the
packed snow-path. He might have to ask for help to reach his home. Even
as the steps came close, he felt himself swaying. He leaned over on the
fence, but to his amazement that swayed, too, and threw him back. Then
he felt himself falling toward the street; but the creaking steps
ceased, now by his side, and he felt under him something soft but
firm--something that did not sway as the fence had unaccountably done.
With his balance thus regained, he discovered the thing that held him to
be a woman's arm. A woman's face looked close into his, and then she
spoke.

"You are so cold. I knew you would be. And I waited--I wanted to do for
you--let me!"

At once there came back to him the vision of a white-faced woman in the
crowd along the river bank, staring at him out of deep, gray eyes under
heavy, black brows.

"Mara--Mara!"

"Yes, yes--you are so cold!"

"But you must not stand so close--see, I am wet--you will be chilled!"

"But _you_ are already chilled; your clothes are freezing on you; and
you were falling just now. Can you walk?"

"Yes--yes--my house is yonder."

"I know; it's far; it's beyond the square. You must come with me."

"But your house is still farther!"

She had started him now, with a firm grasp of his arm, walking beside
him in the deep snow, and trying to keep him in the narrow path.

"No--I am staying here with Hubert Plimon's two babies, while the
mother has gone to Provo where Hubert lies sick. See--the light there.
Come with me--here's the gate--you shall be warmed."

Slowly and with many stumblings, leaning upon her strong arm, he made
his way to the cabin door. She pushed it open before him and he felt the
great warm breath of the room rush out upon him. Then he was inside,
swaying again uncertainly upon his feet. In the hovering light that came
from the fireplace he saw the bed in the far corner where the two small
children were sleeping, saw Mara with her back to the door, facing him
breathlessly, saw the heavy shadows all about; but he was conscious of
hardly more than the vast heavenly warmth that rolled out from the fire
and enfolded him and made him drunk.

Again he would have fallen, but she steadied him down on to a wide couch
covered with buffalo robes, beside the big fireplace; and here he fell
at once into a stupor. She drew out the couch so that it caught more of
the heat, pulled off the water-soaked boots and the stiffened coat,
wrapped him in a blanket which she warmed before the fire, and covered
him still again with one of the buffalo robes.

She went then to bring food and to make a hot drink, which she
strengthened with brandy poured from a little silver flask.

Presently she aroused him to drink the hot liquor, and then, after
another blank of stupor, she aroused him again, to eat. He could take
but little of the food, but called for more of the drink, and felt the
soul of it thrill along his frozen nerves until they awoke, sharpened,
alert, and eager. He lay so, with closed eyes a little time, floating in
an ecstasy that seemed to be half stupor and half of keenest
sensibility. Then he opened his eyes. She was kneeling by the couch on
which he lay. He felt her soft, quick breathing, and noted the unnatural
shining of her eyes and lips where the firelight fell upon them. All at
once he threw out his arms and drew her to him with such a shuddering
rush of power that she cried aloud in quick alarm--but the cry was
smothered under his kisses.

For ages the transport seemed to endure, the little world of his senses
whirling madly through an illimitable space of sensuous light, his lips
melting upon hers, his neck bending in the circle of pulsing warmth that
her soft arms wove about it, his own arms crushing to his breast with
frenzied fervour the whole yielding splendour of her womanhood. A moment
so, then he fell back upon the couch, all his body quivering under the
ecstasy from her parted lips, his triumphant senses rioting insolently
through the gray, cold garden of his vows.

She drew a little back, her hands resting on his shoulders, and he saw
again the firelight shining in her eyes and upon her lips. Yet the eyes
were now lighted with a strange, sad reluctance, even while the
mutinous lips opened their inciting welcome.

He was floating--floating midway between a cold, bleak heaven of denial
and a luring hell of consent; floating recklessly, as if careless to
which his soul should go.

His gaze was once more upon her face, and now, in a curiously cool
little second of observation, he saw mirrored there the same conflicting
duality that he knew raged within himself. In her eyes glowed the pure
flame of fear and protest--but on her mad lips was the curl of
provocation. And as the man in him had waited carelessly, in a sensuous
luxury of unconcern, for his soul to go where it might--far up or far
down--so now the woman waited before him in an incurious, unbiassed
calm--the clear eyes with their grave, stern "_No_!"--the parted lips
all but shuddering out their "_Yes_!"

Still he looked and still the leaning woman waited--waited to welcome
with impartial fervour the angel or the devil that might come forth.

And then, as he lay so, there started with electric quickness, from some
sudden coldness of recollection, the image of Prue. Sharp and vivid it
shone from this chill of truth like a glittering star from the clean
winter sky outside. Prue was before him with the tender blue of her eyes
and the fleecy gold of her hair and her joy of a child--her little
figure shrugging and nestling in his arms in happy faith--calling as she
had called to him that morning--"_Joel--Joel--Joel_!"

He shivered in this flood of cold, relentless light, yet unflinchingly
did he keep his face turned full upon the truth it revealed.

And this was now more than the image of the sweetheart he had sworn to
cherish--it was also the image of himself vowed to his great mission. He
knew that upon neither of these could he suffer a blemish to come if he
would not be forever in agony. With appalling clearness the thing was
lined out before him.

The woman at his side stirred and his eyes were again upon her. At once
she saw the truth in them. Her parted lips came together in a straight
line, shutting the red fulness determinedly in. Then there shone from
her eyes a glad, sweet welcome to the angel that had issued.

His arms seemed to sicken, falling limply from her. She arose without
speaking, and busied herself a little apart, her back to him.

He sat up on the couch, looking about the little room curiously, as one
recovering consciousness in strange surroundings. Then he began slowly
to pull on the wet boots that she had placed near the fire.

When he stood up, put on his coat, and reached for his hat, she came up
to him, hesitating, timid.

"You are so cold! If you would only stay here--I am afraid you will be
sick."

He answered very gently:

"It is better to go. I am strong again, now."

"I would--I would not be near you--and I am afraid for you to go out
again in the cold."

He smiled a little. "_Nothing_ can hurt me now--I am strong."

He opened the door, breathing his fill of the icy air that rushed in. He
stepped outside, then turned to her. She stood in the doorway, the light
from the room melting the darkness about them.

They looked long at each other. Then in a sudden impulse of gratitude,
of generous feeling toward her, he put out his arm and drew her to him.
She was cold, impassive. He bent over and lightly kissed her closed,
unresponding lips. As he drew away, her hand caught his wrist for a
second.

"I'm _glad_!" she said.

He tried to answer, but could only say, "Good night, Mara!"

Then he turned, drew the wide collar of his coat well up, and went down
the narrow path through the snow. She stood, framed in the light of the
doorway, leaning out to look after him until he was lost in the
darkness.

As she stepped back and closed the door, a man, who had halted by a tree
in front of the next house when the door first opened, walked on again.

It had been a great day, but, for one cause or another, it came near to
being one of the last days of the man who had made it great.

Late the next afternoon, Joel Rae was found in his cabin by a messenger
from Brigham. He had presumably lain there unattended since the night
before, and now he was delirious and sick unto death; raving of the sins
of the Saints, and of his great work of reformation. So tenderly
sympathetic was his mind, said those who came to care for him, that in
his delirium he ranked himself among the lowest of sinners in Zion,
imploring them to take him out and bury him in the waters of baptism so
that he might again be worthy to preach them the Word of God.

He was at once given every care, and for six weeks was not left alone
night or day; the good mothers in Israel vying with each other in kindly
offices for the sick Elder, and the men praying daily that he might not
be taken so soon after his great work had begun.

The fifth wife of Elder Pixley came once to sit by his bedside, but when
she heard him rave of some great sin that lay black upon his soul,
beseeching forgiveness for it while the tears rained down his fevered
face, she had professed that his suffering sickened her so she could not
stay. Thereafter she had contented herself with inquiring at his door
each day--until the day when they told her that the sickness was broken;
that he was again rational and doubtless would soon be well. After that
she went no more; which was not unnatural, for Elder Pixley was about to
return from his three years' mission abroad, and there was much to do in
the community-house in preparation for the master's coming.

But the long sickness of the young Elder did not in any manner stay the
great movement he had inaugurated. From that first Sunday the
reformation spread until it had reached every corner of the new Zion.
The leaders took up the accusing cry,--the Elders, Bishops, High
Priests, and Counsellors. Missionaries were appointed for the outlying
settlements, and meetings were held daily in every center, with a
general renewing of covenants.

Brigham, who had warmly seconded Joel Rae's opening discourse, was now,
not unnaturally, the leader of the reformation, and in his preaching to
the Saints while Joel Rae lay sick he committed no faults of vagueness.
For profane swearing he rebuked his people: "You Elders in Israel will
go to the cañons for wood, get a little brush-whipped, and then curse
and swear--damn and curse your oxen and swear by Him who created you.
You rip and curse as bad as any pirates ever did!"

For the sin of cattle-stealing he denounced them. A fence high enough to
keep out cattle-thieves, he told them, must be high enough to keep out
the Devil.

Sometimes his grievance would have a personal basis, as when he told
them: "I have gone to work and made roads to the cañon for wood; and I
have cut wood down and piled it up, and then I have not got it. I wonder
if any of you can say as much about the wood I have left there. I could
tell stories of Elders that found and took my wood that should make
professional thieves blush. And again I have proof to show that Bishops
have taken thousands of pounds of wheat in tithing which they have never
reported to the general tithing-office,--proof that they stole the wheat
to let their friends speculate upon."

Under this very pointed denunciation many of the flock complained
bitterly. But Brigham only increased the flow of his wrath upon them.
"You need," said he, "to have it rain pitchforks, tines downward, from
this pulpit, Sunday after Sunday."

Still there were rebellious Saints to object, and, as Brigham drew the
lines of his wrath tighter, these became more prominent in the
community. When they voiced their discontent, they angered the
priesthood. But when they indicated their purpose to leave the valley,
as many soon did, they gave alarm. An exodus must be prevented at any
cost, and so the priesthood let it be known that migrations from the
valley would be considered as nothing less than apostasy. In Brigham's
own words: "The moment a person decides to leave this people, he is cut
off from every object that is desirable in time or eternity. Every
possession and object of affection will be taken from those who forsake
the truth, and their identity will eventually cease."

But, as the reform wave swept on, it became apparent that these words
had been considered merely figurative by many who were about to seek
homes outside the valley. From every side news came privately that this
family or that was preparing to leave.

And so it came about that the first Sunday Joel Rae was able to walk to
the tabernacle, still weak and wasted and trembling, he heard a sermon
from Brigham which made him question his own soul in an agony of terror.
For, on this day, was boldly preached, for the first time in Zion,
something which had never before been more than whispered among the
highest elect,--the doctrine of blood-atonement--of human sacrifice.

"I am preaching St. Paul, this morning," began Brigham, easily.
"Hebrews, Chapter ix., and Verse 22: 'And almost all things are by the
law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.'
Also, and more especially, first Corinthians, Chapter v., Verse 5: 'To
deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that
the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.' Remember these
words of Paul's. The time has come when justice will be laid to the line
and righteousness to the plummet; when we shall take the old broadsword,
and ask, 'Are you for God?' And if you are not heartily on the Lord's
side, you will be hewn down."

There was a rustling movement in the throng before him, and he paused
until it subsided.

"I tell you there are men and women amongst you who ought to come and
ask me to select a place and appoint a committee to shed their blood.
Only in that way can they be saved, for water will not do. Their sins
are too deep for that. I repeat--there are covenant-breakers here, and
we need a place set apart and men designated to shed their blood for
their own salvation. If any of you ask, do I mean you, I answer yes. We
have tried long enough with you, and now I shall let the sword of the
Almighty be unsheathed, not only in words but in deed. I tell you there
are sins for which men cannot otherwise receive forgiveness in this
world nor in the world to come; and if you guilty ones had your eyes
opened to your true condition, you would be willing to have your blood
spilt upon the ground that the smoke thereof might go up to heaven for
your sins. I know when you hear this talk about cutting people off from
the earth you will consider it strong doctrine; but it is to save them,
and not destroy them. Take a person in this congregation who knows the
principles of that kind of life and sees the beauties of eternity before
him compared with the vain and foolish things of the world--and suppose
he is overtaken in a gross fault which he knows will rob him of that
exaltation which he desires and which he now cannot obtain without the
shedding of his blood; and suppose he knows that by having his blood
shed he will atone for that sin and be saved and exalted with the Gods.
Is there a man or woman here but would say, 'Save me--shed my blood,
that I may be exalted.' And how many of you love your neighbour well
enough to save him in that way? That is what Christ meant by loving our
neighbours as ourselves. I could refer you to plenty of instances where
men have been righteously slain to atone for their sin; I have seen
scores and hundreds of people for whom there would have been a chance in
the last day if their lives had been taken and their blood spilt upon
the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty, but who are now angels
to the Devil because it was not done. The weakness and ignorance of the
nations forbids this law being in full and open force; yet, remember, if
our neighbour needs help we must help him. If his soul is in danger we
must save it.

"Now as to our enemies--apostates and Gentiles--the tree that brings not
forth good fruit shall be hewn down. 'What,' you ask, 'do you believe
that people would do right to put these traitors to death?' Yes! What
does the United States government do with traitors? Examine the doings
of earthly governments on this point and you will find but one practise
universal. A word to the wise is enough; just remember that there are
sins that the blood of a lamb, of a calf, or of a turtle-dove, cannot
remit."

Under this discourse Joel Rae sat terrified, with a bloodless face,
cowering as he had made others to cower six weeks before. The words
seemed to carry his own preaching to its rightful conclusion; but now
how changed was his world!--a whirling, sickening chaos of sin and
remorse.

As he listened to Brigham's words, picturing the blood of the sinner
smoking on the ground, his thoughts fled back to that night, that night
of wondrous light and warmth, the last he could remember before the
great blank came.

Now the voice of Brigham came to him again: "And almost all things are
by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no
remission!"

Then the service ended, and he saw Bishop Wright pushing toward him
through the crowd.

"Well, well, Brother Rae you do look peaked, for sure! But you'll pick
up fast enough, and just in time, too. Lord! what won't Brother Brigham
do when the Holy Ghost gets a strangle-holt on him? Now, then," he
added, in a lower tone, "if I ain't mistaken, there's going to be some
work for the Sons of Dan!"




CHAPTER XV.


_How the Souls of Apostates Were Saved_

The Wild Ram of the Mountains had spoken truly; there was work at hand
for the Sons of Dan. When his Witness at last came to Joel Rae, he tried
vainly to recall the working of his mind at this time; to remember where
he had made the great turn--where he had faced about. For, once, he
knew, he had been headed the way he wished to go, a long, plain road,
reaching straight toward the point whither all the aspirations of his
soul urged him.

And then, all in a day or in a night, though he had seen never a turn in
the road, though he had gone a true and straight course, suddenly he had
looked up to find he was headed the opposite way. After facing his goal
so long, he was now going from it--and never a turn! It was the wretched
paradox of a dream.

The day after Brigham's sermon on blood-atonement, there had been a
meeting in the Historian's office, presided over by Brigham. And here
for the first time Joel Rae found he was no longer looked upon as one
too radical. Somewhat dazedly, too, he realised at this close range the
severely practical aspects of much that he had taught in theory. It was
strange, almost unnerving, to behold his own teachings naked of their
pulpit rhetoric; to find his long-cherished ideals materialised by
literal-minded, practiced men.

He heard again the oath he had sworn, back on the river-flat: "_I will
assist in executing all the decrees of the First President, Patriarch,
or President of the Twelve, and I will cause all who speak evil of the
Presidency or Heads of the Church to die the death of dissenters or
apostates_--" And then he had heard the business of the meeting
discussed. Decisions were reached swiftly, and orders given in words
that were few and plain. Even had these orders been repugnant to him,
they were not to be questioned; they came from an infallible priesthood,
obedience to which was the first essential to his soul's salvation; and
they came again from the head of an organisation to which he was bound
by every oath he had been taught to hold sacred. But, while they left
him dazed, disconcerted, and puzzled, he was by no means certain that
they were repugnant. They were but the legitimate extension of his
teachings since childhood, and of his own preaching.

In custody at Kayesville, twenty-five miles north of Salt Lake City,
were six men who had been arrested by church authority while on their
way east from California. They were suspected of being federal spies.
The night following the meeting which Joel Rae had attended, these
prisoners were attacked while they slept. Two were killed at once; two
more after a brief struggle; and the remaining two the following day,
after they had been pursued through the night. The capable Bishop Wright
declared in confidence to Joel Rae that it reminded him of old days at
Nauvoo.

The same week was saved Rosmas Anderson, who had incurred rejection from
Israel and eternal wrath by his misbehaviour. Becoming submissive to the
decree of the Church, when it was made known to him by certain men who
came in the night, it was believed that his atonement would suffice to
place him once more in the household of faith. He had asked but half a
day to prepare for the solemn ceremony. His wife, regretful but firm in
the faith, had provided clean garments for her sinful husband, and the
appointed executioners dug his grave. They went for him at midnight. By
the side of the grave they had let him kneel and pray. His throat had
then been cut by a deft hand, and he was held so that his blood ran into
the grave, thus consummating the sacrifice to the God of Israel. The
widow, obeying priestly instructions, announced that her husband had
gone to California.

Then the soul of William Parrish at Springville was saved to eternal
glory; also the soul of his son, Beason. For both of these sinful ones
were on the verge of apostasy; had plotted, indeed, and made secret
preparations to leave the valley, all of which were discovered by
church emissaries, fortunately for the eternal welfare of the two most
concerned. Yet a few years later, when the hated Gentiles had gained
some shadow of authority in the new Zion, their minions were especially
bitter as to this feat of mercy, seeking, indeed, to indict the
performers of it.

As to various persons who met death while leaving the valley, opinion
was divided on the question of their ultimate salvation. For it was
announced concerning these, as their bodies were discovered from time to
time, that the Indians had killed them. This being true, they had died
in apostasy, and their rejection from the Kingdom was assured. Yet after
awhile the Saints at large took hope touching the souls of these; for
Bishop Wright, the excellent and able Wild Ram of the Mountains, took
occasion to remark one Sabbath in the course of an address delivered in
the tabernacle: "And it amazes me, brethren, to note how the spirit has
been poured out on the Lamanites. It really does seem as if an Injun
jest naturally hates an apostate, and it beats me how they can tell 'em
the minute they try to sneak out of this valley of the Lord. They must
lie out in them hills jest a-waiting for apostates; and they won't have
anything else; they never touch the faithful. You wouldn't think they
had so much fine feeling to look at 'em. You wouldn't suspect they was
so sensitive, and almost bigoted, you might say. But there it is--and I
don't believe the critters will let many of these vile apostates get
beyond the rocky walls of Zion." Those who could listen between the
words began to suspect that the souls of such apostates had been duly
saved.

Yet one apostate the very next day was rash enough to controvert the
Bishop's views. To a group of men in the public street at high noon and
in a loud voice he declared his intention of leaving for California, and
he spoke evil of the Church.

"I tell you," he said, in tones of some excitement, "men are murdered
here. Their murder is planned by Bishops, Priests, Elders, and Apostles,
by the President and his Counsellors, and then it is done by men they
send to do it. Their laying it on to the Indians don't fool me a minute.
That's the kind of a church this is, and you don't ketch me staying in
it any longer!"

Trees had been early planted in the new settlement, and owing to the
care bestowed upon them by the thrifty colonists, many were now matured.
From a stout limb of one of these the speaker was found hanging the
following morning. A coroner's jury hastily summoned from among the
Saints found that he had committed suicide.

Another whose soul was irrevocably lost was Frederick Loba, who had
refused to take more than one wife in spite of the most explicit advice
from his superiors that he could attain to but little glory either in
this world or that to come with less than three. He crowned his offense
by speaking disrespectfully of Brigham Young. Orders were issued to save
his soul; but before his tabernacle could be seized by those who would
have saved him, the wretched man had taken his one wife and fled to the
mountains. There they wandered many days in the most inclement weather,
lost, famished, and several times but narrowly escaping the little band
that had been sent in pursuit of them; whose members would, had they
been permitted, not only have terminated their bodily suffering, but
saved their souls to a worthy place in the life to come. As it was, they
wandered a distance of three hundred miles, and three days after their
last food was eaten, the man carrying the woman in his arms the last six
miles, they reached a camp of the Snake Indians. These, not sharing with
their Utah brethren the prejudice against apostates, gave them a
friendly welcome, and guided them to Fort Laramie, thereby destroying
for the unhappy man and his wife their last chance of coming forth in
the final resurrection. But few at this time were so unlucky as this
pair; for judgment had begun at the house of the Lord, and Israel was
attentively at work.

It was now that Joel Rae became conscious that he was facing directly
away from the glory he had so long sought and suffered for. Though as
yet no blood for Israel had been shed in his actual presence, he had
attended the meetings of the Sons of Dan, and was kept aware of their
operations. It seemed to him in after years that his faculties had at
this time been in trance.

He was seized at length with an impulse to be away from it all. As the
days went by with their tragedies, he became half wild with restlessness
and a strange fear of himself. In spite of his lifelong training, he
knew there was wrong in the air. He could not question the decrees of
the priesthood, but this much became clear to him,--that only one thing
could carry with it more possibilities of evil than this course of the
Church toward dissenters--and that was to doubt that Brigham Young's
voice was as the voice of God. Not yet could he bring himself to this.
But the unreasoning desire to be away became so strong that he knew he
must yield to it.

Turning this in his mind one day he met a brother Elder, a man full of
zeal who had lately returned from a mission abroad. There had been, he
said, a great outpouring of the spirit in Wales.

"And what a glorious day has dawned here," he continued. "Thank God,
there is a way to save the souls of the blind! That reminds me--have you
heard of the saving work Brother Pixley was obliged to do?"

"Brother Pixley?--no." He heard his own voice tremble, in spite of his
effort at self-control. The other became more confidential, stepping
closer and speaking low.

"Of course, it ain't to be talked of freely, but you have a right to
know, for was it not your own preaching that led to this glorious
reformation? You see, Brother Pixley came back with me, after doing
great works abroad. Naturally, he came full of love for his wives. But
he had been here only a few days when he became convinced that one of
them had forgotten him; something in her manner made him suspect it, for
she was a woman of singularly open, almost recklessly open, nature. Then
a good neighbour came and told him that one night, while on his way for
the doctor, he had seen this woman take leave of her lover--had seen the
man, whom he could not recognise, embrace her at parting. He taxed her
with this, and she at once confessed, though protesting that she had not
sinned, save in spirit. You can imagine his grief, Brother Rae, for he
had loved the woman. Well, after taking counsel from Brigham, he talked
the matter over with her very calmly, telling her that unless her blood
smoked upon the ground, she would be cast aside in eternity. She really
had spiritual aspirations, it seems, for she consented to meet the
ordeal. Then, of course, it was necessary to learn from her the name of
the man--and when all was ready for the sacrifice, Brother Pixley
commanded her to make it known."

"Tell me which of Brother Pixley's wives it was." He could feel the
little cool beads of sweat upon his forehead.

"The fifth, did I not say? But to his amazement and chagrin, she refused
to give him the name of the man, and he had no way of learning it
otherwise, since there was no one he could suspect. He pointed out to
her that not even her blood could save her should she die shielding him.
But she declared that he was a good man, and that rather than bring
disgrace upon him she would die--would even lose her soul; that in truth
she did not care to live, since she loved him so that living away from
him was worse than death. I have said she was a woman of a large nature,
somewhat reckless and generous, and her mistaken notion of loyalty led
her to persist in spite of all the threats and entreaties of her
distressed husband. She even smiled when she told him that she would
rather die than live away from this unknown man, smiled in a way that
must have enraged him--since he had never won that kind of love from her
for himself--for then he let her meet the sacrifice without further
talk. He drew her on to his knee, kissed her for the last time, then
held her head back--and the thing was done. How sad it is that she did
not make a full confession. Then, by her willing sacrifice, she would
have gone direct to the circle of the Gods and Goddesses; but now, dying
as she did, her soul must be lost--"

"Which wife did you say--"

"The fifth--she that was Mara Cavan--but, dear me, Brother Rae! you
should not be out so soon! Why, man, you're weak as a cat! Come, I'll
walk with you as far as your house, and you must lie abed again until
you are stronger. I can understand how you wished to be up as soon as
possible; how proud you must feel that your preaching has led to this
glorious awakening and made it possible to save the souls of many sinful
ones--but you must be careful not to overtax yourself."

Four days later, a white-faced young Elder applied to Brigham for
permission to go to the settlements on the south. He professed to be
sick, to have suffered a relapse owing to incautious exposure so soon
after his long illness. He seemed, indeed, not only to be weak, but to
be much distressed and torn in his mind.

Brigham was gracious enough to accord the desired permission, adding
that the young Elder could preach the revived gospel and rebaptise on
his way south, thus combining work with recreation. He was also good
enough to volunteer some advice.

"What ails you mostly, Brother Joel, is your single state. What you need
is wives. You've been here ten years now, and it's high time. You're
given to brooding over things that are other people's to brood on, and
then, you're naturally soul-proud. Now, a few wives will humble you and
make you more reasonable, like the rest of us. I don't want to be too
downright with you, like I am with some of the others, because I've
always had a special kind of feeling for you, and so I've let you go on.
But you think it over, and talk to me about it when you come back. It's
high time you was building up your thrones and dominions in the
Kingdom."

He started south the next day, riding down between the two mountain
ranges that bordered the valley, stopping at each settlement, breathing
more freely, resting more easily, as each day took him farther away.
Yet, when he closed his eyes, there, like an echo, was the vision of a
woman's face with shining eyes and lips,--a vision that after a few
seconds was washed away by a great wave of blood.

But after a few days, certain bits of news caught up with him that
happily drove this thing from his sight for a time by stirring within
him all his old dread of Gentile persecution.

First he heard that Parley Pratt, the Archer of Paradise and one of the
Twelve Apostles, had been foully murdered back in Arkansas while seeking
to carry to their mother the children of his ninth wife. The father of
these children, so his informant reported, had waylaid and shot him.

Then came rumours of a large wagon-train going south through Utah on its
way to California. Reports said it was composed chiefly of Missourians,
some of whom were said to be boasting that they had helped to expel the
Saints from Jackson County in that State. Also in this train were
reported to be several men from Arkansas who had been implicated in the
assassination of Apostle Pratt.

But news of the crowning infamy reached him the following day,--news
that had put out all thought of his great sin and his bloody secret,
news of a thing so monstrous that he was unable to give it credence
until it had been confirmed by other comers from the north. President
Buchanan, inspired by tales that had reached him of various deeds
growing out of the reformation, and by the treatment which various
Federal officers were said to have received, had decided that rebellion
existed in the Territory of Utah. He had appointed a successor to
Brigham Young as governor, so the report ran, and ordered an army to
march to Salt Lake City for the alleged purpose of installing the new
executive.

Three days later all doubt of the truth of this story was banished. Word
then came that Brigham was about to declare martial law, and that he had
promised that Buchanan's army should never enter the valley.

Now his heart beat high again, with something of the old swift fervour.
The Gentile yoke was at last to be thrown off. War would come, and the
Lord would surely hold them safe while they melted away the Gentile
hosts.

He reached the settlement of Parowan that night, and when they told him
there that the wagon-train coming south--their ancient enemies who had
plundered and butchered them in Jackson County--was to be cut off before
it left the basin, it seemed but right to him, the just vengeance of
Heaven upon their one-time despoilers, and a fitting first act in the
war-drama that was now to be played.

Once more the mob was marching upon them to despoil and murder and put
them into the wilderness. But now God had nerved and strengthened them
to defend the walls of Zion, even against a mighty nation. And as a
token of His favour and His wish, here was a company of their bitterest
foes delivered into their hands. Beside the picture was another; he saw
his sister, the slight, fair girl, in the grasp of the fiends at Haun's
Mill; the face of his father tossing on the muddy current and sucked
under to the river-bottom; and the rough bark cylinder, festooned with
black cloth, holding the worn form of the mother whose breast had nursed
him.

When he started he had felt that he could never again preach while that
secret lay upon him,--that he could no longer rebuke sinners
honestly,--but this matter of war was different.

He preached a moving sermon that day from a text of Samuel: "As thy
sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among
women." And when he was done the congregation had made the little dimly
lighted meeting-house at Parowan ring with a favourite hymn:--

  "Up, awake, ye defenders of Zion!
   The foe's at the door of your homes;
   Let each heart be the heart of a lion,
   Unyielding and proud as he roams.
   Remember the wrongs of Missouri,
   Remember the fate of Nauvoo!
   When the God-hating foe is before ye,
   Stand firm and be faithful and true."




CHAPTER XVI.


_The Order from Headquarters_

He left Parowan the next morning to preach at one of the little
settlements to the east. He was gone three days. When he came back they
told him that the train of Missourians had passed through Parowan and on
to the south. He attended a military council held that evening in the
meeting-house. Three days of reflection, while it had not cooled the
anger he felt toward these members of the mob that had so brutally
wronged his people, had slightly cooled his ardour for aggressive
warfare.

It was rather a relief to know that he was not in a position of military
authority; to feel that this matter of cutting off a wagon-train was in
the hands of men who could do no wrong. The men who composed the council
he knew to be under the immediate guidance of the Lord. Their names and
offices made this certain. There was George A. Smith, First Counsellor
to Brigham, representing as such the second person of the Trinity, and
also one of the Twelve Apostles. There was Isaac Haight, President of
the Cedar City Stake of Zion and High Priest of Southern Utah; there
were Colonel Dame, President of the Parowan Stake of Zion, Philip
Klingensmith, Bishop from Cedar City, and John Doyle Lee, Brigham's most
trusted lieutenant in the south, a major of militia, probate judge,
member of the Legislature, President of Civil Affairs at Harmony, and
farmer to the Indians under Brigham.

When a call to arms came as a result of this council, and an official
decree was made known that the obnoxious emigrant train was to be cut
off, he could not but feel that the deed had heavenly sanction. As to
worldly regularity, the proceeding seemed to be equally faultless. The
call was a regular military call by the superior officers to the
subordinate officers and privates of the regiment, commanding them to
muster, armed and equipped as directed by law, and prepared for field
operations. Back of the local militia officers was his Excellency,
Brigham Young, not only the vicar of God on earth but governor of Utah
and commander-in-chief of the militia. It seemed, indeed, a foretaste of
those glorious campaigns long promised them, when they should go through
the land of the Gentiles "like a lion among the flocks of sheep, cutting
down, breaking in pieces, with none to deliver, leaving the land
desolate."

The following Tuesday he continued south to Cedar City, the most
populous of the southern settlements. Here he learned of the campaign's
progress. Brigham's courier had preceded the train on its way south,
bearing written orders to the faithful to hold no dealings with its
people; to sell them neither forage for their stock nor food for
themselves. They had, it was reported, been much distressed as a result
of this order, and their stock was greatly weakened. At Cedar City, it
being feared that they might for want of supplies be forced to halt
permanently so near the settlement that it would be inconvenient to
destroy them, they were permitted to buy fifty bushels of wheat and to
have it and some corn the Indians had sold them ground at the mill of
Major Lee.

As Joel's informant, the fiery Bishop Klingensmith, remarked, this was
not so generous as it seemed, since, while it would serve to decoy them
on their way toward San Bernardino, they would never get out of the
valley with it. The train had started on, but the animals were so weak
that three days had been required to reach Iron Creek, twenty miles
beyond, and two more days to reach Mountain Meadows, fifteen miles
further south.

Here at daybreak the morning before, Klingensmith told him, a band of
Piede Indians, under Lee's direction, had attacked the train, killing
and wounding a number of the men. It had been hoped, explained
Klingensmith, that the train would be destroyed at once by the Indians,
thus avoiding any call upon the militia; but the emigrants had behaved
with such effectiveness that the Indians were unable to complete the
task. They had corralled their wagons, dug a rifle-pit in the center,
and returned the fire, killing one Indian and wounding two of the
chiefs. The siege was being continued.

The misgiving that this tale caused Joel Rae he put down to unmanly
weakness--and to an unfamiliarity with military affairs. A sight of the
order in Brigham's writing for the train's extermination would have set
his mind wholly at rest; but though he had not been granted this, he was
assured that such an order existed, and with this he was obliged to be
content. He knew, indeed, that an order from Brigham, either oral or
written, must have come; otherwise the local authorities would never
have dared to proceed. They were not the men to act without orders in a
matter so grave after the years in which Brigham had preached his right
to dictate, direct, and control the affairs of his people from the
building of the temple "down to the ribbons a woman should wear, or the
setting up of a stocking."

Late on the following day, Wednesday, while they were anxiously waiting
for news, a messenger from Lee came with a call for reinforcements. The
Indians, although there were three hundred of them, had been unable to
prevail over the little entrenched band of Gentiles. Ten minutes after
the messenger's arrival, the militia, which had been waiting under arms,
set out for the scene in wagons. From Cedar City went every able-bodied
man but two.

Joel Rae was with them, wondering why he went. He wanted not to go. He
preferred that news of the approaching victory should be brought to
him; yet invisible hands had forced him, even while it seemed that
frenzied voices--voices without sound--warned him back.

The ride was long, but not long enough for his mind to clear. It was
still clouded with doubts and questionings and fears when they at last
saw the flaring of many fires with figures loitering or moving busily
about them. As they came nearer, a strange, rhythmic throbbing crept to
his ears; nearer still, he resolved it into the slow, regular beatings
of a flat-toned drum. The measure, deliberate, incessant,
changeless,--the same tones, the same intervals,--worked upon his
strained nerves, at first soothingly and then as a pleasant stimulant.

The wagons now pulled up near the largest camp fire, and the arrivals
were greeted by a dozen or so of the Saints, who, with Major Lee, had
been directing and helping the Indians in their assaults upon the enemy.
Several of these had disguised themselves as Indians for the better
deception of the besieged.

At the right of their camp went the long line of the Indians' fires.
From far down this line came a low ringing chant and the strangely
insistent drum-beats.

"They're mourning old Chief Moqueetus," explained Lee. "He fell asleep
before the fire just about dark, while his corn and potatoes were
cooking, and he had a bad nightmare. The old fellow woke up screaming
that he had his double-hands full of blood, and he grabbed his gun and
was up on top of the hill firing down before he was really awake, I
guess. Anyway, one of the cusses got him--like as not the same one that
did this to-day while I was peeking at them," and he showed them a
bullet-hole in his hat.

At fires near by the Indians were broiling beef cut from animals they
had slaughtered belonging to the wagon-train. Still others were cutting
the hides into strips to be made into lariats. As far down as the line
could be seen, there were dusky figures darting in and out of the
firelight.

A council was at once called of the Presidents, Bishops, Elders, High
Priests, and the officers of the militia who were present. Bishop
Klingensmith bared his massive head in the firelight and opened the
council with prayer, invoking the aid of God to guide them aright. Then
Major Higbee, presiding as chairman, announced the orders under which
they were assembled and under which the train had been attacked.

"It is ordered from headquarters that this party must be used up, except
such as are too young to tell tales. We got to do it. They been acting
terrible mean ever since we wouldn't sell them anything. If we let them
go on now, they been making their brag that they'll raise a force in
California and come back and wipe us out--and Johnston's army already
marching on us from the east. Are we going to submit again to what we
got in Missouri and in Illinois? No! Everybody is agreed about that.
Now the Indians have failed to do it like we thought they would, so we
got to finish it up, that's all."

Joel Rae spoke for the first time.

"You say except such as are too young to tell tales, Brother Higbee;
what does that mean?"

"Why, all but the very smallest children, of course."

"Are there children here?"

Lee answered:

"Oh, a fair sprinkling--about what you'd look for in a train of a
hundred and thirty people. The boys got two of the kids yesterday; the
fools had dressed them up in white dresses and sent them out with a
bucket for water. You can see their bodies lying over there this side of
the spring."

"And there are women?" he asked, feeling a great sickness come upon him.

"Plenty of them," answered Klingensmith, "some mighty fine women, too; I
could see one yesterday, a monstrous fine figure and hair shiny like a
crow's wing, and a little one, powerful pretty, and one kind of between
the two--it's a shame we can't keep some of them, but orders is orders!"

"These women must be killed, too?"

"That's the orders from headquarters, Brother Rae."

"From the military headquarters at Parowan, or from the spiritual
headquarters at Salt Lake?"

"Better not inquire how far back that order started, Brother Rae--not of
me, anyway."

"But women and children--"

"The great Elohim has spoken from the heavens, Brother Rae--that's
enough for me. I can't put my human standards against the revealed will
of God."

"But women and children--" He repeated the words as if he sought to
comprehend them. He seemed like a man with defective sight who has come
suddenly against a wall that he had thought far off. Higbee now
addressed him.

"Brother Rae, in religion you have to eat the bran along with the flour.
Did you suppose we were going to milk the Gentiles and not ever shed any
blood?"

"But innocent blood--"

"There ain't a drop of innocent blood in the whole damned train. And
what are you, to be questioning this way about orders from on high? I've
heard you preach many a time about the sin of such doings as that. You
preach in the pulpit about stubborn clay in the hands of the potter
having to be put through the mill again, and now that you're out here in
the field, seems to me you get limber like a tallowed rag when an order
comes along."

"Defenseless women and little children--" He was still trying to regain
his lost equilibrium. Lee now interposed.

"Yes, Brother Rae, as defenseless as that pretty sister of yours was in
the woods there, that afternoon at Haun's Mill."

The reminder silenced him for the moment. When he could listen again, he
heard them canvassing a plan of attack that should succeed without
endangering any of their own numbers. He walked away from the group to
see if alone, out of the tumult and torrent of lies and half-truths, he
could not fetch some one great unmistakable truth which he felt
instinctively was there.

And then his ears responded again to the slow chant and the constant
measured beat of the flat-toned, vibrant drum. Something in its rhythm
searched and penetrated and swayed and seemed to overwhelm him. It came
as the measured, insistent beat of fate itself, relentless, inexorable;
and all the time it was stirring in him vague, latent instincts of
savagery. He wished it would stop, so that he might reason, yet dreaded
that it might stop at any moment. Fascinated by the weird rhythm and the
hollow beat, he could not summon the will to go beyond its sway.

He walked about the fires or lingered by the groups in consultation
until the first signs of dawn. Then he climbed the low, rocky hill to
the east and peered over the top, the drum-beats still pulsing through
him, still coercing him. As the light grew, he could make out the
details of the scene below. He was looking down into a narrow valley
running north and south, formed by two ranges of rugged, rocky hills
five hundred yards or so apart. To the north this valley widened; to the
south it narrowed until it became a mere gap leading out into the
desert.

Directly below him, half-way between the ranges of hills, was a circle
of covered wagons wheel to wheel. In the center of this a pit had been
dug, and here the besieged were finding such protection as they could
from the rifle-fire that came down from the hills on either side. Even
now he could see Indians lying in watch for any who might attempt to
escape. The camp had been attacked on Monday morning after the wagons
had moved a hundred yards away from the spring. It was now Friday. For
four days, therefore, with only what water they could bring by dashes to
the spring under fire, they had held their own in the pit.

When it grew still lighter he descried, out on his left near the spring,
two spots of white close together, and remembered Lee's tale the night
before of the two little girls sent for water.

At that instant, the chanting and the beat of the drum stopped, and in
the silence a flood of light seemed to shine in upon his mind, showing
him in something of its true aspect the thing they were about to do. Not
clearly did he see it, for he was still torn and dazed--and not in its
real proportions, moreover; for he saw it against the background of his
teaching from the cradle; the murder of their Prophet, the persecution
of the Saints, the outrages put upon his own family, the fate of his
sister, the murder of his father, and the death of his mother; the
coming of an army upon them now to repeat these persecutions; the
reported offenses of this particular lot of Gentiles. And then, too, he
saw it against his own flawless faith in the authority of the
priesthood, his implicit belief that whatsoever they ordered was to be
obeyed as the literal command of God, his unshaken conviction that to
disobey the priesthood was to commit the unforgivable sin of blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost. "If you trifle with the commands of any of the
priesthood," he himself had preached but a few days before, "you are
trifling with Brigham; if you trifle with Brigham, you are trifling with
God; and if you do that, you will trifle yourselves down to hell."

Yet as he looked upon the doomed camp, lying still and quiet in the gray
light,--in spite of breeding, training, habit of thought, and passionate
belief, he felt the horror of it, and a hope came to him out of that
horror. He hurried down the hill and searched among the groups of
Indians until he found Lee.

"Major, isn't there a chance that Brother Brigham didn't order this?"

"Brother Rae, no one has said he did--it wouldn't be just wise."

"But _did_ he--has any one seen the written order or heard who brought
the oral order?"

"Brother Rae, look here, now--you know Brother Brigham. You know his
authority, and you know Dame and Haight. You know they wouldn't either
of them dare do as much as take another wife without asking Brigham
first. Well, then, do you reckon they'd dare order this militia around
in this reckless way to cut off a hundred and thirty people unless they
had mighty good reason to know he wanted it?"

He stood before Lee with bent head; the hope had died. Lee went on:

"And look here, Elder, just as a friendly hint, I wouldn't do any more
of this sentimental talk. Why, in the last six months I've known men to
get blood-atoned for less than you've said."

He saw they were holding another council. Bishop Klingensmith again led
in prayer. He prayed for revelation, for the gifts of the spirit for
each of them, and for every order of the priesthood; that they might
prevail over the army marching against them; that Israel might grow and
multiply and cover the earth with cities and become a people so great
that no man could number them; and that the especial favour of Heaven
might attend them on their righteous smiting of the Gentile host now
delivered over to them by an all-wise Jehovah.

The plan of assault was now again rehearsed, and its details
communicated to their Indian allies. By ten o'clock all was ready.




CHAPTER XVII.


_The Meadow Shambles_

They chose William Bateman to go forward with a flag of truce. He was
short and plump, with a full, round, ingenuous face. He was chosen, so
said Klingensmith, for his plausible ways. He could look right at you
when he said anything; and the moment needed a man of this talent. He
was to enter the camp and say to the people that the Mormons had come to
save them; that on giving up their arms they would be safely conducted
to Cedar City, there to await a proper time for continuing their
journey.

From the hill to the west of the besieged camp they watched the
plausible Bateman with his flag of truce meet one of the emigrants who
came out, also with a white flag, and saw them stand talking a little
time. Bateman then came back around the end of the hill that separated
the two camps. His proposal had been gratefully accepted. The besieged
emigrants were in desperate straits; their dead were unburied in the
narrow enclosure, and they were suffering greatly for want of water.

Major Higbee, in command of the militia, now directed Lee to enter the
camp and see that the plan was carried out. With him went two men with
wagons. Lee was to have them load their weapons into one wagon, to
separate the adults from the children and wounded, who were to be put
into the other, and then march the party out.

As Lee approached the corral its occupants swarmed out to meet
him,--gaunt men, unkempt women and children, with the look of hunted
animals in their eyes. Some of the men cheered feebly; some were silent
and plainly distrustful. But the women laughed and wept for joy as they
crowded about their deliverer; and wide-eyed children stared at him in a
friendly way, understanding but little of it all except that the
newcomer was a desirable person.

It took Lee but a little time to overcome the hesitation of the few
suspicious ones. The plan he proposed was too plainly their only way of
escape from a terrible death. Their animals had been shot down or run
off so that they could neither advance nor retreat. Their ammunition was
almost gone, so that they could not give battle. And, lastly, their
provisions were low, with no chance to replenish them; for on the south
was the most to be dreaded of all American deserts, while on the north
they had for some reason unknown to themselves been unable to buy of the
abundance through which they passed.

Arrangements for the departure were quickly completed under Lee's
supervision. In one wagon were piled the guns and pistols of the
emigrants, together with half a dozen men who had been wounded in the
four days' fighting. In the other wagon a score of the smaller children
were placed, some with tear-stained faces, some crying, and some gravely
apprehensive. At Lee's command the two wagons moved forward. After these
the women followed, marching singly or in pairs; some with little
bundles of their most precious belongings; some carrying babes too young
to be sent ahead in the wagon. A few had kept even their older children
to walk beside them, fearing some evil--they knew not what.

One such, a young woman near the last of the line, was leading by the
hand a little girl of three or four, while on her left there marched a
sturdy, pink-faced boy of seven or eight, whose almost white hair and
eyebrows gave him a look of fright which his demeanour belied. The
woman, looking anxiously back over her shoulder to the line of men,
spoke warningly to the boy as the line moved slowly forward.

"Take her other hand, and stay close. I'm afraid something will
happen-that man who came is not an honest man. I tried to tell them, but
they wouldn't believe me. Keep her hand in yours, and if anything does
happen, run right back there and try to find her father. Remember now,
just as if she were your own little sister."

The boy answered stoutly, with shrewd glances about for possible
danger.

"Of course I'll stay by her. I wouldn't run away. If I'd only had a
gun," he continued, in tones of regretful enthusiasm, "I know I could
have shot some of those Indians--but these, what do you call
them?--Mormons--they'll keep the Indians away now."

"But remember--don't leave my child, for I'm afraid--something warns
me."

Farther back the others had now fallen in, so that the whole company was
in motion. The two wagons were in the lead; then came the women; and
some distance back of these trailed the line of men.

When the latter reached the place where the column of militia stood
drawn up in line by the roadside, they swung their hats and cheered
their deliverers; again and again the cheers rang in tones that were
full of gratitude. As they passed on, an armed Mormon stepped to the
side of each man and walked with him, thus convincing the last doubter
of their sincerity in wishing to guard them from any unexpected attack
by the Indians.

In such fashion marched the long, loosely extended line until the rear
had gone some two hundred yards away from the circle of wagons. At the
head, the two wagons containing the children and wounded had now fallen
out of sight over a gentle rise to the north. The women also were well
ahead, passing at that moment through a lane of low cedars that grew
close to the road on either side. The men were now stepping briskly,
sure at last of the honesty of their rescuers.

Then, while all promised fair, a call came from the head of the line of
men,--a clear, high call of command that rang to the very rear of the
column:

_"Israel, do your duty!"_

Before the faces of the marching men had even shown surprise or
questioning, each Mormon had turned and shot the man who walked beside
him. The same instant brought piercing screams from the column of women
ahead; for the signal had been given while they were in the lane of
cedars where the Indian allies of the Saints had been ambushed. Shots
and screams echoed and reëchoed across the narrow valley, and clouds of
smoke, pearl gray in the morning sun, floated near the ground.

The plan of attack had been well laid for quick success. Most of the men
had fallen at the first volley, either killed or wounded. Here and there
along the all but prostrate line would be seen a struggling pair, or one
of the emigrants running toward cover under a fire that always brought
him low before he reached it.

On the women, too, the quick attack had been almost instantly
successful. The first great volume of mad shrieks had quickly died low
as if the victims were being smothered; and now could be heard only the
single scream of some woman caught in flight,--short, despairing
screams, and others that seemed to be cut short--strangled at their
height.

Joel Rae found himself on the line after the first volley, drawn by
some dread power he could not resist. Yet one look had been enough. He
shut his eyes to the writhing forms, the jets of flame spitting through
the fog of smoke, and turned to flee.

Then in an instant--how it had come about he never knew--he was
struggling with a man who shouted his name and cursed him,--a dark man
with blood streaming from a wound in his throat. He defended himself
easily, feeling his assailant's strength already waning. Time after time
the man called him by name and cursed him, now in low tones, as they
swayed. Then the Saint whose allotted victim this man had been, having
reloaded his pistol, ran up, held it close to his head, fired, and ran
back to the line.

He felt the man's grasp of his shoulders relax, and his body grow
suddenly limp, as if boneless. He let it down to the ground, looking at
last full upon the face. At first glance it told him nothing. Then a
faint sense of its familiarity pushed up through many old memories.
Sometime, somewhere, he had known the face.

The dying man opened his eyes wide, not seeing, but convulsively, and
then he felt himself enlightened by something in their dark
colour,--something in the line of the brow under the black hair;--a face
was brought back to him, the handsome face of the jaunty militia captain
at Nauvoo, the man who had helped expel his people, who had patronised
them with his airs of protector,--the man who had--

It did not come to him until that instant--this man was Girnway. In the
flash of awful comprehension he dropped, a sickened and nerveless heap,
beside the dead man, turning his head on the ground, and feeling for any
sign of life at his heart.

Forward there, where the yells of the Indians had all but replaced the
screams of frantic women--butchered already perhaps, subjected to he
knew not what infamy at the hands of savage or Saint--was the
yellow-haired, pink-faced girl he had loved and kept so long imaged in
his heart; yet she might have escaped, she might still live--she might
even not have been in the party.

He sprang up and found himself facing a white-haired boy, who held a
little crying girl by a tight grasp of her arm, and who eyed him
aggressively.

"What did you hurt Prudence's father for? He was a good man. Did you
shoot him?"

He seized the boy roughly by the shoulder.

"Prudence--Prudence--where is she?"

"Here."

He looked down at the little girl, who still cried. Even in that glance
he saw her mother's prettiness, her pink and white daintiness, and the
yellow shine of her hair.

"Her mother, then,--quick!"

The boy pointed ahead.

"Up there--she told me to take care of Prudence, and when the Indians
came out she made me run back here to look for him." He pointed to the
still figure on the ground before them. And then, making a brave effort
to keep back the tears:

"If I had a gun I'd shoot some Indians;--I'd shoot you, too--you killed
him. When I grow up to be a man, I'll have a gun and come here--"

He had the child in his arms, and called to the boy:

"Come, fast now! Go as near as you can to where you left her."

They ran forward through the gray smoke, stepping over and around bodies
as they went. When they reached the first of the women he would have
stopped to search, but the boy led him on, pointing. And then, half-way
up the line, a little to the right of the road, at the edge of the
cedars, his eye caught the glimpse of a great mass of yellow hair on the
ground. She seemed to have been only wounded, for, as he looked, she was
up on her knees striving to stand.

He ran faster, leaving the boy behind now, but while he was still far
off, he saw an Indian, knife in hand, run to her and strike her down.
Then before he had divined the intent, the savage had gathered the long
hair into his left hand, made a swift circling of the knife with his
right,--and the thing was done before his eyes. He screamed in terror as
he ran, and now he was near enough to be heard. The Indian at his cry
arose and for one long second shook, almost in his face as he came
running up, the long, shining, yellow hair with the gory patch at the
end. Before his staring eyes, the hair was twisting, writhing, and
undulating,--like a golden flame licking the bronzed arm that held it.
And then, as he reached the spot, the Indian, with a long yell of
delight and a final flourish of his trophy, ran off to other prizes.

He stood a moment, breathless and faint, looking with fearful eyes down
at the little, limp, still figure at his feet. One slender, bare arm was
flung out as if she had grasped at the whole big earth in her last
agony.

The spell of fear was broken by the boy, who came trotting up. He had
given way to his tears now, and was crying loudly from fright. Joel made
him take the little girl and sit under a cedar out of sight of the spot.




CHAPTER XVIII.


_In the Dark of the Aftermath_

He was never able to recall the events of that day, or of the months
following, in anything like their proper sequence. The effort to do so
brought a pain shooting through his head. Up to the moment when the
yellow hair had waved in his face, everything had kept a ghastly
distinctness. He remembered each instant and each emotion. After that
all was dark confusion, with only here and there a detached,
inconsequent memory of appalling vividness.

He could remember that he had buried her on the other side of the hill
where a gnarled cedar grew at the foot of a ledge of sandstone, using a
spade that an Indian had brought him from the deserted camp. By her side
he had found the scattered contents of the little bundle she had
carried,--a small Bible, a locket, a worn gold bracelet, and a picture
of herself as he had known her, a half-faded daguerreotype set in a gilt
oval, in a square rubber case that shut with a snap. The little
limp-backed Bible had lain flung open on the ground in the midst of the
other trinkets. He remembered picking these things up and retying them
in the blue silk handkerchief, and then he had twice driven away an
Indian who, finding no other life, came up to kill the two children
huddled at the foot of the cedar.

He recalled that he had at some time passed the two wagons; one of them
was full of children, some crying, some strangely quiet and observant.
The other contained the wounded men whom Lee and the two drivers had
dispatched where they lay.

He remembered the scene close about him where many of the women and
older children had fallen under knife and tomahawk. At intervals had
come a long-drawn scream, terrifying in its shrillness, from some woman
struggling with Saint or savage.

Later he remembered becoming aware that the bodies were being stripped
and plundered; of seeing Lee holding his big white hat for valuables,
while half a dozen men searched pockets and stripped off clothing. The
picture of the naked bodies of a dozen well-grown children tangled in
one heap stayed with him.

Still later, when the last body had been stripped and the smaller
treasures collected, he had known that these and the stock and wagons
were being divided between the Mormons and the Indians; a conflict with
these allies being barely averted, the Indians accusing the Saints of
withholding more than their share of the plunder.

After the division was made he knew that the Saints had all been called
together to take an oath that the thing should be kept secret. He knew,
too, that he had gone over the spot that night, the moon lighting the
naked forms strewn about. Many of them lay in attitudes strangely
lifelike,--here one resting its head upon its arm, there a white face
falling easily back as if it looked up at the stars. He could not recall
why he had gone back, unless to be sure that he had made the grave under
the cedar secure from the wolves.

Some of the men had camped on the spot. Others had gone to Hamblin's
ranch, near the Meadows, where the children were taken. He had sent the
boy there with them, and he could recall distinctly the struggle he had
with the little fellow; for the boy had wished not to be taken from the
girl, and had fought valiantly with fists and feet and his sharp little
teeth. The little girl with her mother's bundle he had taken to another
ranch farther south in the Pine Mountains. He told the woman the child
was his own, and that she was to be kept until he came again.

Where he slept that night, or whether he slept at all, he never knew.
But he had been back on the ground in the morning with the others who
came to bury the naked bodies. He had seen heaps of them piled in little
depressions and the dirt thrown loosely over them, and he remembered
that the wolves were at them all a day later.

Then Dame and Haight and others of high standing in the Church had come
to look over the spot and there another oath of secrecy was taken. Any
informer was to be "sent over the rim of the basin"--except that one of
their number was to make a full report to the President at Salt Lake
City. Klingensmith was then chosen by vote to take charge of the goods
for the benefit of the Church. Klingensmith, Haight, and Higbee, he
recalled, had later driven two hundred head of the cattle to Salt Lake
City and sold them. Klingensmith, too, had put the clothing taken from
the bodies, blood-stained, shredded by bullets and knives, into the
cellar of the tithing office at Cedar City. Here there had been, a few
weeks later, a public auction of the property taken, the Bishop, who
presided as auctioneer, facetiously styling it "plunder taken at the
siege of Sebastopol." The clothing, however, with the telltale marks
upon it, was reserved from the auction and sold privately from the
tithing office. Many stout wagons and valuable pieces of equipment had
thus been cheaply secured by the Saints round about Cedar City.

He knew that the surviving children, seventeen in number, had been "sold
out" to Saints in and about Cedar City, Harmony, and Painter's Creek,
who would later present bills for their keep.

He knew that Lee, whom the Bishops had promised a crown of glory for his
work that day, had gone to Salt Lake City and made a confidential report
to Brigham; that Brigham had at first professed to regard the occurrence
as unfortunate for the Church, though admitting that no innocent blood
had been shed; that he had sworn Lee never to tell the story again to
any person, instructing him to make a written report of the affair to
himself, as Indian agent, charging the deed to the Indians. He was said
to have added on this point, after a period of reflection, "Only
Indians, John, don't save even the little children." He was reported to
have told Lee further, on the following day, that he had asked God to
take the vision from his sight if the killing had been a righteous
thing, and that God had done so, thus proving the deed in the sight of
heaven to have been a just vengeance upon those who had once made war
upon the Saints in Missouri.

With these and with many another disjointed memory of the day Joel Rae
was cursed; of how Hamblin the following spring had gathered a hundred
and twenty skulls on the ground where the wolves had left them, and
buried them again; of how an officer from Camp Floyd had built a cairn
on the spot and erected a huge cross to the memory of the slain; of how
the thing became so dire in the minds of those who had done it, that
more than one man lost his reason, and two were known to have killed
themselves to be rid of the death-cries of women.

But the clearest of all among the memories of the day itself was the
prayer offered up as they stood amid the heaps of fresh earth, after
they had sworn the oath of secrecy; how God had been thanked for
delivering the enemy into their hands, and how new faith and better
works were promised to Him for this proof of His favour.

The memory of this prayer stayed with him many years: "Bless Brother
Brigham--bless him; may the heavens be opened unto him, and angels visit
and instruct him. Clothe him with power to defend Thy people and to
overthrow all who may rise against us. Bless him in his basket and in
his store; multiply and increase him in wives, children, flocks and
herds, houses and lands. Make him very great to be a lawgiver and God to
Thy people, and to command them in all things whatsoever in the future
as in the past."

Nor did he forget that, soon after he had listened to this prayer, and
the forces had dispersed, he had made two discoveries;--first, that his
hair was whitening; second, that he could not be alone at night and keep
his reason.




CHAPTER XIX.


_The Host of Israel Goes forth to Battle_

He went north in answer to the call for soldiers. He went gladly. It
promised activity--and company.

A score of them left Cedar City with much warlike talk, with many
ringing prophecies of confusion to the army now marching against them,
and to the man who had sent it. They cited Fremont, Presidential
candidate of the newly organised Republican party the year before, with
his catch phrase, "The abolition of slavery and polygamy, the twin
relics of barbarism." Fremont had been defeated. And there was Stephen
A. Douglas, once their staunch friend and advocate in Illinois; but the
year before he had turned against them, styling polygamy "the loathsome
ulcer of the body politic," asserting that the people of Utah were bound
by oath to recognise only the authority of Brigham Young; that they were
forming alliances with Indians and organising Danite bands to rob and
murder American citizens; and urging a rigid investigation into these
enormities. For this slander Brigham had hurled upon him the anathema
of the priesthood, in consequence of which Douglas had failed to secure
even a nomination for the high office which he sought.

And now Buchanan was in a way to draw upon himself that retribution
which must ever descend upon the foes of Israel. Brigham was at last to
unleash the dogs of war. They recalled his saying when they came into
the valley, "If they will let us alone for ten years, we will ask no
odds of Uncle Sam or the Devil." The ten years had passed and the Devil
was taking them at their word. One of them recalled the prophecy of
another inspired leader, Parley Pratt, the Archer of Paradise: "Within
ten years from now the people of this country who are not Mormons will
be entirely subdued by the Latter-day Saints or swept from the face of
the earth; and if this prophecy fails, then you may know the Book of
Mormon is not true."

Their great day was surely at hand. Their God of Battles reigned. All
through the Territory the leaders preached, prayed, and taught nothing
but war; the poets made songs only of war; and the people sang only
these. Public works and private were alike suspended, save the
manufacture of new arms, the repairing of old, and the sharpening of
sabers and bayonets.

On the way, to fire their ardour, they were met by Brigham's
proclamation. It recited that "for the last twenty-five years we have
trusted officials of the government from constables and justices to
judges, governors, and presidents, only to be scorned, held in
derision, insulted, and betrayed. Our houses have been plundered and
burned, our fields laid waste, our chief men butchered while under the
pledged faith of the government for their safety; and our families
driven from their homes to find that shelter in the wilderness and that
protection among hostile savages which were denied them in the boasted
abodes of Christianity and civilisation." It concluded by forbidding all
armed forces of every description to enter the Territory under any
pretence whatever, and declaring martial law to exist until further
notice. The little band hurried on, eager to be at the front.

The day he reached Salt Lake City, Joel Rae was made major of militia.
The following day, he attended the meeting at the tabernacle. He needed,
for reasons he did not fully explain to himself, to receive fresh
assurance of Brigham's infallibility, of his touch with the Holy Ghost,
of his goodness as well as his might; to be caught once more by the
compelling magnetism of his presence, the flash of his eye, and the
inciting tones of his voice. All this he found.

"Is there," asked Brigham, "a collision between us and the United
States? No, we have not collashed--that is the word that sounds nearest
to what I mean. But the thread is cut between us and we will never gybe
again, no, never--worlds without end. I am not going to have their
troops here to protect the priests and rabble in their efforts to drive
us from the land we possess. The Lord does not want us to be driven. He
has said to me, 'If you will assert your rights and keep my
commandments, you shall never again be brought into bondage by your
enemies.' The United States says that their army is legal, but I say
that such a statement is false as hell, and that those States are as
rotten as an old pumpkin that has been frozen seven times over and then
thawed in a harvest sun. We can't have that army here and have
peace--you might as well tell me you could make hell into a
powder-house. And so we shall melt those troops away. I promise you our
enemies shall never 'slip the bow on old Bright's neck again.'"

Joel Rae was again under the sway of his old warlike feelings. Brigham
had revived his fainting faith. He went out into the noise and hurry of
war preparations in a sort of intoxication. Underneath he never ceased
to be conscious of the dreadful specter that would not be gone--that
stood impassive and immovable as one of the mountains about him, waiting
for him to come to it and face it and live his day of reckoning,--the
day of his own judgment upon himself. But he drank thirstily of the
martial draught and lived the time in a fever of tumultuous drunkenness
to the awful truth.

He saw to it that he was never alone by day or night. Once a new thought
and a sudden hope came to him, and he had been about to pray that in the
campaign he was entering he might be killed. But a second thought
stayed him; he had no right to die until he had faced his own judgment.

The army of Israel was now well organised. It had taken all able-bodied
males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. There were a
lieutenant-general, four generals, eleven colonels, and six majors. In
addition to the Saints' own forces there were the Indians, for Brigham
had told a messenger who came to ascertain his disposition toward the
approaching army that he would "no longer hold the Indians by the
wrist." This messenger had suggested that, while the army might be kept
from entering the valley that winter, it would assuredly march in, the
following spring. Brigham's reply had not lacked the point that
sharpened most of his words.

"Before we shall suffer what we have in times gone by we will burn and
lay waste our improvements, and you will find the desert here again.
There will not be left one building, nor one foot of lumber, nor a stick
or tree or particle of grass or hay that will burn. I will lay this
valley utterly waste in the name of Israel's God. We have three years'
provisions, which we will cache, and then take to the mountains." The
messenger had returned to Fort Bridger and the measures of defense went
forward in the valley.

Forces were sent into Echo Cañon, the narrow defile between the
mountains through which an army would have to pass. On the east side men
were put to building stone ramparts as a protection for riflemen. On
the west, where the side was sloping, they dug pits for the same
purpose. They also built dams to throw large bodies of water along the
west side of the cañon so that an army would be forced to the east side;
and here at the top of the cliff, great quantities of boulders were
placed so that a slight leverage would suffice to hail them down upon
the army as it marched below.

When word came that the invaders had crossed the Utah line, Brigham sent
forward a copy of his proclamation and a friendly note of warning to the
officer in command. In this he directed that officer to retire from the
Territory by the same route he had entered it; adding, however, "should
you deem this impracticable and prefer to remain until spring in the
vicinity of your present position at Black's Fork or Green River, you
can do so in peace and unmolested on condition that you deposit your
arms and ammunition with Lewis Robinson, Quartermaster-General of the
Territory, and leave as soon in the spring as the roads will permit you
to march. And should you fall short of provisions they will be furnished
you upon making the proper application." The officer who received this
note had replied somewhat curtly that the forces he commanded were in
Utah by order of the President of the United States and that their
future movements would depend wholly upon orders issued by competent
military authority. Thus the issue was forced.

In addition to the defense of Echo Cañon, certain aggressive moves were
made. To Joel Rae was allotted command of one of these. His orders
promised all he could wish of action. He read them and felt something
like his old truculent enthusiasm.

"You will proceed with all possible dispatch, without injuring your
animals, to the Oregon Road near the bend of Bear River, north by east
of this place. When you approach the road, send scouts ahead to
ascertain if the invading troops have passed that way. Should they have
passed, take a concealed route and get ahead of them. On ascertaining
the locality of the troops, proceed at once to annoy them in every
possible way. Use every exertion to stampede their animals and set fire
to their trains. Burn the whole country before them and on their flanks.
Keep them from sleeping, by night surprises; blockade the road by
felling trees, or destroying river fords where you can. Watch for
opportunities to set fire to the grass on their windward, so as to
envelope their trains if possible. Leave no grass before them that can
be burned. Keep your men concealed as much as possible, and guard
against surprise. God bless you and give you success.

"YOUR BROTHER IN CHRIST."

Forty-four men were placed under his command to perform this work, and
all of them were soon impressed, even to alarm, by the very evident
reliance of their leader upon the God of Israel rather than upon any
merely human wisdom of his own.

The first capture was not difficult. After an all-night ride they came
up with a supply-train of twenty-five wagons drawn by oxen. The captain
of this train was ordered to "go the other way" until he reached the
States. He started; but as he retraced his steps as often as they moved
away, they at length burned his train and left him.

And then the recklessness of the new-fledged major became manifest. He
sent one of his captains with twenty men to capture or stampede the
mules of the Tenth Regiment, while he with the remainder of his force
set off toward Sandy Fork in search of more wagon-trains. When his
scouts late in the day reported a train of twenty-six wagons, he was
advised by them that he ought not to attack it with so small a force;
but to this advice he was deaf, rebuking the men for their little faith.

He allowed the train to proceed until after dark, and then drew
cautiously near. Learning, however, that the drivers were drunk, he had
his force lie concealed for a time, fearing that they might prove
belligerent and thus compel him to shed blood, which he wished not to
do.

At midnight the scouts reported that the train was drawn up in two lines
for the night and that all was quiet. He mounted his command and ordered
an advance. Approaching the camp, they discovered a fact that the scouts
had failed to note; a second train had joined the first, and the little
host of Israel was now confronted by twice the anticipated force. This
discovery was made too late for them to retire unobserved. The men,
however, expected their leader to make some inquiry concerning the road
and then ride on. But they had not plumbed the depth of his faith.

As the force neared the camp-fire close to the wagons, the rear of the
column was lost in the darkness. What the teamsters about the fire saw
was an apparently endless column of men advancing upon them. Their
leader halted the column, called for the captain of the train, ordered
him to have his men stack their arms, collect their property, and stand
by under guard. Dismounting from his horse, he fashioned a torch and
directed one of the drivers to apply it to the wagons, in order that
"the Gentiles might spoil the Gentiles." By the time the teamsters had
secured their personal belongings and a little stock of provisions for
immediate necessity the fifty wagons were ablaze. The following day, on
the Big Sandy, they destroyed another train and a few straggling
sutlers' wagons.

And so the campaign went forward. As the winter came on colder, the
scouts brought in moving tales of the enemy's discomfiture. Colonel
Alexander of the Federal forces, deciding that the cañons could be
defended by the Saints, planned to approach Salt Lake City over a
roundabout route to the north. He started in heavy snow, cutting a road
through the greasewood and sage-brush. Often his men made but three
miles a day, and his supply-train was so long that sometimes half of it
would be camped for the night before the rear wagons had moved. As there
was no cavalry in the force the hosts of Israel harassed them sorely on
this march, on one day consecrating eight hundred head of their oxen and
driving them to Salt Lake.

Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding the expedition, had also suffered
greatly with his forces. The early snows deprived his stock of forage,
and the unusual cold froze many oxen and mules.

Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke of the Second Dragoons, with whom travelled the
newly appointed governor, was another to suffer. At Fort Laramie so many
of his animals had dropped out that numbers of his men were dismounted,
and the ambulances used to carry grain. Night after night they huddled
at the base of cliffs in the fearful eddies of the snow, and heard above
the blast the piteous cries of their famished and freezing stock. Day
after day they pushed against the keen blades of the wind, toiling
through frozen clouds and stinging ice blasts. The last thirty-five
miles to Fort Bridger had required fifteen days, and at one camp on
Black's Fork, which they called the "camp of Death," five hundred
animals perished in a night.

Nor did the hardships of the troops end when they had all reached what
was to be their winter quarters. Still a hundred and fifteen miles from
the City of the Saints, they were poorly housed against the bitter cold,
poorly fed, and insufficiently clothed, for the burning of the trains by
the Lord's hosts had reduced all supplies.

Reports of this distress were duly carried to Brigham and published to
the Saints. Their soldiers had made good their resolve to prevent the
Federal army from passing the Wasatch Mountains. Aggressive operations
ceased for the winter, and the greater part of the militia returned to
their homes. A small outpost of fifty men under the command of Major
Joel Rae--who had earnestly requested this assignment--was left to guard
the narrows of Echo Cañon and to keep watch over the enemy during the
winter. This officer was now persuaded that the Lord's hand was with
them. For the enemy had been wasted away even by the elements from the
time he had crossed the forbidden line.

In Salt Lake City that winter, the same opinion prevailed. They were
henceforth to be the free and independent State of Deseret.

"Do you want to know," asked Brigham, in the tabernacle, "what is to be
done with the enemy now on our borders? As soon as they start to come
into our settlements, let sleep depart from their eyes until they sleep
in death! Men shall be secreted along the route and shall waste them
away in the name of the God of Battles. The United States will have to
make peace with us. Never again shall we make peace with them."

And they sang with fervour:--

  "By the mountains our Zion's surrounded,
     Her warriors are noble and brave;
   And their faith on Jehovah is founded,
     Whose power is mighty to save.
   Opposed by a proud, boasting nation,
     Their numbers compared may be few;
   But their Ruler is known through creation,
     And they'll always be faithful and true."




CHAPTER XX.


_How the Lion of the Lord Roared Soft_

But with the coming of spring some fever that had burned in the blood of
the Saints from high to low was felt to be losing its heat. They had
held the Gentile army at bay during the winter--with the winter's help.
But spring was now melting the snows. Reports from Washington, moreover,
indicated that a perverse generation in the States had declined to
accept the decrees of Israel's God without further proofs of their
authenticity.

With a view to determining this issue, Congress had voted more money for
troops. Three thousand men were to march to the reinforcement of the
army of Johnston on Black's Fork; forty-five hundred wagons were to
transport their supplies; and fifty thousand oxen and four thousand
mules were to pull these wagons. War, in short, was to be waged upon
this Israel hidden in the chamber of the mountains. To Major Rae,
watching on the outposts of Zion from behind the icy ramparts of Echo
Cañon, the news was welcome, even enlivening. The more glory there
would be in that ultimate triumph which the Lord was about to secure for
them.

In Brigham and the other leaders, however, this report induced deep
thought. And finally, on a day, they let it be known that there could no
longer be any thought of actual war with the armies of the Gentile. Joel
Rae in Echo Cañon was incredulous. There must be battle given. The Lord
would make them prevail; the living God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
Jacob, would hold them up. And battle must be given for another reason,
though he hardly dared let that reason be plain to himself. For only by
continuing the war, only by giving actual battle to armed soldiers, by
fighting to the end if need be--only so could that day in Mountain
Meadows be made to appear as anything but--he shuddered and could not
name it. Even if actual war were to be fought on and on for years, he
believed that day could hardly be justified; but at least it could be
made in years of fighting to stand less horribly high and solitary. They
must fight, he thought, even if it were to lose all. But the Lord would
stay them. How much more wicked and perverse, then, to reject the
privilege!

When he heard that the new governor, who had been in the snow with
Johnston's army all winter, was to enter Salt Lake City and take his
office--a Gentile officer to sit on the throne of Brigham--he felt that
the Ark of the Covenant had been thrown down. "Let us not," he implored
Brigham in a letter sent him from Echo Cañon, "be again dragooned into
servile obedience to any one less than the Christ of God!"

But Brigham's reply was an order to pass the new governor through Echo
Cañon. According to the terms of this order he was escorted through at
night, in a manner to convince him that he was passing between the lines
of a mighty and far-flung host. Fires were kindled along the heights and
the small force attending him was cunningly distributed and duplicated,
a few of its numbers going ahead from time to time, halting the rest of
the party and demanding the countersign.

Joel Rae found himself believing that he could now have been a fiercer
Lion of the Lord than Brigham was; for he would have fought, while
Brigham was stooping to petty strategies--as if God were needing to rely
upon deceits.

He was only a little appeased when, on going to Salt Lake City, he
learned Brigham's intentions more fully. The new governor had been
installed; but the army of Johnston was to turn back. This was Brigham's
first promise. Soon, however, this was modified. The government, it
appeared, was bent upon quartering its troops in the valley; and Zion,
therefore, would be again led into the wilderness. The earlier promise
was repeated--and the earlier threat--to the peace commissioners now
sent on from Washington.

"We are willing those troops should come into our country, but not stay
in our city. They may pass through if need be, but must not be
quartered within forty miles of us. And if they come here to disturb
this people, before they reach here this city will be in ashes; every
house and tree and shrub and blade of grass will be destroyed. Here are
twenty years' gathering, but it will all burn. You will have won back
the wilderness, barren again as on the day we entered it, but you will
not have conquered the people. Our wives and children will go to the
cañons and take shelter in the mountains, while their husbands and sons
will fight you. You will be without fuel, without subsistence for
yourselves or forage for your animals. You will be in a strange land,
while we know every foot of it. We will haunt and harass you and pick
you off by day and by night, and, as God lives, we will waste your army
away."

This was hopeful. Here at least was another chance to suffer
persecution, and thus, in a measure, atone for any monstrous wrong they
might have done. He hoped the soldiers would come despoiling,
plundering, thus compelling them to use the torch and to flee. Another
forced exodus would help to drive certain memories from his mind and
silence the cries that were now beginning to ring in his ears.

Obedient to priestly counsel, the Saints declined, in the language of
Brigham, "to trust again in Punic faith." In April they began to move
south, starting from the settlements on the north. During that and the
two succeeding months thirty thousand of them left their homes. They
took only their wagons, bedding, and provisions, leaving their other
possessions to the mercy of the expected despoiler. Before locking the
doors of their houses for the last time, they strewed shavings, straw,
and other combustibles through the rooms so that the work of firing the
city could be done quickly. A score of men were left behind to apply the
torch the moment it became necessary,--should a gate be swung open or a
latch lifted by hostile hands. Their homes and fields and orchards might
be given back to the desert from which they had been won; but never to
the Gentile invaders.

To the south the wagons crept, day after day, to some other unknown
desert which their prophet should choose, and where, if the Lord willed,
they would again charm orchards and gardens and green fields from the
gray, parched barrens.

Late in June the army of Johnston descended Emigration Cañon, passed
through the echoing streets of the all but deserted city and camped on
the River Jordan. But, to the deep despair of one observer, these
invaders committed no depredation or overt act. After resting
inoffensively two days on the Jordan, they marched forty miles south to
Cedar Valley, where Camp Floyd was established.

Thus, no one fully comprehending how it had come about, peace was seen
suddenly to have been restored. The people, from Brigham down, had been
offered a free pardon for all past treasons and seditions if they would
return to their allegiance to the Federal government; the new officers
of the Territory were installed, sons of perdition in the seats of the
Lord's mighty; and sermons of wrath against Uncle Sam ceased for the
moment to resound in the tabernacle. Early in July, Brigham ordered the
people to return to their homes. They had offered these as a sacrifice,
even as Abraham had offered Isaac, and the Lord had caught them a timely
ram in the thicket.

In the midst of the general rejoicing, Joel Rae was overwhelmed with
humiliation and despair. He was ashamed for having once wished to be
another Lion of the Lord. It was a poor way to find favour with God, he
thought,--this refusing battle when it had been all but forced upon
them. It was plain, however, that the Lord meant to try them
further,--plain, too, that in His inscrutable wisdom He had postponed
the destruction of the wicked nation to the east of them.

He longed again to rise before the people and call them to repentance
and to action. Once he would have done so, but now an evil shadow lay
upon him. Intuitively he knew that his words would no longer come with
power. Some virtue had gone out of him. And with this loss of confidence
in himself came again a desire to be away from the crowded center.

Off to the south was the desert. There he could be alone; there face God
and his own conscience and have his inmost soul declare the truth about
himself. In his sadness he would have liked to lead the people with him,
lead them away from some evil, some falsity that had crept in about
them; he knew not what it was nor how it had come, but Zion had been
defiled. Something was gone from the Church, something from Brigham,
something from himself,--something, it almost seemed, even from the God
of Israel. When the summer waned, his plan was formed to go to one of
the southern settlements to live. Brigham had approved. The Church
needed new blood there.

He rode out of the city one early morning in September, facing to the
south over the rolling valley that lay between the hills now flaunting
their first autumn colours. He was in haste to go, yet fearful of what
he should meet there.

A little out of the city he passed a man from the south, huddled high on
the seat under the bow of his wagon-cover, who sang as he went one of
the songs that had been so popular the winter before:--

  "Old squaw-killer Harney is on the way
   The Mormon people for to slay.
   Now if he comes, the truth I'll tell,
   Our boys will drive him down to hell--
       Du dah, du dah, day!"

He smiled grimly as the belated echo of war came back to him.




CHAPTER XXI.


_The Blood on the Page_

Along the level lane between the mountain ranges he went, a lane that
runs almost from Bear Creek on the north to the Colorado on the south,
with a width of twenty miles or so. But for Joel Rae it became a ride
down the valley of lost illusions. Some saving grace of faith was gone
from the people. He passed through sturdy little settlements, bowered in
gardens and orchards, and girded about by now fertile acres where once
had been the bare, gray desert. Slowly, mile by mile, the Saints had
pushed down the valley, battling with the Indians and the elements for
every acre of land they gained. Yet it seemed to him now that they had
achieved but a mere Godless prosperity. They had worked a miracle of
abundance in the desert--but of what avail? For the soul of their faith
was gone. He felt or heard the proof of it on every hand.

Through Battle Creek, Provo, and Springville he went; through Spanish
Fork, Payson, Salt Creek, and Fillmore. He stopped to preach at each
place, but he did it perfunctorily, and with shame for himself in his
secret heart. Some impalpable essence of spirituality was gone from
himself and from the people. He felt himself wickedly agreeing with a
pessimistic elder at Fillmore, who remarked: "I tell you what, Brother
Rae, it seems like when the Book of Mormon goes again' the Constitution
of the United States, there's sure to be hell to pay, and the Saints
allus has to pay it." He could not tell the man in words of fire, as
once he would have done, that they had been punished for lack of faith.

Another told him it was madness to have thought they could "whip" the
United States. "Why," said this one, "they's more soldiers back there
east of the Missouri than there is fiddlers in hell!" By the orthodox
teachings of the time, the good man of Israel had thus indicated an
overwhelming host.

He passed sadly on. They would not understand that they had laid by and
forgotten their impenetrable armour of faith.

Between Beaver and Paragonah that day, toiling intently along the dusty
road in the full blaze of the August sun, he met a woman,--a tall,
strong creature with a broad, kind face, burned and seamed and hardened
by life in the open. Yet it was a face that appealed to him by its look
of simple, trusting earnestness. Her dress was of stout, gray homespun,
her shoes were coarse and heavy, and she was bareheaded, her gray,
straggling hair half caught into a clumsy knot at the back of her head.
She turned out to pass him without looking up, but he stopped his horse
and dismounted before her. It seemed to him that here was one whose
faith was still fresh, and to such a one he needed to talk. He called to
her:

"You need something on your head; you are burned."

She looked up, absently at first, as if neither seeing nor hearing him.
Then intelligence came into her eyes.

"You mean my Timothy needs something on his head--poor man! You see he
broke out of the house last night, because the Bishop told him I was to
take another husband. Cruel! Oh, so cruel!--the poor foolish man, he
believed it, and he cared so for me. He thought I was bringing home a
new man with me--a new wedding for time and eternity, to build myself up
in the Kingdom--a new wedding night--with him sitting off, cold and
neglected. But something burst in his head. It made a roar like the mill
at Cedar Creek when it grinds the corn--just like that. So he went out
into the cold night--it was sleeting--thinking I'd never miss him, you
see, me being fondled and made over by the new man--wouldn't miss him
till morning." A scowl of indignation darkened her face for an instant,
and she paused, looking off toward the distant hills.

"But that was all a lie, a mean lie! I don't see how he could have
believed it. I think he couldn't have been right up here--" she pointed
to her head.

"But of course I followed him, and I've been following him all day. He
must have got quite a start of me--poor dear--how could he think I'd
break his heart? But I'll have him found by night. I must hurry, so good
day, sir!" She curtsied to him with a curious awkward sort of grace. He
stopped her again.

"Where will you sleep to-night?"

"In his arms, thank God!"

"But if you happen to miss him--you might not find him until to-morrow."

A puzzled look crossed her face, and then came the shadow of a
disquieting memory.

"Now you speak so, I remember that it wasn't last night he left--it was
the night before--no?--perhaps three or four nights. But not as much as
a fortnight. I remember my little baby came the night he left. I was so
mad to find him I suffered the mother-pains out in the cold rain--just a
little dead baby--I could take no interest in it. And there has been a
night or two since then, of course. Sleep?--oh, I'll sleep some easy
place where I can hear him if he passes--sometimes by the road, in a
barn, in houses--they let me sleep where I like. I must hurry now. He's
waiting just over that hill ahead."

He saw her ascend the rise with a new spring in her step. When she
reached the top, he saw her pause and look from side to side below her,
then start hopefully down toward the next hill.

A mile beyond, back of a great cloud of dust, He found a drove of
cattle, and back of these, hot and voiceful, came the good Bishop
Wright. He described the woman he had just met, and inquired if the
Bishop knew her.

The Wild Ram of the Mountain mopped his dusty, damp brow, took an easier
seat in his saddle, and fanned himself. "Oh, yes, that's the first wife
of Elder Tench. When he took his second, eight or ten years ago,
something went wrong with this one in her head. She left the house the
same night, and she's been on the go ever since. She don't do any harm,
jest tramps back and forth between Paragonah and Parowan and Summit and
Cedar City. I always _have_ said that women is the contrary half of the
human race and man is the sanifying half!"

The cattle were again in motion, and the Bishop after them with strong
cries of correction and exhortation.

Toward evening Joel Rae entered Paragonah, a loose group of log houses
amid outlying fields, now shorn and yellow. Along the street in front of
him many children followed and jeered in the wake of a man who slouched
some distance ahead of them. As Joel came nearer, one boy, bolder than
the others, ran forward and tugged sharply at the victim's ragged gray
coat. At this he turned upon his pursuers, and Joel Rae saw his
face,--the face of an imbecile, with unsteady eyes and weakly drooping
jaw. He raised his hand threateningly at his tormentors, and screamed at
them in rage. Then, as they fell back, he chuckled to himself. As Joel
passed him, he was still looking back at the group of children now
jeering him from a safe distance, his eyes bright for the moment, and
his face lighted with a weak, loose-lipped smile.

"Who is that fellow, Bishop?" he asked of his host for the night, a few
moments later, when he dismounted in front of the cabin. The Bishop
shaded his eyes with his hand and peered up the road at the shambling
figure once more moving ahead of the tormenting children.

"That? Oh, that's only Tom Potwin. You heard about him, I guess. No?
Well, he's a simple--been so four years now. Don't you recollect? He's
the lad over at Manti who wouldn't give up the girl Bishop Warren Snow
wanted. The priesthood tried every way to make him; they counselled him,
and that didn't do; then they ordered him away on mission, but he
wouldn't go; and then they counselled the girl, but she was stubborn
too. The Bishop saw there wasn't any other way, so he had him called to
a meeting at the schoolhouse one night. As soon as he got there, the
lights was blowed out, and--well, it was unfortunate, but this boy's
been kind of an idiot ever since."

"Unfortunate! It was awful!"

"Not so awful as refusing to obey counsel."

"What became of the girl?"

"Oh, she saw it wasn't no use trying to go against the Lord, so she
married the Bishop. He said at the time that he knew she'd bring him bad
luck--she being his thirteenth--and she did, she was that hifalutin. He
had to put her away about a year ago, and I hear she's living in a
dugout somewhere the other side of Cedar City, a-starving to death they
tell me, but for what the neighbours bring her. I never did see why the
Bishop was so took with her. You could see she'd never make a worker,
and good looks go mighty fast."

He dreamed that night that the foundations of the great temple they were
building had crumbled. And when he brought new stones to replace the
old, these too fell away to dust in his hands.

The next evening he reached Cedar City. Memories of this locality began
to crowd back upon him with torturing clearness; especially of the
morning he had left Hamblin's ranch. As he mounted his horse two of the
children saved from the wagon-train had stood near him,--a boy of seven
and another a little older, the one who had fought so viciously with him
when he was separated from the little girl. He remembered that the
younger of the two boys had forgotten all but the first of his name. He
had told them that it was John Calvin--something; he could not remember
what, so great had been his fright; the people at the ranch, because of
his forlorn appearance, had thereupon named him John Calvin Sorrow.

These two boys had watched him closely as he mounted his horse, and the
older one had called to him, "When I get to be a man, I'm coming back
with a gun and kill you till you are dead yourself," and the other,
little John Calvin Sorrow, had clenched his fists and echoed the threat,
"We'll come back here and kill you! Mormons is worse'n Indians!"

He had ridden quickly away, not noting that some of the men standing by
had looked sharply at the boys and then significantly at one another.
One of those who had been present, whom he now met, told him of these
two boys.

"You see, Elder, the orders from headquarters was to save only them that
was too young to give evidence in a court. But these two was very
forward and knowing. They shouldn't have been kept in the first place.
So two men--no need of naming names--took both of them out one night.
They got along all right with the little one, the one they called John
Calvin Sorrow--only the little cuss kicked and scrambled so that we both
had to see to him for a minute, and when we was ready for the other,
there he was at least ten rods away, a-legging it into the scrub oak.
Well, they looked and looked and hunted around till daybreak, but he'd
got away all right, the moon going under a cloud. They tracked him quite
a ways when it come light, till his tracks run into the trail of a big
band of Navajos that had been up north trading ponies and was going back
south. He was the one that talked so much about you, but you needn't
ever have any fear of his talking any more. He'd be done for one way or
another."

For the first time in his life that night, he was afraid to
pray,--afraid even to give thanks that others were sleeping in the room
with him so that he could hear their breathing and know that he was not
alone.

He was up betimes to press on to the south, again afraid to pray, and
dreading what was still in store for him. For sooner or later he would
have to be alone in the night. Thus far since that day in the Meadows he
had slept near others, whether in cabins or in camp, in some freighter's
wagon or bivouacking in the snows of Echo Cañon. Each night he had been
conscious, at certain terrible moments of awakening, that others were
near him. He heard their breathing, or in the silence a fire's light had
shown him a sleeping face, the lines of a form, or an arm tossed out.
What would happen on the night he found himself alone, he knew
not--death, or the loss of reason. He knew what the torture would
be,--the shrieks of women in deadly terror, the shrill cries of
children, the low, tense curses of men, the rattle of shots, the yells
of Indians, the heavy, sickening smell of blood, the still forms fallen
in strange positions of ease, the livid faces distorted to grins. He had
not been able to keep the sounds from his ears, but thus far the things
themselves had stayed behind him, moving always, crawling, writhing,
even stepping furtively close at his back, so that he could feel their
breath on his neck. When the time came that these should move around in
front of him, he thought it would have to be the end. They would go
before him, a wild, bleeding, raving procession, until they tore his
heart from his breast. One sight he feared most of all,--a bronzed arm
with a wide silver bracelet at the wrist, the hand clutching and waving
before him heavy strands of long, yellow hair with a gory patch at the
end,--living hair that writhed and undulated to catch the light, coiling
about the arm like a golden serpent.

His way lay through the Meadows, yet he hardly realised this until he
was fairly on the ground in the midst of a thousand evil signs of the
day. Here, a year after, were skulls and whitening bones, some in heaps,
some scattered through the sage-brush where the wolves had left them.
Many of the skulls were pierced with bullet-holes, shattered as by heavy
blows, or cleft as with a sharp-edged weapon. Even more terrifying than
these were certain traces caught here and there on the low scrub oaks
along the way,--children's sunbonnets; shreds of coarse lace, muslin,
and calico; a child's shoe, the tattered sleeve of a woman's dress--all
faded, dead, whipped by the wind.

He pressed through it all with set jaws, trying to keep his eyes fixed
upon the ground beyond his horse's head; but his ears were at the mercy
of the cries that rang from every thicket.

Once out of it, he rode hard, for it must not come yet--his first night
alone. By dusk he had reached the new settlement of Amalon, a little off
the main road in a valley of the Pine Mountains. Here he sought the
house where he had left the child. When he had picketed his horse he
went in and had her brought to him,--a fresh little flower-like
woman-child, with hair and eyes that told of her mother, with reminders
of her mother's ways as she stood before him, a waiting poise of the
head, a lift of the chin. They looked at each other in the candle-light,
the child standing by the woman who had brought her, looking up at him
curiously, and he not daring to touch her or go nearer. She became
uneasy and frightened at last, under his scrutiny, and when the woman
would have held her from running away, began to cry, so that he gave the
word to let her go. She ran quickly into the other room of the cabin,
from which she called back with tears of indignation in her voice,
"You're not my papa--not my _real_ papa!"

When the people were asleep, he sat before the blaze in the big
fireplace, on the hearth cleanly swept with its turkey-wing and
buffalo-tail. There was to be one more night of his reprieve from
solitude. The three women of the house and the man were sleeping around
the room in bunks. The child's bed had been placed near him on the floor
after she slept, as he had asked it to be. He had no thought of sleep
for himself. He was too intensely awake with apprehension. On the floor
beside his chair was a little bundle the woman had brought him,--the
bundle he had found loosened by her side, that day, with the trinkets
scattered about and the limp-backed little Bible lying open where it had
fallen.

He picked the bundle up and untied it, touching the contents timidly. He
took up the Bible last, and as he did so a memory flooded back upon him
that sickened him and left him trembling. It was the book he had given
her on her seventeenth birthday, the one she had told him she was
keeping when they parted that morning at Nauvoo. He knew the truth
before he opened it at the yellowed fly-leaf and read in faded ink,
"From Joel to Prudence on this day when she is seventeen years old--June
2d, 1843."

In a daze of feeling he turned the pages, trying to clear his mind,
glancing at the chapter headings as he turned,--"Abram is Justified by
Faith," "God Instructeth Isaac," "Pharaoh's Heart Is Hardened," "The
Laws of Murder," "The Curses for Disobedience." He turned rapidly and at
last began to run the leaves from between his thumb and finger, and
then, well over in the book something dark caught his eye. He turned the
leaves back again to see what it was; but not until the book was opened
flat before him and he held the page close to the light did he see what
it was his eye had caught. A wash of blood was across the page.

He stared blankly at the reddish, dark stain, as if its spell had been
hypnotic. Little by little he began to feel the horror of it,
remembering how he picked the book up from where it had fallen before
her. Slowly, but with relentless certainty, his mind cleared to what he
saw.

Now for the first time he began to notice the words that showed dimly
through the stain, began to read them, to puzzle them out, as if they
were new to him:--

   "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them
    which hate you,

   "Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use
    you.

   "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the
    other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy
    coat also.

   "Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away
    thy goods ask them not again.

   "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them
    likewise."

Again and again he read them. They were illumined with a strangely
terrible meaning by the blood of her he had loved and sworn to keep
himself clean for.

He could no longer fight off the truth. It was facing him now in all its
nakedness, monstrous to obscenity, demanding its due measure from his
own soul's blood. He aroused himself, shivering, and looked out into the
room where the shadows lay heavy, and from whence came the breathing of
the sleepers. He picked up the now sputtering candle, set in its hole
bored in a block of wood, and held it up for a last look at the little
woman-child. He was full of an agony of wonder as he gazed, of piteous
questioning why this should be as it was. The child stirred and flung
one arm over her eyes as if to hide the light. He put out the candle and
set it down. Then stooping over, he kissed the pillow beside the child's
head and stepped lightly to the door. He had come to the end of his
subterfuges--he could no longer delay his punishment.

Outside the moon was shining, and his horse moved about restlessly. He
put on the saddle and rode off to the south, galloping rapidly after he
reached the highway. Off there was a kindly desert where a man could
take in peace such punishment as his body could bear and his soul
decree; and where that soul could then pass on in decent privacy to be
judged by its Maker.




CHAPTER XXII.


_The Picture in the Sky_

If something of the peace of the night-silence came to him as he rode,
he counted it only the peace of surrender and despair. He knew now that
he had been cheated of all his great long-nursed hopes of some superior
exaltation. Nor this only; for he had sinned unforgivably and incurred
perdition. He who had fasted, prayed, and endured, waiting for his
Witness, for the spreading of the heavens and the glory of the open
vision, had overreached himself and was cast down.

When at last he slowed his horse to a walk, it was the spring of the
day. The moon had gone, and over on his left a soft grayness began to
show above the line of the hills. The light grew until it glowed with
the fire of opals; through the tree-tops ran little stirs of
wakefulness, and all about him were faint, furtive rustlings and
whispers of the new day. Then in this glorified dusk of the dawn a
squirrel loosed his bark of alarm, a crested jay screamed in answer, and
he knew his hour of atonement was come.

He pressed forward again toward the desert, eager to be on with it. The
page with the wash of blood across it seemed to take on a new vividness
in the stronger light. Under the stain, the letters of the words were
magnified before his mind,--"_And as ye would that men should do to
you_--" It seemed to him that the blood through which they came heated
the words so that they burned his eyes.

An hour after daybreak the trail led him down out of the hills by a
little watercourse to the edge of the desert. Along the sides of this
the chaparral grew thickly, and the spring by which he halted made a
little spot of green at the edge of the gray. But out in front of him
was the infinite stretch of death, far sweeps of wind-furrowed sand
burning under a sun made sullen red by the clouds of fine dust in the
air. Sparsely over the dull surface grew the few shrubs that could
survive the heat and dryness,--stunted, unlovely things of burr, spine,
thorn, or saw-edged leaf,--all bent one ways by the sand blown against
them,--bristling cactus and crouching mesquite bushes.

In the vast open of the blue above, a vulture wheeled with sinister
alertness; and far out among the dwarfed growing things a coyote skulked
knowingly. The weird, phantom-like beauty of it stole upon him, torn as
he was, while he looked over the dry, flat reaches. It was a good place
to die in, this lifeless waste languishing under an angry sun. And he
knew how it would come. Out to the south, as many miles as he should
have strength to walk, away from any road or water-hole, a great thirst
would come, and then delirium, perhaps bringing visions of cool running
water and green trees. He would hurry toward these madly until he
stumbled and fell and died. Then would come those cynical scavengers of
the desert, the vulture wheeling lower, the coyote skulking nearer,
pausing suspiciously to sniff and to see if he moved. Then a few poor
bones, half-buried by the restless sand, would be left to whiten and
crumble into particles of the same desert dust he looked upon. As for
his soul, he shuddered to think its dissolution could not also be made
as sure.

He stood looking out a long time, held by the weak spirit of a hope that
some reprieve might come, from within or from on high. But he saw only
the page wet with blood, and the words that burned through it into his
eyes; heard only the cries of women in their death-agony and the
stealthy movements of the bleeding shapes behind him. There was no ray
of hope to his eye nor note of it to his ear--only the cries and the
rustlings back of him, driving him out.

At last he gave his horse water, tied the bridle-rein to the horn of the
saddle, headed him back over the trail to the valley and turned him
loose. Then, after a long look toward the saving green of the hills, he
started off through the yielding sand, his face white and haggard but
hard-set. He was already weakened by fasting and loss of sleep, and the
heat and dryness soon told upon him as the chill was warmed from the
morning air.

When he had walked an hour, he felt he must stop, at least to rest. He
looked back to see how far he had come. He was disappointed by the
nearness of the hills; they seemed but a stone's throw away. If delirium
came now he would probably wander back to the water. He lay down,
determining to gather strength for many more miles. The sand was hot
under him, and the heat of a furnace was above, but he lay with his head
on his arm and his hat pulled over his face. Soon he was half-asleep, so
that dreams would alternate with flashes of consciousness; or sometimes
they merged, so that he would dream he had wandered into a desert, or
that the stifling heat of a desert came to him amid the snows of Echo
Cañon. He awakened finally with a cry, brushing from before his eyes a
mass of yellow hair that a dark hand shook in his face.

He sat up, looked about a moment, and was on his feet again to the
south, walking in the full glare of the sun, with his shadow now
straight behind him. He went unsteadily at first, but soon felt new
vigour from his rest.

He walked another hour, then turned, and was again disappointed--it was
such a little distance; yet he knew now he must be too far out to find
his way back when the madness came. So it was with a little sigh of
contentment that he lay down again to rest or to take what might come.

Again he lay with his head on his arm in the scorching sands, with his
hat above his face, and again his dreams alternated with consciousness
of the desolation about him--alternated and mingled so that he no longer
knew when he did not sleep. And again he was tortured to wakefulness, to
thirst, and to heat, by the yellow hair brandished before him.

He sat up until he was quite awake, and then sank back upon the sand
again, relieved to find that he felt too weak to walk further. His mind
had become suddenly cleared so that he seemed to see only realities, and
those in their just proportions. He knew he had passed sentence of death
upon himself, knew he had been led to sin by his own arrogance of soul.
It came to him in all its bare, hard simplicity, stripped of the
illusions and conceits in which his pride had draped it, thrusting sharp
blades of self-condemnation through his heart. In that moment he doubted
all things. He knew he had sinned past his own forgiveness, even if
pardon had come from on high; knew that no agony of spear and thorns
upon the cross could avail to take him from the hell to which his own
conscience had sent him.

He was quite broken. Not since the long-gone night on the river-flat
across from Nauvoo had tears wet his eyes. But they fell now, and from
sheer, helpless grief he wept. And then for the first time in two days
he prayed--this time the prayer of the publican:--

"_God be merciful to me, a sinner_."

Over and over he said the words, chokingly, watering the hot sands with
his tears. When the paroxysm had passed, it left him, weak and prone,
still faintly crying his prayer into the sand, "O God, be merciful to
me, a sinner."

When he had said over the words as long as his parched throat would let
him, he became quiet. To his amazement, some new, strange peace had
filled him. He took it for the peace of death. He was glad to think it
was coming so gently--like a kind mother soothing him to his last sleep.

His head on his arm, his whole tired body relaxing in this new
restfulness, he opened his eyes and looked off to the south, idly
scanning the horizon, his eyes level with the sandy plain. Then
something made him sit quickly up and stare intently, his bared head
craning forward. To the south, lying low, was a mass of light clouds,
volatile, changing with opalescent lights as he looked. A little to the
left of these clouds, while his head was on the sand, he thought his
eyes had detected certain squared lines.

Now he scanned the spot with a feverish eagerness. At first there was
only the endless empty blue. Then, when his wonder was quite dead and he
was about to lie down, there came a miracle of miracles,--a vision in
the clear blue of the sky. And this time the lines were coherent. He,
the dying sinner, had caught, clearly and positively for one awful
second in that sky, the flashing impression of a cross. It faded as
soon as it came, vanished while he gazed, leaving him in gasping,
fainting wonder at the marvel.

And then, before he could think or question himself, the sky once more
yielded its vision; again that image of a cross stayed for a second in
his eyes, and this time he thought there were figures about it. Some
picture was trying to show itself to him. Still reaching his body
forward, gazing fearfully, his aroused body pulsing swiftly to the
wonder of the thing, he began to pray again, striving to keep his
excitement under.

"O God, have mercy on me, a sinner!"

Slowly at first, it grew before his fixed eyes, then quickly, so that at
the last there was a complete picture where but an instant before had
been but a meaningless mass of line and colour. Set on a hill were many
low, square, flat-topped houses, brown in colour against the gray ground
about them. In front of these houses was a larger structure of the same
material, a church-like building such as he had once seen in a picture,
with a wooden cross at the top. In an open square before this church
were many moving persons strangely garbed, seeming to be Indians. They
surged for a moment about the door of the church, then parted to either
side as if in answer to a signal, and he saw a procession of the same
people coming with bowed heads, scourging themselves with short whips
and thorned branches. At their head walked a brown-cowled monk, holding
aloft before him a small cross, attached by a chain to his waist. As he
led the procession forward, another crowd, some of them being other
brown-cowled monks, parted before the church door, and there, clearly
before his wondering eyes was erected a great cross upon which he saw
the crucified Saviour.

He saw those in the procession form about the cross and fling themselves
upon the ground before it, while all the others round about knelt. He
saw the monk, standing alone, raise the smaller cross in his hands above
them, as if in blessing. High above it all, he saw the crucified one,
the head lying over on the shoulder.

Then he, too, flung himself face down in the sand, weeping hysterically,
calling wildly, and trying again to utter his prayer. Once more he dared
to look up, in some sudden distrust of his eyes. Again he saw the
prostrate figures, the kneeling ones farther back, the brown-cowled monk
with arms upraised, and the face of agony on the cross.

He was down in the sand again, now with enough control of himself to cry
out his prayer over and over. When he next looked, the vision was gone.
Only a few light clouds ruffled the southern horizon.

He sank back on the sands in an ecstasy. His Witness had come--not as he
thought it would, in a moment of spiritual uplift; but when he had been
sunk by his own sin to fearful depths. Nor had it brought any message of
glory for himself, of gifts or powers. Only the mission of suffering and
service and suffering again at the end. But it was enough.

How long he lay in the joy of the realisation he never knew, but sleep
or faintness at last overcame him.

He was revived by the sharp chill of night, and sat up to find his mind
clear, alert, and active with new purposes. He had suffered greatly from
thirst, so that when he tried to say a prayer of thanksgiving he could
not move his swollen tongue. He was weakened, too, but the freezing cold
of the desert night aroused all his latent force. He struggled to his
feet, and laid a course by the light of the moon back to the spring he
had left in the morning. How he reached the hills again he never knew,
nor how he made his way over them and back to the settlement. But there
he lay sick for many days, his mind, when he felt it at all, tossing
idly upon the great sustaining consciousness of that vision in the
desert.

The day which he next remembered clearly, and from which he dated his
new life, was one when he was back in the Meadows. He had ridden there
in the first vagueness and weakness of his recovery, without purpose,
yet feeling that he must go. What he found there made him believe he had
been led to the spot. Stark against the glow of the western sky as he
rode up, was a huge cross. He stopped, staring in wonder, believing it
to be another vision; but it stayed before him, rigid, bare, and
uncompromising. He left his horse and climbed up to it. At its base was
piled a cairn of stones, and against this was a slab with an
inscription:--

"Here 120 Men, Women, and Children Were Massacred in Cold Blood Early in
September, 1857."

On the cross itself was carved in deep letters:--

"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

He fell on his knees at the foot and prayed, not weeping nor in any
fever of fear, but as one knowing his sin and the sin of his Church. The
burden of his prayer was, "O God, my own sin cannot be forgiven--I know
it well--but let me atone for the sins of this people and let me guide
them aright. Let me die on this cross a hundred deaths for each life
they put out, or as many more as shall be needed to save them."

He was strong in his faith again, conscious that he himself was lost,
but burning to save others, and hopeful, too, for he believed that a
miracle had been vouchsafed to him in the desert.

Nor would the good _padre_, at the head of his procession of penitents
in his little mission out across the desert, have doubted less that it
was a miracle than did this unhappy apostle of Joseph Smith, had he
known the circumstance of its timeliness; albeit he had become familiar
with such phenomena of light and air in the desert.




CHAPTER XXIII.


_The Sinner Chastens himself_

How to offer the greatest sacrifice--how to do the greatest
service--these had become his problems. He concerned himself no longer
with his own exaltation either in this world or the world to come.

He resolved to stay south, fearing vaguely that in the North he would be
in conflict with the priesthood. He knew not how; he felt that he was
still sound in his faith, but he felt, too, some undefined antagonism
between himself and those who preached in the tabernacle. For his home
he chose the settlement of Amalon, set in a rich little valley between
the shoulders of the Pine Mountains.

Late in October there was finished for him on the outer edge of the
town, near the bank of a little hill-born stream, a roomy log-house,
mud-chinked, with a water-tight roof of spruce shakes and a floor of
whipsawed plank,--a residence fit for one of the foremost teachers in
the Church, an Elder after the Order of Melchisedek, an eloquent
preacher and one true to the blessed Gods. At one end of the cabin, a
small room was partitioned off and a bunk built in it. A chair and a
water-basin on a block comprised its furniture. This room he reserved
for himself.

As to the rest of the house, his ideas were at first cloudy. He knew
only that he wished to serve. Gradually, however, as his mind worked
over the problem, the answer came with considerable clearness. He
thought about it much on his way north, for he was obliged to make the
trip to Salt Lake City to secure supplies for the winter, some needed
articles of furniture for the house, and his wagons and stock.

He was helped in his thinking on a day early in the journey. Near a
squalid hut on the outskirts of Cedar City he noticed a woman staggering
under an armful of wood. She was bareheaded, with hair disordered, her
cheeks hollowed, and her skin yellow and bloodless. He remembered the
tale he had heard when he came down. He thought she must be that wife of
Bishop Snow who had been put away. He rode up to the cabin as the woman
threw her wood inside. She was weak and wretched-looking in the extreme.

"I am Elder Rae. I want to know if you would care to go to Amalon with
me when I come back. If you do, you can have a home there as long as you
like. It would be easier for you than here."

She had looked up quickly at him in much embarrassment. She smiled a
little when he had finished.

"I'm not much good to work, but I think I'd get stronger if I had
plenty to eat. I used to be right strong and well."

"I shall be along with my wagons in two weeks or a little more. If you
will go with me then I would like to have you. Here, here is money to
buy you food until I come."

"You've heard about me, have you--that I'm a divorced woman?"

"Yes, I know."

She looked down at the ground a moment, pondering, then up at him with
sudden resolution.

"I can't work hard and--I'm not--pretty any longer--why do you want to
marry me?"

Her question made him the more embarrassed of the two, and she saw as
much, but she could not tell why it was.

"Why," he stammered, "why,--you see--but never mind. I must hurry on
now. In about two weeks--" And he put the spurs so viciously to his
horse that he was nearly unseated by the startled animal's leap.

Off on the open road again he thought it out. Marriage had not been in
his mind when he spoke to the woman. He had meant only to give her a
home. But to her the idea had come naturally from his words, and he
began to see that it was, indeed, not an unnatural thing to do. He dwelt
long on this new idea, picturing at intervals the woman's lack of any
charm or beauty, her painful emaciation, her weakness.

Passing through another village later in the day, he saw the youth who
had been so unfortunate as to love this girl in defiance of his Bishop.
Unmolested for the time, the imbecile would go briskly a few steps and
then pause with an important air of the deepest concern, as if he were
engaged on an errand of grave moment. He was thinly clad and shivering
in the chill of the late October afternoon.

Again, still later in the day, he overtook and passed the gaunt, gray
woman who forever sought her husband. She was smiling as he passed her.
Then his mind was made up.

As he entered Brigham's office in Salt Lake City some days later, there
passed out by the same door a woman whom he seemed dimly to remember.
The left half of her face was disfigured by a huge flaming scar, and he
saw that she had but one hand.

"Who was that woman?" he asked Brigham, after they had chatted a little
of other matters.

"That's poor Christina Lund. You ought to remember her. She was in your
hand-cart party. She's having a pretty hard time of it. You see, she
froze off one hand, so now she can't work much, and then she froze her
face, so she ain't much for looks any longer--in fact, I wouldn't say
Christina was much to start with, judging from the half of her face
that's still good--and so, of course, she hasn't been able to marry. The
Church helps her a little now and then, but what troubles her most is
that she'll lose her glory if she ain't married. You see, she ain't a
worker and she ain't handsome, so who's going to have her sealed to
him?"

"I remember her now. She pushed the cart with her father in it from the
Platte crossing, at Fort Laramie, clear over to Echo Cañon, when all the
fingers of one hand came off on the bar of the cart one afternoon; and
then her hand had to be amputated. Brother Brigham, she shouldn't be
cheated of her place in the Kingdom."

"Well, she ain't capable, and she ain't a pretty person, so what can she
do?"

"I believe if the Lord is willing I will have her sealed to me."

"It will be your own doings, Brother Rae. I wouldn't take it on myself
to counsel that woman to anybody."

"I feel I must do it, Brother Brigham."

"Well, so be it if you say. She can be sealed to you and be a star in
your crown forever. But I hope, now that you've begun to build up your
kingdom, you'll do a little better, next time. There's a lot of pretty
good-looking young women came in with a party yesterday--"

"All in good time, Brother Brigham! If you're willing, I'll pick up my
second on the way south."

"Well, well, now that's good!" and the broad face of Brigham glowed with
friendly enthusiasm. "You know I'd suspicioned more than once that you
wasn't overly strong on the doctrinal point of celestial marriage. I
hope your second, Brother Joel, is a little fancier than this one."

"She'll be a better worker," he replied.

"Well, they're the most satisfactory in the long run. I've found that
out myself. At any rate, it's best to lay the foundations of your
kingdom with workers, the plainer the better. After that, a man can
afford something in the ornamental line now and then. Now, I'll send for
Christina and tell her what luck she's in. She hasn't had her endowments
yet, so you might as well go through those with her. Be at the
endowment-house at five in the morning."

And so it befell that Joel Rae, Elder after the Order of Melchisedek,
and Christina Lund, spinster, native of Denmark, were on the following
day, after the endowment-rites had been administered, married for time
and eternity.

At the door of the endowment-house they were separated and taken to
rooms, where each was bathed and anointed with oil poured from a horn. A
priest then ordained them to be king and queen in time and eternity.
After this, they were conducted to a large apartment, and left in
silence for some moments. Then voices were heard, the voice of Elohim in
converse with Jehovah. They were heard to declare their intention of
visiting the earth, and this they did, pronouncing it good, but deciding
that one of a higher order was needed to govern the brutes. Michael, the
Archangel, was then called and placed on earth under the name of Adam,
receiving power over the beasts, and being made free to eat of the fruit
of every tree but one. This tree was a small evergreen, with bunches of
raisins tied to its branches.

Discovering that it was not good for man to be alone, Brigham, as God,
then caused a sleep to fall upon Adam, and fashioned Eve from one of his
ribs. Then the Devil entered, in black silk knee-breeches, approaching
with many blandishments the woman who was enacting the rôle of Eve. The
sin followed, and the expulsion from the garden.

After this impressive spectacle, Joel and the rapturous Christina were
taught many signs, grips, and passwords, without which one may not pass
by the gatekeepers of heaven. They were sworn also to avenge the murder
of Joseph Smith upon the Gentiles who had done it, and to teach their
children to do the same; to obey without questioning or murmur the
commands of the priesthood; and never to reveal these secret rites under
penalty of having their throats cut from ear to ear and their hearts and
tongues cut out.

When this oath had been taken, they passed into a room containing a
long, low altar covered with red velvet. At one end, in an armchair, sat
Brigham, no longer in the rôle of God, but in his proper person of
Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. They knelt on either side of this altar,
and, with hands clasped above it in the secret grip last given to them,
they were sealed for time and eternity.

From the altar they went to the wagons and began their journey south.
Christina came out of the endowment-house, glowing, as to one side of
her face. She was, also, in a state of daze that left her able to say
but little. Proud and happy and silent, her sole remark, the first day
of the trip, was: "Brigham--now--he make such a lovely, _bee-yoo-tiful_
God in heaven!"

Nor, it soon appeared, was she ever talkative. The second day, too, she
spoke but once, which was when a sudden heavy shower swept down from the
hills and caught her some distance from the wagons, helping to drive the
cattle. Then, although she was drenched, she only said: "It make down
somet'ing, I t'ink!"

For this taciturnity her husband was devoutly thankful. He had married
her to secure her place in the Kingdom and a temporal home, and not
otherwise did he wish to be concerned about her. He was glad to note,
however, that she seemed to be of a happy disposition; which he did at
certain times when her eyes beamed upon him from a face radiant with
gratitude.

But his work of service had only begun. As they went farther south he
began to make inquiries for the wandering wife of Elder Tench. He came
upon her at length as she was starting north from Beaver at dusk. He
prevailed upon her to stop with his party.

"I don't mind to-night, sir, but I must be off betimes in the morning."

But in the morning he persuaded her to stay with them.

"Your husband is out of the country now, but he's coming back soon, and
he will stop first at my house when he does come. So stay with me there
and wait for him."

She was troubled by this at first, but at last agreed.

"If you're sure he will come there first--"

She refused to ride in the wagon, however, preferring to walk, and
strode briskly all day in the wake of the cattle.

At Parowan he made inquiries for Tom Potwin, that other derelict, and
was told that he had gone south. Him, too, they overtook on the road
next day, and persuaded to go with them to a home.

When they reached Cedar City a halt was made while he went for the other
woman--not without some misgiving, for he remembered that she was still
young. But his second view of her reassured him--the sallow, anemic
face, the skin drawn tightly over the cheek-bones, the drooping
shoulders, the thin, forlorn figure. Even the certainty that her life of
hardship was ended, that she was at least sure not to die of privation,
had failed to call out any radiance upon her. They were married by a
local Bishop, Joel's first wife placing the hand of the second in his
own, as the ceremony required. Then with his wives, his charges, his
wagons, and his cattle he continued on to the home he had made at the
edge of Amalon.

Among the women there was no awkwardness or inharmony; they had all
suffered; and the two wives tactfully humoured the whims of the insane
woman. On the day they reached home, the husband took them to the door
of his own little room.

"All that out there is yours," he said. "Make the best arrangements you
can. This is my place; neither of you must ever come in here."

They busied themselves in unpacking the supplies that had been brought,
and making the house home-like. The big gray woman had already gone down
the road toward the settlement to watch for her husband, promising,
however, to return at nightfall. The other derelict helped the women in
their work, doing with a childish pleasure the things they told him to
do. The second wife occasionally paused in her tasks to look at him from
eyes that were lighted to strange depths; but he had for her only the
unconcerned, unknowing look that he had for the others.

At night the master of the house, when they had assembled, instructed
them briefly in the threefold character of the Godhead. Then, when he
had made a short prayer, he bade them good night and went to his room.
Here he permitted himself a long look at the fair young face set in the
little gilt oval of the rubber case. Then, as if he had forgotten
himself, he fell contritely to his knees beside the bunk and prayed that
this face might never remind him of aught but his sin; that he might
have cross after cross added to his burden until the weight should crush
him; and that this might atone, not for his own sins, which must be
punished everlastingly, but in some measure for the sins of his
misguided people.

In the outer room his wives, sitting together before the big fireplace,
were agreeing that he was a good man.




CHAPTER XXIV.


_The Coming of the Woman-Child_

The next day he sent across the settlement for the child, waiting for
her with mixed emotions,--a trembling merge of love and fear, with
something, indeed, of awe for this woman-child of her mother, who had
come to him so deviously and with a secret significance so mighty of
portent to his own soul. When they brought her in at last, he had to
brace himself to meet her.

She came and stood before him, one foot a little advanced, several dolls
clutched tightly under one arm, and her bonnet swinging in the other
hand. She looked up at him fearlessly, questioningly, but with no sign
of friendliness. He saw and felt her mother in all her being, in her
eyes and hair, in the lines of her soft little face, and indefinably in
her way of standing or moving. He was seized with a sudden fear that the
mother watched him secretly out of the child's eyes, and with the
child's lips might call to him accusingly, with what wild cries of
anguish and reproach he dared not guess. He strove to say something to
her, but his lips were dry, and he made only some half-articulate sound,
trying to force a smile of assurance.

Then the child spoke, her serious, questioning eyes upon him
unwaveringly.

"Are you a damned Mormon?"

It broke the spell of awe that had lain upon him, so that he felt for
the moment only a pious horror of her speech. He called Christina to
take charge of her, and Martha, the second wife, to put away her little
bundle of clothing, and Tom Potwin to fetch water for her bath. He
himself went to be alone where he could think what must be done for her.
From an entry in the little Bible, written in letters that seemed to
shout to him the accusation of his crime, he had found that she must now
be five years old. It was plainly time that he should begin to supply
her very apparent need of religious instruction.

When she had become a little used to her surroundings later in the day,
he sought to beguile her to this end, beginning diplomatically with
other matters.

"Come, tell me your name, dear."

She allowed her attention to be diverted from her largest doll.

"My name is Prudence--" She hesitated.

"Prudence--what?"

"I--I lost my mind of it." She looked at him hopefully, to be prompted.

"Prudence Rae."

She repeated the name, doubtingly, "Prudence Rae?"

"Yes--remember now--Prudence Rae. You are my little girl--Prudence Rae."

"But you're not my really papa--he's went far off--oh, ten ninety miles
far!"

"No, Prudence--God is your Father in heaven, and I am your father on
earth--"

"But not my _papa_!"

"Listen, Prudence--do you know what you are?"

The puzzled look she had worn fled instantly from her face.

"I'm a generation of vipers."

She made the announcement with a palpable ring of elation in her tones,
looking at him proudly, and as if waiting to hear expressions of
astonishment and delight.

"Child, child, who has told you such things? You are not that!"

She retorted, indignantly now, the lines drawing about her eyes in
signal of near-by tears:

"I _am_ a generation of vipers--the Bishop said I was--he told that
other mamma, and I _am_ it!"

"Well, well, don't cry--all right--you shall be it--but I can tell you
something much nicer." He assumed a knowing air, as one who withheld
knowledge of overwhelming fascinations.

"Tell me--_what_?"

[Illustration: "BUT YOU'RE NOT MY REALLY PAPA!"]

And so, little by little, hardly knowing where to begin, but feeling
that any light whatsoever must profit a soul so benighted, he began to
teach her. When she had been put to bed at early candle-light, he went
to see if she remembered her lesson.

"What is the name of God in pure language?"

And she answered, with zest, "Ahman."

"What is the name of the Son of God?"

"Son Ahman,--the greatest of all the parts of God excepting Ahman."

"What is the name of man?"

"Sons Ahman."

"That is good--my little girl shall be chosen of the Lord."

He waited by her until sleep should come, but her mind had been stirred,
and long after he thought she slept she startled him by asking, in a
voice of entire wakefulness: "If I am a good little girl, and learn all
the _right_ things--_then_ can I be a generation of vipers?" She
lingered with relish on the phrase, giving each syllable with
distinctness and gusto. When he was sure that she slept, he leaned over
very carefully and kissed the pillow beside her head.

In the days that followed he wooed her patiently, seeking constantly to
find some favour with her, and grateful beyond words when he succeeded
ever so little. At first, he could win but slight notice of any sort
from her, and that only at rare and uncertain intervals. But gradually
his unobtrusive efforts told, and, little by little, she began to take
him into her confidence. The first day she invited him to play with her
in one of her games was a day of rejoicing for him. She showed him the
dolls.

"Now, this is the mother and this is the little baby of it, and we will
have a tea-party."

She drew up a chair, placed the two dolls under it, and pointed to the
opening between the rungs.

"Here is the house, and here is a little door where to go in at. You
must be very, very particulyar when you go in. Now what shall we cook?"
And she clasped her hands, looking up at him with waiting eagerness.

He suggested cake and tea. But this answer proved to be wrong.

"Oh, _no_!"--there was scorn in her tones--"Buffalo-hump and marrowbones
and vebshtulls and lemon-coffee."

He received the suggestion cordially, and tried to fall in with it, but
she soon detected that his mind was not pliable enough for the game. She
was compelled at last to dismiss him, though she accomplished the
ungracious thing tactfully.

"Perhaps you have some farming to do out at the barn, because my dollies
can't _be_ very well with you at a tea-party, because you are too much."

But she had shown a purpose of friendliness, and this sufficed him. And
that night, before her bed-time, when he sat in front of the fire, she
came with a most matter-of-fact unconsciousness to climb into his lap.
He held her a long time, trying to breathe gently and not daring to move
lest he make her uncomfortable. Her head pillowed on his arm, she was
soon asleep, and he refused to give her up when Martha came to put her
to bed.

Though their intimacy grew during the winter, so that she called him her
father and came confidingly to him at all times, in tears or in
laughter, yet he never ceased to feel an aloofness from her, an
awkwardness in her presence, a fear that the mother who looked from her
eyes might at any moment call to him.

That winter was also a time for the other members of the household to
adapt themselves to their new life. The two wives attended capably to
the house. The imbecile boy, who had once loved one of them to his own
undoing, but who no longer knew her, helped them a little with the work,
though for the most part he busied himself by darting off upon
mysterious and important errands which he would appear to recall
suddenly, but which, to his bewilderment, he seemed never able to
finish. The other member of the household, Delight Tench, the gaunt,
gray woman, still made sallies out to the main road to search for her
deceived husband; but they taught her after a little never to go far
from the settlement, and to come back to her home each night.

During the winter evenings, when they sat about the big fireplace, the
master of the house taught them the mysteries of the Kingdom as revealed
by God to Joseph, and then to Brigham, who had been chosen by Joseph as
was Joshua by Moses to be a prophet and leader.

In time Brigham would be gathered to his Father, and in the celestial
Kingdom, his wives having been sealed to him for eternity, he would
beget millions and myriads of spirits. During this period of increase he
would grow in the knowledge of the Gods, learning how to make matter
take the form he desired. Noting the vast increase in his family, he
would then say: "Let us go and make a world upon which my family of
spirits may live in bodies of grosser matter, and so gain valuable
experience."

At the word of command, thereupon spoken by Brigham, the elements would
come together in a new world. This he would beautify, planting seeds
upon it, telling the waters where to flow, placing fishes in them,
putting fowls in the air and beasts in the field. Then, calling it all
good, he would say to his favourite wife: "Let us go down and inhabit
this new home." And they would go down, to be called Adam and Eve by
some future Moses.

Eve would presently be tempted by Satan to eat fruit from the one tree
they had been forbidden to touch, and Brigham as Adam would then partake
of it, too, so she should not have to suffer alone. In a thousand years
they would die, after raising many tabernacles of flesh into which their
spirit children from the celestial world would have come to find abode.

Brigham, going back to the celestial world, would keep watch over these
earthly children of his. Yet in their fallen nature they would in time
forget their father Brigham, the world whence they came, and the world
whither they were going. Sometimes he would send messages to the purest
of them, and at all times he would keep as near to them as they would
let him. At last he would lay a plan to bring them all again into his
presence. For he would now have become the God they should worship. He
would send to these children of earth his oldest son, entrusted with the
mission of redeeming them, and only faith in the name of this son would
secure the favour of the father.

Joel Rae instructed his wondering household, further, that such glory as
this would be reserved, not for Brigham alone, but for the least of the
Saints. Each Saint would progress to Godhead, and go down with his Eve
to make and people worlds without end. This, he explained, was why God
had made space to be infinite, since nothing less could have room for
the numberless seed of man. In conclusion, he gave them the words of the
Heaven-gifted Brigham: "Let all who hear these doctrines pause before
they make light of them or treat them with indifference, for they will
prove your salvation or your damnation."

Yet often during that winter while he talked these doctrines he would
find his mind wandering, and there would come before his eyes a little
printed page with a wash of blood across it, and he would be forced to
read in spite of himself the verses that were magnified before his eyes.
The priesthood of which he was a product dealt but little with the New
Testament. They taught from the Old almost wholly, when they went
outside the Book of Mormon and the revelations to Joseph Smith--of the
God of Israel who was a God of Battle, loving the reek of blood and the
smell of burnt flesh on an altar--rather than of the God of the
Nazarene.

He found himself turning to this New Testament, therefore, with a
curious feeling of interest and surprise, dwelling long at a time upon
its few, simple, forthright teachings, being moved by them in ways he
did not comprehend, and finding certain of the dogmas of his Church
sounding strangely in his ears even when his own lips were teaching
them.

One of the verses he especially dreaded to see come before him: "But
whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he
were drowned in the depth of the sea." He taught the child to pray, "O
God, let my father have due punishment for all his sins, but teach him
never to offend any little child from this day forth."

He used to listen for this and to be soothed when he heard it. Sometimes
the words would come to him when he was shut in his room; for if neither
of the women was by her when she prayed, it was her custom to raise her
voice as high as she could, in the belief that otherwise her prayer
would not be heard by the Power she addressed. In high, piping tones
this petition for himself would come through his door, following always
after the request that the Lord would bless Brigham Young in his basket
and in his store, multiplying and increasing him in wives, children,
flocks and herds, houses and lands.




CHAPTER XXV.


_The Entablature of Truth Makes a Discovery at Amalon_

The house of Rae became a house of importance in the little settlement
in the Pine Valley. It was not only the home of the highest Church
official in the community, but it was the largest and best-furnished
house, so that visiting dignitaries stayed there. It stood a little way
from the loose-edged group of cabins that formed the nucleus of the
settlement, on ground a little higher, and closer to the wooded cañon
that gashed the hills on the east.

The style of house most common in the village was long, low-roofed, of
hewn logs, its front pierced by alternating doors and windows. From the
number of these might usually be inferred the owner's current prospects
for glory in the Kingdom; for behind each door would be a wife to exalt
him, and to be exalted herself thereby in the sole way open to her, to
thrones, dominion, and power in the celestial world. There were many of
these long, profusely doored houses; but many, too, of less external
promise; of two doors or even one. Yet in a hut of one door a
well-wived Saint might be building up the Kingdom temporarily, until he
could provide a more spacious setting for the several stars in his
crown.

Then there was the capable Bishop Wright, whose long domestic barracks
were the first toward the main road beyond Bishop Coltrin's modest
two-doored hut. The Wild Ram of the Mountains, having lately been sealed
to his twelfth wife, and having no suitable apartment for her, had
ingeniously contrived a sleeping-place in a covered wagon-box at the end
of the house,--an apartment which was now being occupied, not without
some ungraceful remonstrance, by his first wife, a lady somewhat far
down in the vale of years and long past the first glamour of her
enthusiasm for the Kingdom. It had been her mischance to occupy
previously in the community-house that apartment which the good man saw
to be most suitable for his young and somewhat fastidious bride. Not
without makeshifts, indeed, many of which partook of this infelicity,
was the celestial order of marriage to be obeyed and the world brought
back to its primitive purity and innocence.

And of all persons in any degree distressed about these or other matters
of faith, Joel Rae was made the first confidant and chief comforter. In
the case just cited, for example, Bishop Wright had confessed to him
that, if anything could make him break asunder the cable of the Church
of Christ, it would be the perplexity inevitable to a maintenance of
domestic harmony under the celestial order. The first wife also
distressed this adviser with a moving tale of her expulsion from a
comfortable room into the incommodious wagon-box.

Many of these confidences, as the days went by, he found spirit-grieving
in the extreme, so that he was often weary and longed for refuge in a
wilderness. Yet he never failed to let fall some word that might be
monitory or profitable to those who took him their troubles; nor did he
forget to exult in these burdens that were put upon him, for he had
resolved that his cross should be made as heavy as he could bear.

In addition to his duties as spiritual adviser to the community, it was
his office to preach; also to hold himself at the call of the afflicted,
to anoint their heads with oil and rebuke their fevers. He took an
especial pleasure in this work of healing, being glad to leave his
fields by day or his bed by night for the sickroom. By couches of
suffering he watched and prayed, and when they began to say in Amalon
that his word of rebuke to fevers came with strange power, that his
touch was marvellously healing, and his prayers strangely potent, he
prayed not to be set up thereby, nor to forget that the power came, not
by him but through him, because of his knowing his own unworthiness. He
fasted and prayed to be trusted still more until he should be worthy of
that complete power which the Master had said came only by prayer and
fasting.

The conscientious manner in which he performed his offices was
favourably commented upon by Bishop Wright. This good man believed there
had been a decline of late in the ardour of the priesthood.

"I tell you, Elder, I wish they was all as careful as you be, but
they're falling into shiftless ways. If I'm sick and have to depend on
myself, all right. I'll dose up with lobelia or gamboge, or put a
blister-plaster on the back of my neck or take a drink of catnip tea or
composition, and then the cure of my misery is with the Lord God of
Hosts. But if I send for an administrator, it's different. He takes the
responsibility and I want him to fulfil every will of the Lord. When an
Elder comes to administer to me and is afraid of greasing his fingers or
of dropping a little oil on his vest, and says, 'Oh, never mind the oil!
there ain't any virtue in the olive-oil; besides, I might grease my
gloves,' why I feel like telling such a Godless critter to walk off.
When God says anoint with oil, _anoint_, I don't care if it runs down
his beard as it ran down Aaron's. And I don't want to talk anybody down
or mention any names; but, well, next time when I got a cold and Elder
Beil Wardle is the only administrator free, why, I'll just stand or fall
by myself. A basin of water-gruel, hot, with half a quart of old rum in
it and lots of brown sugar, is better than all _his_ anointing."

To make his days busier there were the affairs of the Church to oversee,
for he was now President of the local Stake of Zion; reports of the
teachers to consider in council meeting, of their weekly visits to each
family, and of the fidelity of each of its members to the Kingdom. And
there were the Deacons and Priests of the Aaronic Order and other Elders
and Bishops of the Order of Melchisedek to advise with upon the temporal
and spiritual affairs of Israel; to labour and pray with Peregrine
Noble, who had declared that he would no longer be as limber as a
tallowed rag in the hands of the priesthood, and to deliver him over to
the buffetings of Satan in the flesh if he persisted in his blasphemy;
to rebuke Ozro Cutler for having brazenly sought to pay on his tithing
some ten pounds of butter so redolent of garlic that the store had
refused to take it from him in trade; to counsel Mary Townsley that Pye
Townsley would come short of his glory before God if she remained
rebellious in the matter of his sealing other jewels to his crown; to
teach certain unillumined Saints something of the ethics of unbranded
cattle; and to warn settlers against isolating themselves in the
outlying valleys where they would be a temptation to the red sons of
Laman.

Again there was the rite of baptism to be administered,--not an onerous
office in the matter of the living, but apt to become so in the case of
the dead; for the whole world had been in darkness and sin since the
apostolic gifts were lost, ages ago, and the number of dead whose souls
now waited for baptism was incalculable; and not until the living had
been baptised for them could they enter the celestial Kingdom. In
consequence, all earnest souls were baptised tirelessly for their loved
ones who had gone behind the veil before Peter, James, and John ordained
Joseph Smith.

But the unselfish did not confine their efforts to friends and
relatives. In the village of Amalon that winter and spring, Amarintha,
third wife of Sarshell Sweezy, bethought her to be baptised for Queen
Anne; whereupon Ezra Colver at once underwent the same rite for this
lamented queen's husband, Prince George of Denmark; thereby securing the
prompt admission of the royal couple to the full joys of the Kingdom.

Attention being thus turned to royalty, the first Napoleon and his first
consort were baptised into heaven by thoughtful proxies; then Queen
Elizabeth and Henry the Eighth. Eric Glines, being a liberal-minded man,
was baptised for George Washington, thus adding the first President of
the Gentile nation to the galaxy of Mormon Saints reigning in heaven.
Gilbroid Sumner thereupon won the fervent commendation of his Elder by
submitting twice to burial in the waters of baptism for the two thieves
on the cross.

From time to time the little settlement was visited by officials of the
Church who journeyed south from Salt Lake City; perhaps one of the
powerful Twelve Apostles, those who bind on earth that which is bound in
heaven; or High Priests, Counsellors, or even Brigham himself with his
favourite wife and a retinue of followers in stately procession.

Late in the spring, also, came the Patriarch in the Church, Uncle John
Young, eldest brother of Brigham. It was the office of this good man to
dispense blessings to the faithful; blessings written and preserved
reverently in the family archives as charms to ward off misfortune.
Through all the valleys Uncle John was accustomed to go on his mission
of light. When he reached a settlement announcement was made of his
headquarters, and the unblessed were invited to wait upon him.

The cynical had been known to complain that Uncle John was a hard man to
deal with, especially before money was current in the Territory, when
blessings had to be paid for in produce. Many a Saint, these said, had
long gone unblessed because the only produce he had to give chanced to
meet no need of Uncle John. Further, they gossiped, if paid in butter or
fine flour or fat turkeys when these were scarce, Uncle John was certain
to give an unusually strong blessing, perhaps insuring, on top of
freedom from poverty and disease, the prolongation of life until the
coming of the Messiah. Yet it is not improbable that all these tales
were insecurely based upon a single instance wherein one Starling
Driggs, believing himself to stand in urgent need of a blessing, had
offered to pay Uncle John for the service in vinegar. It had been
unexceptionable vinegar, as Uncle John himself admitted, but being a
hundred miles from home, and having no way to carry it, the Patriarch
had been obliged to refuse; which had seemed to most people not to have
been more than fell within the lines of reason.

As for the other stories, it is enough to say that Uncle John was
himself abundantly blessed with wives and children needing to be fed,
that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and that it was sometimes
vexatious to follow rapid fluctuations in the market value of butter,
eggs, beef, potatoes, beet-molasses, and the like. Certain it is that
after money came to circulate it was a much more satisfactory business
all around; two dollars a blessing--flat, and no grievances on either
side, with a slight reduction if several were blessed in one family.
When Uncle John laid his hands upon a head after that, every one knew
the exact pecuniary significance of the act.

When the Patriarch stopped at Amalon that spring, at the house of Joel
Rae, there were many blessings to be made, and from morning until night
for several days he was busy with the writing of them. Two members of
the household he interested to an uncommon degree,--the child, Prudence,
who forthwith began daily to promise her dolls that they should not
taste of death till Christ came, and Tom Potwin, the imbecile, who
became for some unknown reason covetous of a blessing for himself. He
stayed about the Patriarch most of the time, bothering him with appeals
for one of his blessings. But Uncle John, though a good man, had been
gifted by Heaven with slight imagination, and Tom Potwin would doubtless
have had to go without this luxury but for a chance visitor to the
house one day.

This was no less a person than Bishop Snow, he who had once been Tom
Potwin's rival for the hand of her who was now the second Mrs. Rae. With
his portly figure, his full, florid face with its massive jaw, and his
heavy locks of curling white hair, the good Bishop seemed indeed to have
deserved the title put upon him years ago by the Church Poet,--The
Entablature of Truth.

He alighted from his wagon and greeted Uncle John, busy with the writing
of his blessings in the cool shade just outside the door.

"Good for you, Uncle John! Be a fountain of living waters to the thirsty
in Zion. Say, who's that?" and he pointed to Tom Potwin who had been
wistfully watching the pen of the Patriarch as it ran over his paper.
Uncle John regarded the Bishop shrewdly.

"You ought to know, Brother Snow. 'Tain't so long since you and him were
together."

The Bishop looked closely again, and the boy now returned his gaze with
his own weakly foolish look.

"Well! If it ain't that Tom Potwin. The Lord certainly hardened _his_
heart against counsel to his own undoing. I tried every way in the
world--say, what's he doing here?"

"Oh, Brother Rae has given him a home here along with that first woman
of Brother Tench's. The crazy loon has been bothering me all week to
give him a blessing."

The Entablature of Truth chuckled, being not without a sense of humour.

"Well, say, give him one if he wants it. Here--here's your two
dollars--write him a good one now."

Uncle John took the money, and at once began writing upon a clean sheet
of paper. The boy stood by watching him eagerly, and when the Patriarch
had finished the document took it from him with trembling hands. The
Bishop spoke to him.

"Here, boy, let's see what Uncle John gives us for our money."

With some misgiving the owner of the blessing relinquished it into the
Bishop's hand, watching it jealously, though listening with delight
while his benefactor read it.

"Patriarchal blessing of Tom Potwin by John Young, Patriarch, given at
Amalon June 1st, 1859. Brother Tom Potwin, in the name of Jesus of
Nazareth and by authority of the Holy Priesthood in me vested, I confer
upon thee a Patriarch's blessing. Thou art of Ephraim through the loins
of Joseph that was sold into Egypt. And inasmuch as thou hast obeyed the
requirements of the Gospel thy sins are forgiven thee. Thy name is
written in the Lamb's book of life never more to be blotted out. Thou
art a lawful heir to all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in
the new and everlasting covenant. Thou shalt have a numerous posterity
who shall rise up to call thee blessed. Thou shalt have power over
thine enemies. They that oppose thee shall yet come bending unto thee.
Thou shalt come forth in the morning of the first resurrection, and no
power shall hinder except the shedding of innocent blood or the
consenting thereto. I seal thee up to eternal life in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen and amen!"

The worthy Bishop handed the paper back to the enraptured boy, and
turned to Joel Rae, who now came up.

"Hello, Brother Rae. I hear you took on that thirteenth woman of mine.
Much good it'll do you! She was unlucky for me, sure enough--
rambunctious when she was healthy, and lazy when she was sick!"

When they came out of the house half an hour later, he added in tones of
confidential warning:

"Say, you want to look out for her--I see she's getting the red back in
her blood!"




CHAPTER XXVI.


_How the Red Came Back to the Blood to be a Snare_

The watchful eyes of the Bishop had seen truly. Not only was the red
coming back to the blood of Martha, but the fair flesh to her meagre
frame, the spring of youth to her step and living fire to her voice and
the glance of her eyes. Her husband was pleased. He had made a new
creature of the poor, worn wreck found by the wayside, weak, emaciated,
reeling under her burden. He rejoiced to know he had done a true
service. He was glad, moreover, to know that she made an admirable
mother to the little woman-child. Prudence, indeed, had brought them
closer to each other, slowly, subtly, in little ways to disarm the most
timid caution.

And this mothering and fathering of little Prudence was a work by no
means colourless or uneventful. The child had displayed a grievous
capacity for remaining unimpressed by even the best-weighed opinions of
her protector. She was also appallingly fluent in and partial to the
idioms and metaphors of revealed religion,--a circumstance that would
not infrequently cause the sensitive to shudder.

Thus, when she chose to call her largest and least sightly doll the Holy
Ghost, the ingenuity of those about her was taxed to rebuke her in ways
that would be effective without being harsh. It was felt, too, that her
offence had been but slightly mitigated when she called the same doll,
thereafter, "Thou son of perdition and shedder of innocent blood." Not
until this disfigured effigy became Bishop Wright, and the remaining
dolls his more or less disobedient wives, was it felt that she had
approached even remotely the plausible and the decorous.

A glance at some of the verses she was from time to time constrained to
learn will perhaps indicate the line of her transgressions, and yet
avert a disclosure of details that were often tragic. She was taught
these verses from a little old book bound in the gaudiest of Dutch gilt
paper, as if to relieve the ever-present severity of the text and the
distressing scenes portrayed in the illustrating copperplates. For
example, on a morning when there had been hasty words at breakfast,
arising from circumstances immaterial to this narrative, she might be
made to learn:--

  "That I did not see Frances just now I am glad,
   For Winifred says she looked sullen and sad.
   When I ask her the reason, I know very well
   That Frances will blush the true reason to tell.

  "And I never again shall expect to hear said
   That she pouts at her milk with a toast of white bread,
   When both are as good as can possibly be--
   Though Betsey, for breakfast, perhaps may have tea."

With no sort of propriety could be set down in printed words the
occurrence that led to her reciting twenty times, somewhat defiantly in
the beginning, but at last with the accents and expression of
countenance proper to remorse, the following verses:--

  "Who was it that I lately heard
   Repeating an improper word?
   I do not like to tell her name
   Because she is so much to blame."

Indeed, she came to thunder the final verse with excellent gestures of
condemnatory rage:--

  "Go, naughty child! and hide your face,
   I grieve to see you in disgrace;
   Go! you have forfeited to-day
   All right at trap and ball to play."

Nor is it necessary to go back of the very significant lines themselves
to explain the circumstance of her having the following for a half-day's
burden:--

  "Jack Parker was a cruel boy,
   For mischief was his sole employ;
   And much it grieved his friends to find
   His thoughts so wickedly inclined.

  "But all such boys unless they mend
   May come to an unhappy end,
   Like Jack, who got a fractured skull
   Whilst bellowing at a furious bull."

Nor is there sufficient reason to say why she was often counselled to
regard as her model:--

  "Miss Lydia Banks, though very young,
   Will never do what's rude or wrong;
   When spoken to she always tries
   To give the most polite replies."

And painful, indeed, would it be to relate the events of one sad day
which culminated in her declaiming at night, with far more than
perfunctory warmth, and in a voice scarce dry of tears:--

  "Miss Lucy Wright, though not so tall,
   Was just the age of Sophy Ball;
   But I have always understood
   Miss Sophy was not half so good;
   For as they both had faded teeth,
   Their teacher sent for Doctor Heath.

  "But Sophy made a dreadful rout
   And would not have hers taken out;
   While Lucy Wright endured the pain,
   Nor did she ever once complain.
   Her teeth returned quite sound and white,
   While Sophy's ached both day and night."

Yet her days were by no means all of reproof nor was her reproof ever
harsher than the more or less pointed selections from the moral verses
could inflict. Under the watchful care of Martha she flourished and was
happy, her mother in little, a laughing whirlwind of tender flesh,
tireless feet, dancing eyes, hair of sunlight that was darkening as she
grew older, and a mind that seemed to him she called father a miracle of
unfoldment. It was a mind not so quickly receptive as he could have
wished to the learning he tried patiently to impart; he wondered,
indeed, if she were not unduly frivolous even for a child of six; for
she would refuse to study unless she could have the doll she called
Bishop Wright with her and pretend that she taught the lesson to him,
finding him always stupid and loth to learn. He hoped for better things
from her mind as she aged, watching anxiously for the buddings of reason
and religion, praying daily that she should be increased in wisdom as in
stature. He had become so used to the look of her mother in her face
that it now and then gave him an instant of unspeakable joy. But the
sound of his own voice calling her "Prudence" would shock him from this
as with an icy blast of truth.

When the children of Amalon came to play with her, the little Nephis,
Moronis, Lehis, and Juabs, he saw she was a creature apart from them, of
another fashion of mind and body. He saw, too, that with some native
intuition she seemed to divine this, and to assume command even of those
older than herself. Thus Wish Wright and his brother, Welcome, both her
seniors by several years, were her awe-bound slaves; and the twin
daughters of Zebedee Bloom obeyed her least whim without question, even
when it involved them in situations more or less delicate. With her
quick ear for rhythm she had been at once impressed by their
names--impressed to a degree that savoured of fascination. She would
seat the two before her, range the other children beside them, and then
lead the chorus in a spirited chant of these names:--

  "Isa Vinda Exene Bloom!
   Ella Minda Almarine Bloom!"

repeating this a long time until they were all breathless, and the
solemn twins themselves were looking embarrassed and rather foolishly
pleased.

As he observed her day by day in her joyous growth, it was inevitable
that he came more and more to observe the woman who was caring for her,
and it was thus on one night in late summer that he awoke to an awful
truth,--a truth that brought back the words of the woman's former
husband with a new meaning.

He had heard Prudence say to her, "You are a pretty mamma," and suddenly
there came rushing upon him the sum of all the impressions his eyes had
taken of her since that day when the Bishop had spoken. He trembled and
became weak under the assault, feeling that in some insidious way his
strength had been undermined. He went out into the early evening to be
alone, but she, presently, having put the child to bed, came and stood
near, silently in the doorway.

He looked and saw she was indeed made new, restored to the lustre and
fulness of her young womanhood. He remembered then that she had long
been silent when he came near her, plainly conscious of his presence but
with an apparent constraint, with something almost tentative in her
manner. With her return to health and comeliness there had come back to
her a thousand little graces of dress and manner and speech. She drew
him, with his starved love of beauty and his need of companionship; drew
him with a mighty power, and he knew it at last. He remembered how he
had felt and faintly thrilled under a certain soft suppression in her
tones when she had spoken to him of late; this had drawn him, and the
new light in her eyes and her whole freshened womanhood, even before he
knew it. Now that he did know it he felt himself shaken and all but
lost; clutching weakly at some support that threatened every moment to
give way.

And she was his wife, his who had starved year after year for the light
touch of a woman's hand and the tones of her voice that should be for
him alone. He knew now that he had ached and sickened in his yearning
for this, and she stood there for him in the soft night. He knew she was
waiting, and he knew he desired above all things else to go to her; that
the comfort of her, his to take, would give him new life, new desires,
new powers; that with her he would revive as she had done. He waited
long, indulging freely in hesitation, bathing his wearied soul in her
nearness--yielding in fancy.

Then he walked off into the night, down through the village, past the
light of open doors, and through the voices that sounded from them, out
on to the bare bench of the mountain--his old refuge in
temptation--where he could be safe from submitting to what his soul had
forbidden. He had meant to take up a cross, but before his very eyes it
had changed to be a snare set for him by the Devil.

He stayed late on the ground in the darkness, winning the battle for
himself over and over, decisively, he thought, at the last. But when he
went home she was there in the doorway to meet him, still silent, but
with eyes that told more than he dared to hear. He thought she had in
some way divined his struggle, and was waiting to strengthen the odds
against him, with her face in the light of a candle she held above her
head.

He went by her without speaking, afraid of his weakness, and rushed to
his little cell-like room to fight the battle over. As a last source of
strength he took from its hiding-place the little Bible. And as it fell
open naturally at the blood-washed page a new thing came, a new torture.
No sooner had his eyes fallen on the stain than it seemed to him to cry
out of itself, so that he started back from it. He shut the book and the
cries were stilled; he opened it and again he heard them--far, loud
cries and low groans close to his ear; then long piercing screams
stifled suddenly too low, horrible gurglings. And before him came the
inscrutable face with the deep gray eyes and the shining lips, lifting,
with love in the eyes, above a gashed throat.

He closed the book and fell weakly to his knees to pray brokenly, and
almost despairingly: "Help me to keep down this self within me; let it
ask for nothing; fan the fires until they consume it! _Bow me, bend me,
break me, burn me out--burn me out_!"

In the morning, when he said, "Martha, the harvest is over now, and I
want you to go north with me," she prepared to obey without question.

He talked freely to her on the way, though it is probable that he left
in her mind little more than dark confusion, beyond the one clear fact
of his wish. As to this, she knew she must have no desire but to comply.
Reaching Salt Lake City, they went at once to Brigham's office. When
they came out they came possessed of a document in duplicate, reciting
that they both did "covenant, promise, and agree to dissolve all the
relations which have hitherto existed between us as husband and wife,
and to keep ourselves separate and apart from each other from this time
forth."

This was the simple divorce which Brigham was good enough to grant to
such of the Saints as found themselves unhappily married, and wished it.
As Joel Rae handed the Prophet the fee of ten dollars, which it was his
custom to charge for the service, Brigham made some timely remarks. He
said he feared that Martha had been perverse and rebellious; that her
first husband had found her so; and that it was doubtless for the good
of all that her second had taken the resolution to divorce her. He was
afraid that Brother Joel was an inferior judge of women; but he had
surely shown himself to be generous in the provision he was making for
the support of this contumacious wife.

They parted outside the door of the little office, and he kissed her for
the first time since they had been married--on the forehead.




CHAPTER XXVII.


_A New Cross Taken up and an Old Enemy Forgiven_

Christina would now be left alone with the cares of the house, and he
knew he ought to have some one to help her. The fever of sacrifice was
also upon him. And so he found another derelict, to whom he was sealed
forever.

At a time of more calmness he might have balked at this one. She was a
cross, to be sure, and it was now his part in life to bear crosses. But
there were plenty of these, and even one vowed to a life of sacrifice,
he suspected, need not grossly abuse the powers of discrimination with
which Heaven had seen fit to endow him. But he had lately been on the
verge of a seething maelstrom, balancing there with unholy desire and
wickedly looking far down, and the need to atone for this sin excited
him to indiscretions.

It was not that this star in his crown was in her late thirties and less
than lovely. He had learned, indeed, that in the game which, for the
chastening of his soul, he now played with the Devil, it were best to
choose stars whose charms could excite to little but conduct of a
saintlike seemliness. The fat, dumpy figure of this woman, therefore,
and her round, flat, moonlike face, her mouse-coloured wisps of hair cut
squarely off at the back of her neck, were points of a merit that was in
its whole effect nothing less than distinguished.

But she talked. Her tones played with the constancy of an ever-living
fountain. Artlessly she lost herself in the sound of their music, until
she also lost her sense of proportion, of light and shade, of simple,
Christian charity. Her name was Lorena Sears, and she had come in with
one of the late trains of converts, without friends, relatives, or
means, with nothing but her natural gifts and an abiding faith in the
saving powers of the new dispensation. And though she was so alive in
her faith, rarely informed in the Scriptures, bubbling with enthusiasm
for the new covenant, the new Zion, and the second coming of the
Messiah, there had seemed to be no place for her. She had not been asked
in marriage, nor had she found it easy to secure work to support
herself.

"She's strong," said Brigham, to his inquiring Elder, "and a good
worker, but even Brother Heber Kimball wouldn't marry her; and between
you and me, Brother Joel, I never knew Heber to shy before at anything
that would work. You can see that, yourself, by looking over his
household."

But, after the needful preliminaries, and a very little coy hesitation
on the part of the lady, Lorena Sears, spinster, native of Elyria,
Ohio, was duly sealed to, for time and eternity, and became a star
forever in the crown of, Joel Rae, Elder after the Order of Melchisedek
in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and President of the
Amalon Stake of Zion.

In the bustle of the start south there were, of necessity, moments in
which the crown's new star could not talk; but these blessed respites
were at an end when at last they came to the open road.

At first, as her speech flowed on, he looked sidelong at her, in a
trouble of fear and wonder; then, at length, absently, trying to put his
mind elsewhere and to leave her voice as the muted murmur of a distant
torrent. He succeeded fairly well in this, for Lorena combined admirably
in herself the parts of speaker and listener, and was not, he thankfully
noted, watchful of his attention.

But in spite of all he could do, sentences would come to seize upon his
ears: "... No chance at all back there for a good girl with any heart
in her unless she's one of the doll-baby kind, and, thank fortune, I
never was _that_! Now there was Wilbur Watkins--his father was president
of the board of chosen freeholders--Wilbur had a way of saying,
'Lorena's all right--she weighs a hundred and seventy-eight pounds on
the big scales down to the city meatmarket, and it's most of it heart--a
hundred and seventy-eight pounds and most all heart--and she'd be a
prize to anybody,' but then, that was his way,--Wilbur was a good deal
of a take-on,--and there was never anything between him and me. And when
the Elder come along and begun to preach about the new Zion and tell
about the strange ways that the Lord had ordered people to act out here,
something kind of went all through me, and I says, 'That's the place for
_me_!' Of course, the saying is, 'There ain't any Gawd west of the
Missouri,' but them that says it ain't of the house of Israel--lots of
folks purtends to be great Bible readers, but pin 'em right down and
what do you find?--you find they ain't really studied it--not what you
could call _pored_ over it. They fuss through a chapter here and
there, and rush lickety-brindle through another, and ain't got the
blessed truth out of any of 'em--little fine points, like where the Lord
hardened Pharaoh's heart every time, for why?--because if He hadn't 'a'
done it Pharaoh would 'a' give in the very first time and spoiled the
whole thing. And then the Lord would visit so plumb natural and
commonlike with Moses--like tellin' him, 'I appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, for by my name
Jehovah was I not known unto them.' I thought that was awful cute and
friendly, stoppin' to talk about His name that way. Oh, I've spent hours
and hours over the blessed Book. I bet I know something you don't,
now--what verse in the Bible has every letter in the alphabet in it
except 'J'? Of course you wouldn't know. Plenty of preachers don't. It's
the twenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of the book of Ezra. And
the Book of Mormon--I do love to git set down in a rocker with my shoes
off--I'm kind of a heavy-footed person to be on my feet all day--and
that blessed Book in my hands--such beautiful language it uses--that
verse I love so, 'He went forth among the people waving the rent of his
garment in the air that all might see the writing which he had wrote
upon the rent,'--that's sure enough Bible language, ain't it? And yet
some folks say the Book of Mormon ain't inspired. And that lovely verse
in Second Niphi, first chapter, fourteenth verse: 'Hear the words of a
trembling parent whose limbs you must soon lay down in the cold and
silent grave from whence no traveller can return.' Back home the
school-teacher got hold of that--he's an awful smarty--and he says, 'Oh,
that's from Shakespeare,' or some such book, just like that--and I just
give him one look, and I says, 'Mr. Lyman Hickenlooper, if you'll take
notice,' I says, 'you'll see those words was composed by the angel
Moroni over two thousand years ago and revealed to Joseph Smith in the
sacred light of the Urim and Thummim,' I says, and the plague-oned
smarty snickered right in my face--and say, now, what did you and your
second git a separation for?"

He was called back by the stopping of her voice, but she had to repeat
her question before he understood it. The Devil tempted him in that
moment. He was on the point of answering, "Because she talked too
much," but instead he climbed out of the wagon to walk. He walked most
of the three hundred miles in the next ten days. Nights and mornings he
falsely pretended to be deaf.

He found himself in this long walk full of a pained discouragement; not
questioning or doubting, for he had been too well trained ever to do
either. But he was disturbed by a feeling of bafflement, as might be a
ground-mole whose burrow was continually destroyed by an enemy it could
not see. This feeling had begun in Salt Lake City, for there he had seen
that the house of Israel was no longer unspotted of the world. Since the
army with its camp-followers had come there was drunkenness and vice,
the streets resounded with strange oaths, and the midnight murder was
common. Even Brigham seemed to have become a gainsayer in behalf of
Mammon, and the people, quick to follow his lead, were indulging in
ungodly trade with Gentiles; even with the army that had come to invade
them. And more and more the Gentiles were coming in. He heard strange
tales of the new facilities afforded them. There was actually a system
of wagon-trains regularly hauling freight from the Missouri to the
Pacific; there was a stage-route bringing passengers and mail from
Babylon; even Horace Greeley had been publicly entertained in
Zion,--accorded honour in the Lord's stronghold. There was talk, too, of
a pony-express, to bring them mail from the Missouri in six days; and a
few visionaries were prophesying that a railroad would one day come by
them. The desert was being peopled all about them, and neighbours were
forcing a way up to their mountain retreat.

It seemed they were never to weld into one vast chain the broken links
of the fated house of Abraham; never to be free from Gentile
contamination. He groaned in spirit as he went--walking well ahead of
his wagon.

But he had taken up a new cross and he had his reward. The first night
after they reached home he took the little Bible from its hiding-place
and opened it with trembling hands. The stain was there, red in the
candle-light. But the cries no longer rang in his ears as on that other
night when he had been sinful before the page. And he was glad, knowing
that the self within him had again been put down.

Then came strange news from the East--news of a great civil war. The
troops of the enemy at Camp Floyd hurried east to battle, and even the
name of that camp was changed, for the Gentile Secretary of War, said
gossip from Salt Lake City, after doing his utmost to cripple his
country by sending to far-off Utah the flower of its army, had now
himself become not only a rebel but a traitor.

Even Johnston, who had commanded the invading army, denouncing the
Saints as rebels, had put off his blue uniform for a gray and was
himself a rebel.

When the news came that South Carolina had actually flung the palmetto
flag to the breeze and fired the first gun, he was inclined to exult.
For plainly it was the Lord's work. There was His revelation given to
Joseph Smith almost thirty years before: "Verily, thus saith the Lord
concerning the wars that will come to pass, beginning at the rebellion
of South Carolina." And ten years later the Lord had revealed to Joseph
further concerning this prophecy that this war would be "previous to the
coming of the Son of Man." Assuredly, they were now near the time when
other Prophets of the Church had said He would come--the year 1870. He
thrilled to be so near the actual moving of the hand of God, and
something of the old spirit revived within him.

From Salt Lake City came news of the early fighting and of meetings for
public rejoicing held in the tabernacle, with prophecies that the
Gentile nation would now be rent asunder in punishment for its rejection
of the divine message of the Book of Mormon and its persecution of the
prophets of God. In one of these meetings of public thanksgiving Brigham
had said from the tabernacle pulpit: "What is the strength of this man
Lincoln? It is like a rope of sand. He is as weak as water,--an
ignorant, Godless shyster from the backwoods of Illinois. I feel
disgraced in having been born under a government that has so little
power for truth and right. And now it will be broken in pieces like a
potter's vessel."

These public rejoicings, however, brought a further trial upon the
Saints. The Third California Infantry and a part of the Second Cavalry
were now ordered to Utah. The commander of this force was one Connor,
an officer of whom extraordinary reports were brought south. It was said
that he had issued an order directing commanders of posts, camps, and
detachments to arrest and imprison "until they took the oath of
allegiance, all persons who from this date shall be guilty of uttering
treasonable sentiments against the government of the United States."
Even liberty of opinion, it appeared, was thus to be strangled in these
last days before the Lord came.

Further, this ill-tempered Gentile, instead of keeping decently remote
from Salt Lake City, as General Johnston had done, had marched his
troops into the very stronghold of Zion, despite all threats of armed
opposition, and in the face of a specific offer from one Prophet, Seer,
and Revelator to wager him a large sum of money that his forces would
never cross the River Jordan. To this fair offer, so reports ran, the
Gentile officer had replied that he would cross the Jordan if hell
yawned below it; that he had thereupon viciously pulled the ends of a
grizzled, gray moustache and proceeded to behave very much as an officer
would be expected to behave who was commonly known as "old Pat Connor."

Knowing that the forces of the Saints outnumbered his own, and that he
was, in his own phrase, "six hundred miles of sand from reinforcements,"
he had halted his command two miles from the city, formed his column
with an advance-guard of cavalry and a light battery, the infantry and
the commissary-wagons coming next, and in this order, with bayonets
fixed, cannon shotted, and two bands playing, had marched brazenly in
the face of the Mormon authorities and through the silent crowds of
Saints to Emigrant Square. Here, in front of the governor's residence,
where flew the only American flag to be seen in the whole great city, he
had, with entire lack of dignity, led his men in three cheers for the
country, the flag, and the Gentile governor.

After this offensive demonstration, he had perpetrated the supreme
indignity by going into camp on a bench at the base of Wasatch Mountain,
in plain sight of the city, there in the light of day training his guns
upon it, and leaving a certain twelve-pound howitzer ranged precisely
upon the residence of the Lion of the Lord.

Little by little these galling reports revived the military spirit in an
Elder far to the south, who had thought that all passion was burned out
of him. But this man chanced to open a certain Bible one night to a page
with a wash of blood across it. From this page there seemed to come such
cries and screams of fear in the high voices of women and children, such
sounds of blows on flesh, and the warm, salt smell of blood, that he
shut the book and hastily began to pray. He actually prayed for the
preservation of that ancient first enemy of his Church, the government
of the United States. Individually and collectively, as a nation, as
States, and as people, he forgave them and prayed the Lord to hold them
undivided.

Then he knew that an astounding miracle of grace had been wrought within
him. For this prayer for the hostile government was thus far his
greatest spiritual triumph.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


_Just Before the End of the World_

The years of the Civil War passed by, and the prayer of Joel Rae was
answered. But the time was now rapidly approaching when the Son of Man
was to come in person to judge Israel and begin his reign of a thousand
years on the purified earth. The Twelve, confirmed by Brigham, had long
held that this day of wrath would not be deferred past 1870. In the mind
of Joel Rae the time had thus been authoritatively fixed. The date had
been further confirmed by the fulfilment of Joseph's prophecy of war.
The great event was now to be prepared for and met in all readiness.

It was at this time that he betrayed in the pulpit a leaning toward
views that many believed to be heterodox. "A likely man is a likely
man," he preached, "and a good man is a good man--whether in this Church
or out of it." He also went so far as to intimate that being in the
Church would not of itself suffice to the attainment of glory; that
there were, to put it bluntly, all kinds of fish in the gospel net;
sinners not a few in Zion who would have to be forgiven their misdeeds
seventy times seven on that fateful day drawing near.

Bishop Wright, who followed him on this Sabbath, was bold to speak to
another effect.

"Me and my brethren," he insisted, "have received our endowments, keys,
and blessings--all the tokens and signs that can be given to man for his
entrance through the celestial gate. If you have had these in the house
of the Lord, when you depart this life you will be able to walk back to
the presence of the Father, passing the angels that stand as sentinels;
because why?--because you can give them the tokens, signs, and grips
pertaining to the holy priesthood and gain your eternal exaltation in
spite of earth and hell. But how about the likely and good man outside
this Church who has rejected the message of the Book of Mormon and ain't
got these signs and passwords? If he's going to be let in, too, why have
doorkeepers, and what's the use of the whole business? Why in time did
the Lord go to all this trouble, any way, if Brother Rae is right? Why
was Joseph Smith visited by an angel clad in robes of light, who told
him where the golden plates had been hid up by the Lord, and the Urim
and Thummim, and who laid hands on him and give him the Holy Ghost? And
after all that trouble He's took, do you think He's going to let
everybody in? Not much, Mary Ann! The likely men may come the roots on
some of our soft-hearted Elders, but they won't fool the Lord's Christ
and His angel gatekeepers."

Elder Beil Wardle, on the other hand, showed a tendency to side with
the liberalism of Brother Rae. He cited the fact that not all
revelations were from God. Some were from perverse human spirits and
some from the very Devil himself. There was Elder Sidney Roberts, who
had once suffered a revelation that a certain brother must give him a
suit of finest broadcloth and a gold watch, the best to be had; and
another revelation directing him to salute all the younger sisters,
married or single, with a kiss of holiness. Urged to confess that these
revelations were from the Devil, he had refused, and so had been cut off
and delivered over to the buffetings of Satan in the flesh.

"And you can't always be sure of the Holy Ghost, either," he continued.
"When the Lord pours out the Holy Ghost on an individual, he will have
spasms, and you would think he was going to have fits; but it don't make
him get up and go pay his debts--not by a long shot. Of course I don't
feel to mention any names, but what can you expect, anyway? A flock of a
thousand sheep has got to be mighty clean if some of them ain't smutty.
This is a large flock of sheep that has come up into this valley of the
mountains, and some of them have got tag-locks hanging about them. But
it don't seem to pester the Lord any. He sifted us good in Missouri, and
He put us into another sieve at Nauvoo, and I reckon His sieve will be
brought along with Him on the day of judgment. And if there are some
lost sheep in the fold of Zion, maybe, on the other hand, there's some
outside the fold that will be worth saving; that will be broke off from
the wild olive-tree and grafted on to the tame olive-tree to partake of
its sap and fatness."

Joel Rae would have taken more comfort in this championship of his views
if it were not for his suspicion that Elder Wardle sometimes spoke in a
tone of levity, and had indeed more than once been reckoned as a
doubter. It was even related of him that a perverted sense of humour had
once inspired him to deliver an irreverent and wholly immaterial address
in pure Choctaw at a service where many others of the faithful had been
moved to speak in tongues; and that an earnest sister, believing the
Holy Ghost to be strong upon her, had thereupon arisen and interpreted
his speech to be the Lord's description of the glories of their new
temple, which it had not been at all. Such a man might have a good
heart, as he knew Elder Wardle to have; but he must be an inferior guide
to the Father's presence. He was even less inclined to trust him when
Wardle announced confidentially at the close of the meeting that day,
"Brother Wright talks a good deal jest to hear his head roar. You'd
think he'd been the midwife at the borning of the world, and helped to
nurse it and bring it up--he's that knowing about it. My opinion is he
don't know twice across or straight up about the Lord's secret doings!"

Yet if he had sought to render a little elastic the rigid teachings of
the priesthood, he had done so innocently. The foundations of his faith
were unshaken; for him the rock upon which his Church was built had
never been more stable. As to doubting its firmness, he would as soon
have blasphemed the Holy Ghost or disputed the authority of Brigham,
with whom was the sacred deposit of doctrine and all temporal and
spiritual power.

So he sighed often for those Gentile sheep on whom the wrath of God was
so soon to fall. Even with the utmost stretching of the divine mercy,
the greater part of them must perish; and for the lost souls of these he
grieved much and prayed each day.

It was more than ten years since that day in the Meadows, and the blight
there put upon his person had waxed with each year. His hair showed now
but the faintest sprinkle of black, his shoulders were bent and rounded
as if bearing invisible burdens, and his face had the look of drooping
in grief and despair, as one who was made constantly to look upon all
the suffering of all the world. Yet he wore always, except when alone, a
not unpleasant little effort of a smile, as if he would conceal his
pain. But this deceived few. The women of the settlement had come to
call him "the little man of sorrows." Even his wife, Lorena, had divined
that his mind was not one with hers; that, somehow, there was a gulf
between them which her best-meant cheerfulness could not span. In a
measure she had ceased to try, doing little more than to sing, when he
was near, some hymn which she considered suitable to his condition. One
favourite at such times began:--

  "Lord, we are vile, conceived in sin,
   And born unholy and unclean;
   Sprung from the man whose guilty fall
   Corrupts his race and taints us all.

  "Soon as we draw our infant breath,
   The seeds of sin grow up for death;
   The law demands a perfect heart,
   But we're defiled in every part."

She would sing many verses of this with appealing unction, so long as he
was near; yet when he came upon her unawares he might hear her voicing
some cheerful, secular ballad, like--

  "As I went down to Coffey's mills
     Some pleasure for to see,
   I fell in love with a railroad-er,
     He fell in love with me."

The stolid Christina listened entranced to all of Lorena's songs,
charmed by the melody not less than she was awed by her sister-wife's
superior gifts of language. The husband, too, listened not without
resignation, reflecting that, when Lorena did not sing, she talked. For
the unspeaking Christina he had learned to feel an admiration that
bordered upon reverence, finding in her silence something spiritually
great. Yet of the many-worded Lorena he was never heard to complain
through all the years. The nearest he approached to it was on a day
when Elder Beil Wardle had sought to condole with him on the affliction
of her ready speech.

"That woman of yours," said this observant friend, "sure takes large
pie-bites out of any little talk that happens to get going."

"She _does_ have the gift of continuance," her husband had admitted. But
he had added, hastily, "Though her heart is perfect with the Lord."

The fact that she was sealed to him for eternity, and that she believed
she would constitute one of his claims to exaltation in the celestial
world, were often matters of pious speculation with him. He wondered if
he had done right by her. She deserved a husband who would be saved into
the kingdom, while he who had married her was irrevocably lost.

There had been a time when he read with freshened hope the promises of
forgiveness in that strange New Testament. Once he had even believed
that these might save him; that he was again numbered with the elect.
But when this belief had grown firm, so that he could seem to rest his
weight upon it, he felt it fall away to nothing under him, and the truth
he had divined that day in the desert was again bared before him. He saw
that how many times soever God might forgive the sins of a man, it would
avail that man nothing unless he could forgive himself. He knew at last
that in his own soul was fixed a gauge of right, unbending and
implacable when wrong had been done, waiting to be reckoned with at the
very last even though the great God should condone his sin. It seemed to
him that, however surely his endowments took him through the gates of
the Kingdom, with whatsoever power they raised him to dominion; even
though he came into the Father's presence and sat a throne of his own by
the side of Joseph and Brigham, that there would still ring in his ears
the cries of those who had been murdered at the priesthood's command;
that there would leap before his eyes fountains of blood from the
breasts of living women who knelt and clung to the knees of their
slayers--to the knees of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints; that he would see two spots of white in the dim light of a
morning where the two little girls lay who had been sent for water; that
he would see the two boys taken out to the desert, one to die at once,
the other to wander to a slower death; that before his sinful eyes would
come the dying face of the woman who had loved him and lost her soul
rather than betray him. He knew that, even in celestial realms exalted
beyond the highest visions of their priesthood, his soul would still
burn in this fire that he could not extinguish within his own breast. He
knew that he carried hell as an inseparable part of himself, and that
the forgiveness of no other power could avail him. He no longer feared
God, but himself alone.

From this fire of his own building it seemed to him that he could obtain
surcease only by reducing the self within him. As surely as he let it
feel a want, all the torture came back upon him. When his pride lifted
up its head, when he desired any satisfaction for himself, when he was
tempted for a moment to lay down his cross, the cries came back, the sea
of blood surged before him, and close behind came the shapes that
crawled or moved furtively, ever about to spring in front and turn upon
him. Small wonder, then, that his shoulders bent beneath unseen burdens,
that his air was of one who suffered for all the world, and that they
called him "the little man of sorrows."

With this knowledge he learned to permit himself only one great love, a
love for the child Prudence. He was sure that no punishment could come
through that. It was his day-star and his life, the one pleasure that
brought no suffering with it. She was a child of fourteen now, a
half-wild, firm-fleshed, glowing creature of the out-of-doors, who had
lost with her baby softness all her resemblance to her mother. Her hair
and eyes had darkened as she grew, and she was to be a larger woman,
graver, deeper, more reserved; perhaps better calculated for the Kingdom
by reason of a more reflective mind. He adored her, and was awed by her
even when he taught her the truths of revealed religion. He closed his
eyes at night upon a never-ending prayer for her soul; and opened them
each day to a love of her that grew insidiously to enthrall him while he
was all unconscious of its power--even while he knew with an awful
certainty that he must have no treasure of his own which he could not
willingly relinquish at the first call. She, in turn, loved and
confided in her father, the shy, bent, shrunken little man with the
smile.

"He always smiles as if he'd hurt himself and didn't want to show it
before company," were the words in which she announced one of her early
discoveries about him. But she liked and ruled him, and came to him for
comfort when she was hurt or when Lorena scolded. For the third wife did
not hesitate to characterise the child as "ready-made sin," and to
declare that it took all her spare time, "and a lot that ain't spare,"
to neat up the house after her. "And her paw--though Lord knows who her
maw was--a-dressing her to beat the cars; while he ain't never made over
me since the blessed day I married him--not that _much_! But, thank
heavens, it can't last very long, with the Son of Man already started,
like you might say."




CHAPTER XXIX.


_The Wild Ram of the Mountains Offers to Become a Saviour on Mount Zion_

In the valley of which Amalon was the centre, they made ready for the
end of the world. It is true that in the north, as the appointed year
drew nigh, an opinion had begun to prevail that the Son of Man might
defer his coming; and presently it became known that Brigham himself was
doubtful about the year 1870, and was inspiring others to doubt. But in
Amalon they were untainted by this heresy, choosing to rely upon what
Brigham had said in moments more inspired.

He had taught that Joseph was to be the first person resurrected; that
after his frame had been knit together and clothed with immortal flesh
he would resurrect those who had died in the faith, according to their
rank in the priesthood; then all his wives and children. Resurrected
Elders, having had the keys of the resurrection conferred upon them by
Joseph, would in turn call from the grave their own households; and when
the last of the faithful had come forth, another great work would be
performed; the Gentiles would then be resurrected to act as servants
and slaves to the Saints. In his lighter moments Brigham had been wont
to name a couple of Presidents of the United States who would then act
as his valets.

Some doubt had been expressed that the earth's surface could contain the
resurrected host, but Apostle Orson Pratt had removed this. He cited the
prophet who had foretold that the hills should be laid low, the valleys
exalted, and the crooked places made straight. With the earth thus free
of mountains and waste places, he had demonstrated that there would be
an acre and a quarter of ground for each Saint that had ever lived from
the morning of creation to the day of doom. And, lest some carping
mathematician should dispute his figures, he had declared that if, by
any miscalculation, the earth's surface should not suffice for the
Saints and their Gentile slaves, the Lord "would build a gallery around
the earth." Thus had confusion been brought to the last quibbler in
Zion.

It was this earlier teaching that the faithful of Amalon clung to,
perhaps not a little by reason that immediately over them was a
spiritual guide who had been trained from infancy to know that salvation
lay in belief,--never in doubt. For a sign of the end they believed that
on the night before the day of it there would be no darkness. This would
be as it had been before the birth of the Saviour, as told in the Book
of Mormon: "At the going down of the sun there was no darkness, and the
people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the
night came; and there was no darkness in all that night, but it was as
light as if it were midday."

They talked of little but this matter in that small pocket of the
intermountain commonwealth, in Sabbath meetings and around the hearths
at night. The Wild Ram of the Mountains thought all proselyting should
cease in view of the approaching end; that the Elders on mission should
withdraw from the vineyard, shake the dust from their feet, and seal up
the rebellious Gentiles to damnation. To this Elder Beil Wardle had
replied, somewhat testily:

"Well, now, since these valleys of Ephraim have got a little fattened a
whole lot of us have got the sweeny, and our skins are growing too tight
on our flesh." He had been unable to comprehend that the Gentiles were a
rejected lot, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. On this occasion it
had required all the tact of Elder Rae to soothe the two good men into
an amiable discussion of the time when Sidney Rigdon went to the third
heaven and talked face to face with God. They had agreed in the end,
however, that they were both of the royal seed of Abraham, and were on
the grand turnpike to exaltation.

To these discussions and sermons the child, Prudence, listened with
intense interest, looking forward to the last day as an occasion
productive of excitement even superior to that of her trips to Salt Lake
City, where her father went to attend the October conference, and where
she was taken to the theatre.

Of any world outside the valley she knew but little. Somewhere, far over
to the east, was a handful of lost souls for whom she sometimes indulged
in a sort of luxurious pity. But their loss, after all, was a part of
the divine plan, and they would have the privilege of serving the
glorified Saints, even though they were denied Godhood. She
half-believed that even this mission of service was almost more of glory
than they merited; for, in the phrasing of Bishop Wright, they "made a
hell all the time and raised devils to keep it going." They had slain
the Prophets of the Lord and hunted his people, and the best of them
were lucky, indeed, to escape the fire that burns unceasingly; a fire
hotter than any made by beech or hickory. Still she sometimes wondered
if there were girls among them like her; and she had visions of herself
as an angel of light, going down to them with the precious message of
the Book of Mormon, and bringing them into the fold.

One day in this spring when she was fourteen, the good Bishop Wright, on
his way down from Box Cañon with a load of wood, saw her striding up the
road ahead of him. Something caught his eye, either in her step which
had a child's careless freedom, or in the lines of her swinging figure
that told of coming womanhood, or in the flashing, laughing appeal of
her dark eyes where for the moment both woman and child looked out. He
set the brake on his wagon and waited for her to pass. She came by with
a smile and a word of greeting, to which his rapt attention prevented
any reply except a slight nod. When she had passed, he turned and looked
after her until she had gone around the little hill on the road that
entered the cañon.

After the early evening meal that day, along the many-roomed house of
this good man, from door to door there ran the words, starting from her
who had last been sealed to him:

"He's making himself all proud!"

They knew what it meant, and wondered whom.

A little later the Bishop set out, his face clean-shaven to the ruffle
of white whisker that ran under his chin from ear to ear, his scant hair
smooth and shining with grease from the largest bear ever trapped in the
Pine Mountains, and his tall form arrayed in his best suit of homespun.
As he went he trolled an ancient lay of love, and youth was in his step.
For there had come all day upon this Prince of Israel those subtle
essences distilled by spring to provoke the mating urge. At the Rae
house he found only Christina.

"Where's Brother Joel, Sister Rae?"

"Himself has gone out there," Christina had answered with a wave of her
hand, and using the term of respect which she always applied to her
husband.

He went around the house, out past the stable and corrals and across the
irrigating ditch to where he saw Joel Rae leaning on the rail fence
about the peach orchard. Far down between two rows of the blossoming
trees he could see the girl reaching up to break off a pink-sprayed
bough. He quickened his pace and was soon at the fence.

"Brother Joel,--I--the--"

The good man had been full of his message a moment before, but now he
stammered and hesitated because of something cold in the other's eye as
it seemed to note the unwonted elegance of his attire. He took a quick
breath and went on.

"You see the Lord has moved me to add another star to my crown."

"I see; and you have come to get me to seal you?"

"Well, of course I hadn't thought of it so soon, but if you want to do
it to-night--"

"As soon as you like, Bishop,--the sooner the better if you are to save
the soul of another woman against the day of desolation. Where is she?"
and he turned to go back to the house. But the Bishop still paused,
looking toward the orchard.

"Well, the fact is, Brother Joel, you see the Lord has made me feel to
have Prudence for another star in my crown of glory--your daughter
Prudence," he repeated as the other gazed at him with a sudden change of
manner.

"My daughter Prudence--little Prue--that child--that _baby_?"

"_Baby_?--she's fourteen; she was telling my daughter Mattie so jest the
other day, and the Legislatur has made the marrying age twelve for
girls and fifteen for boys, so she's two years overtime already. Of
course, I ain't fifteen, but I'm safer for her than some young cub."

"But Bishop--you don't consider--"

"Oh, of course, I know there's been private talk about her; nobody knows
who her mother was, and they say whoever she was you was never married
to her, so she couldn't have been born right, but I ain't bigoted like
some I could name, and I stand ready to be her Saviour on Mount Zion."

He waited with something of noble concession in his mien.

The other seemed only now to have fully sensed the proposal, and, with
real terror in his face, he began to urge the Bishop toward the house,
after looking anxiously back to where the child still lingered with the
mist of pink blossoms against the leafless boughs above her.

"Come, Brother Seth--come, I beg of you--we'll talk of it--but it can't
be, indeed it can't!"

"Let's ask _her_," suggested the Bishop, disinclined to move.

"Don't, _don't_ ask her!" He seized the other by the arm.

"Come, I'll explain; don't ask her now, at any rate--I beg of you as a
gentleman--as a gentleman, for you are a gentleman."

The Bishop turned somewhat impatiently, then remarked with a dignified
severity:

"Oh, I can be a gentleman whenever it's _necessary_!"

They went across the fields toward the house, and the Bishop spoke
further.

"There ain't any need to get into your high-heeled boots, Brother Rae,
jest because I was aiming to save her to a crown of glory,--a girl
that's thought to have been born on the wrong side of the blanket!"

They stopped by the first corral, and Joel Rae talked. He talked rapidly
and with power, saying many things to make it plain that he was
determined not to look upon the Wild Ram of the Mountains as an
acceptable son-in-law. His manner was excited and distraught, terrified
and indignant,--a manner hardly justified by the circumstances, about
which there was nothing extraordinary, nothing not pleasing to God and
in conformity to His revealed word. Bishop Wright indeed was puzzled to
account for the heat of his manner, and in recounting the interview
later to Elder Wardle, he threw out an intimation about strong drink.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I suspicion he'd jest been putting a
new faucet in the cider barrel."

When Prudence came in from the blossoming peach-trees that night her
father called her to him to sit on his lap in the dusk while the
crickets sang, and grow sleepy as had been her baby habit.

"What did Bishop Wright want?" she asked, after her head was pillowed on
his arm. Relieved that it was over, now even a little amused, he told
her:

"He wanted to take my little girl away, to marry her."

She was silent for a moment, and then:

"Wouldn't that be fine, and we could build each other up in the
Kingdom."

He held her tighter.

"Surely, child, you couldn't marry him?"

"But of course I could! Isn't he tried in the Kingdom, so he is sure to
have all those thrones and dominions and power?"

"But child, child! That old man with all his wives--"

"But they say old men are safer than young men. Young men are not tried
in the Kingdom. I shouldn't like a young husband anyway--they always
want to play rough games, and pull your hair, and take things away from
you, and get in the way."

"But, baby,--don't, _don't_--"

"Why, you silly father, your voice sounds as if you were almost
crying--please don't hold me so tight--and some one must save me before
the Son of Man comes to judge the quick and the dead; you know a woman
can't be saved alone. I think Bishop Wright would make a fine husband,
and I should have Mattie Wright to play with every day."

"And you would leave me?"

"Why, that's so, Daddy! I never thought--of course I can't leave my
little sorry father--not yet. I forgot that. I couldn't leave you. Now
tell me about my mother again."

He told her the story she already knew so well--how beautiful her mother
was, the look of her hair and eyes, her slenderness, the music of her
voice, and the gladness of her laugh.

"And won't she be glad to see us again. And she will come before
Christina and Lorena, because she was your first wife, wasn't she?"

He was awake all night in a fever of doubt and rebellion. By the light
of the candle, he read in the book of Mormon passages that had often
puzzled but never troubled him until now when they were brought home to
him; such as, "And now it came to pass that the people Nephi under the
reign of the second king began to grow hard in their hearts, and
indulged themselves somewhat in wicked practises, like unto David of
old, desiring many wives--"

Again he read, "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives, which
thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord."

Still again, "For there shall not be any man among you have save it
shall be one wife."

Then he turned to the revelation on celestial marriage given years after
these words were written, and in the first paragraph read:

"Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch
as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the
Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses,
David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine
of their having many wives--"

He turned from one to the other; from the many explicit admonitions and
commands against polygamy, the denunciations of the patriarchs for their
indulgence in the practise, to this last passage contradicting the
others, and vexed himself with wonder. In the Book of Mormon, David was
said to be wicked for doing this thing. Now in the revelation to Joseph
he read, "David's wives were given unto him of me, by the hand of
Nathan, my servant."

He recalled old tales that were told in Nauvoo by wicked apostates and
the basest of Gentile scandalmongers; how that Joseph in the day of his
great power had suffered the purity of his first faith to become
tainted; how his wife, Emma, had upbraided him so harshly for his sins
that he, fearing disgrace, had put out this revelation as the word of
God to silence her. He remembered that these gossips had said the
revelation itself proved that Joseph had already done, before he
received it, that which it commanded him to do, citing the clause, "And
let my handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto
my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me."

They had gossiped further, that still fearing her rebellion, he had
worded a threat for her in the next clause, "And I command my handmaid,
Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph and to none else.
But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed,
saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she
abide not in my law ... and again verily I say, let mine handmaid
forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses and then shall she be forgiven
her trespasses."

This was the calumny the Gentile gossips back in Nauvoo would have had
the world believe,--that this great doctrine of the Church had been
given to silence the enraged wife of a man detected in sin.

But in the midst of his questionings he seemed to see a truth,--that
another snare had been set for him by the Devil, and that this time it
had caught his feet. He, who knew that he must have nothing for himself,
had all unconsciously so set his heart upon this child of her mother
that he could not give her up. And now so fixed and so great was his
love that he could not turn back. He knew he was lost. To cling to her
would be to question, doubt, and to lose his faith. To give her up would
kill him.

But at least for a little while he could put it off.




CHAPTER XXX.


_How the World Did not Come to an End_

In doubt and fear, the phantom of a dreadful certainty creeping always
closer, the final years went by. When the world came to be in its very
last days, when the little bent man was drooping lower than ever, and
Prudence was seventeen, there came another Prince of Israel to save her
into the Kingdom while there was yet a time of grace. On this occasion
the suitor was no less a personage than Bishop Warren Snow, a holy man
and puissant, upon whom the blessed Gods had abundantly manifested their
favour. In wives and children, in flocks and herds, he was rich; while,
as to spiritual worth, had not that early church poet styled him the
Entablature of Truth?

But Prudence Rae, once so willing to be saved by the excellent Wild Ram
of the Mountains, had fled in laughing confusion from this later
benefactor, when he had made plain one day the service he sought to do
her soul. A moment later he had stood before her father in all his years
of patriarchal dignity, hale, ruddy, and vast of girth.

"She's a woman now, Brother Snow,--free to choose for herself," the
father had replied to his first expostulations.

"Counsel her, Brother Rae." In the mind of the Bishop, "counsel,"
properly applied, was a thing not long to be resisted.

"She would treat my counsel as shortly as she treated your proposal,
Brother Snow."

The Entablature of Truth glanced out of the open door to where Tom
Potwin could be seen, hastening importantly upon his endless and
mysterious errands, starting off abruptly a little way, stopping
suddenly, with one hand raised to his head, as if at that instant
remembering a forgotten detail, and then turning with new impetus to
walk swiftly in the opposite direction.

"There ain't any one else after her, is there, Brother Rae,--any of
these young boys?"

"No, Bishop--no one."

"Well, if there is, you let me know. I'll be back again, Brother Rae.
Meantime, counsel her--counsel her with authority."

The Entablature of Truth had departed with certain little sidewise
noddings of his head that seemed to indicate an unalterable purpose.

The girl came to her father, blushing and still laughing confusedly,
when the rejected one had mounted his horse and ridden away.

"Oh, Daddy, how funny!--to think of marrying him!"

He looked at her anxiously. "But you wanted to marry Bishop Wright--at
least, you--"

She laughed again. "How long ago--years ago--I must have been a baby."

"You were old enough to point out that he would save you in the
after-time."

"I remember; I could see myself sitting by him on a throne, with the
Saints all around us on other thrones, and the Gentiles kneeling to
serve us. We were in a big palace that had a hundred closets in it, and
in every closet there hung a silk dress for me--a hundred silk dresses,
each a different colour, waiting for me to wear them."

"But have you thought sufficiently--now? The time is short. Bishop Snow
could save you."

"Yes--but he would kiss me--he wanted to just now." She put both hands
over her mouth, with a mocking little grimace that the Entablature of
Truth would not have liked to see.

"He would be certain to exalt you."

She took the hands away long enough to say, "He would be certain to kiss
me."

"You may be lost."

"I'd _rather_!"

And so it had ended between them. Ever since a memorable visit to Salt
Lake City, where she had gone to the theatre, she had cherished some
entirely novel ideas concerning matrimony. In that fairyland of delights
she had beheld the lover strangely wooing but one mistress, the husband
strangely cherishing but one wife. There had been no talk of "the
Kingdom," and no home portrayed where there were many wives. That lover,
swearing to cherish but one woman for ever, had thrilled her to new
conceptions of her own womanhood, had seemed to meet some need of her
own heart that she had not until then been conscious of. Ever after, she
had cherished this ideal of the stage, and refused to consider the
other. Yet she had told her father nothing of this, for with her
womanhood had come a new reserve--truths half-divined and others clearly
perceived--which she could not tell any one.

He, in turn, now kept secret from her the delight he felt at her
refusal. He had tried conscientiously to persuade her into the path of
salvation, when his every word was a blade to cut at his heart. Nor was
he happy when she refused so definitely the saving hand extended to her.
To know she was to come short of her glory in the after-time was anguish
to him; and mingling with that anguish, inflaming and aggravating it,
were his own heretical doubts that would not be gone.

In a sheer desperation of bewilderment he longed for the end, longed to
know certainly his own fate and hers--to have them irrevocably fixed--so
that he might no more be torn among many minds, but could begin to pay
his own penalties in plain suffering, uncomplicated by this torturing
necessity to choose between two courses of action.

And the time was, happily, to be short. With the first day of 1870 he
began to wait. With prayer and fasting and vigils he waited. Now was
the day when the earth should be purified by fire, the wicked swept from
the land, and the lost tribes of Israel restored to their own. Now was
to come the Son of Man who should dwell in righteousness with men,
reigning over them on the purified earth for a thousand years.

He watched the mild winter go, with easy faith; and the early spring
come and go, with a dawning uneasiness. For the time was passing with
never the blast of a trumpet from the heavens. He began to see then that
he alone, of all Amalon, had kept his faith pure. For the others had
foolishly sown their fields, as if another crop were to be
harvested,--as if they must continue to eat bread that was earth-grown.
Even Prudence had strangely ceased to believe as he did. Something from
the outside had come, he knew not what nor how, to tarnish the fair gold
of her certainty. She had not said so, but he divined it when he
shrewdly observed that she was seeking to comfort him, to support his
own faith when day after day the Son of Man came not.

"It will surely be in another month, Daddy--perhaps next week--perhaps
to-morrow," she would say cheerfully. "And you did right not to put in
any crops. It would have been wicked to doubt."

He quickly detected her insincerity, seeing that she did not at all
believe. As the summer came and went without a sign from the heavens,
she became more positive and more constant in these assurances. As the
evening drew on, they would walk out along the unsown fields, now grown
rankly to weeds, to where the valley fell away from their feet to the
west. There they could look over line after line of hills, each a little
dimmer as it lay farther into the blue through which they saw it, from
the bold rim of the nearest shaggy-sided hill to the farthest feathery
profile all but lost in the haze. Day after day they sat together here
and waited for the sign,--for the going down of the sun upon a night
when there should be no darkness; when the light should stay until the
sun came back over the eastern verge; when the trumpet should wind
through the hills, and when the little man's perplexities, if not his
punishment, should be at an end.

And always when the dusk came she would try to cheer him to new hope for
the next night, counting the months that remained in the year, the
little time within which the great white day _must_ be. Then they would
go back through the soft light of the afterglow, he with his bent
shoulders and fallen face, shrunk and burned out, except for the eyes,
and she in the first buoyant flush of her womanhood, free and strong and
vital, a thing of warmth and colour and luring curve, restraining her
quick young step to his, as she suppressed now a world of strange new
fancies to his soberer way of thought. When they reached home again, her
words always were: "Never mind, Daddy--it must come soon--there's only
a little time left in the year."

It was on these occasions that he knew she was now the stronger, that he
was leaning on her, had, in fact, long made her his support--fearfully,
lest she be snatched away. And he knew at last that another change had
come with her years; that she no longer confided in him unreservedly, as
the little child had. He knew there were things now she could not give
him. She communed with herself, and her silences had come between them.
She looked past him at unseen forms, and listened as if for echoes that
she alone could hear, waiting and wanting, knowing not her wants--yet
driven to aloofness by them from the little bent man of sorrows, whose
whole life she had now become.

His hope lasted hardly until the year ended. Before the time was over,
there had crept into his mind a conviction that the Son of Man would not
come; that the Lord's favour had been withdrawn from Israel. He knew the
cause,--the shedding of innocent blood. They might have made war;
indeed, many of the revelations to Joseph discriminated even between
murder and that murder in which innocent blood should be shed; but the
truth was plain. They had shed innocent blood that day in the Meadows.
Now the Lord's favour was withdrawn and His coming deferred, perhaps
another thousand years. The torture of the thing came back to him with
all its early colouring, so that his days and nights were full of
anguish. He no longer dared open the Bible to that reddened page. The
cries already rang in his ears, and he knew not what worse torture might
come if he looked again upon the stain; nor could he free himself from
these by the old expedient of prayer, for he could no longer pray with
an honest heart; he was no longer unselfish, could no longer kneel in
perfect submission; he was wholly bound to this child of her mother, and
the peace of absolute and utter sacrifice could not come back to him.
Full of unrest, feeling that somehow the end, at least for him, could
not be far off, he went north to the April Conference. He took Prudence
with him, not daring to leave her behind.

She went with high hopes, alive with new sensations. Another world lay
outside her valley of the mountains, and she was going to peep over the
edge at its manifold fascinations. She had been there before as a child;
now she was going as a woman. She remembered the city, bigger and
grander than fifty Amalons, with magnificent stores filled with exotic
novelties and fearsome luxuries from the land of the wicked Gentile. She
recalled even the strange advertisements and signs, from John and Enoch
Reese, with "All necessary articles of comfort for the wayfarer, such as
flour, hard bread, butter, eggs and vinegar, buckskin pants and
whip-lashes," to the "Surgeon Dentist from Berlin and Liverpool," who
would "Examine and Extract Teeth, besides keeping constantly on hand a
supply of the Best Matches, made by himself." From William Hennefer,
announcing that, "In Connection with my Barber Shop, I have just opened
an Eating House, where Patrons will be Accommodated with every Edible
Luxury the Valley Affords," to William Nixon, who sold goods for cash,
flour, or wheat "at Jacob Hautz's house on the southeast corner of
Council-House Street and Emigration Square, opposite to Mr. Orson
Spencer's."

She remembered the hunters and trappers in bedraggled buckskin, the
plainsmen with revolvers in their belts, wearing the blue army cloak,
the teamsters in leathern suits, and horsemen in fur coats and caps,
buffalo-hide boots with the hair outside, and rolls of blankets behind
their high Mexican saddles.

More fondly did she recall two wonderful evenings at the theatre. First
had been the thrilling "Robert Macaire," then the romantic "Pizarro," in
which Rolla had been a being of such overwhelming beauty that she had
felt he could not be of earth.

This time her visit was an endless fever of discovery in a realm of
magic and mystery, of joys she had supposed were held in reserve for
those who went behind the veil. It was a new and greater city she came
to now, where were buildings of undreamed splendour, many of them
reaching dizzily three stories above the earth. And the shops were more
fascinating than ever. She still shuddered at the wickedness of the
Gentiles, but with a certain secret respect for their habits of luxury
and their profusion of devices for adornment.

And there were strange new faces to be seen, people surely of a
different world, of a different manner from those she had known,
wearing, with apparent carelessness, garments even more strangely
elegant than those in the shop windows, and speaking in strange, soft
accents. She was told that these were Gentiles, tourists across the
continent, who had ventured from Ogden to observe the wonders of the new
Zion. The thought of the railroad was in itself thrilling. To be so near
that wonderful highway to the land of the evil-doers and to a land,
alas! of so many strange delights. She shuddered at her own wickedness,
but fell again and again, and was held in bondage by the allurements
about her. So thrilled to her soul's center was she that the pleasure of
it hurt her, and the tears would come to her eyes until she felt she
must be alone to cry for the awful joy of it.

The evening brought still more to endure, for they went to the play. It
was a play that took her out of herself, so that the crowd was lost to
her from the moment the curtain went up in obedience to a little bell
that tinkled mysteriously,--either back on the stage or in her own
heart, she was not sure which.

It was a love story; again that strangely moving love of one man for one
woman, that seemed as sweet as it was novel to her. But there was war
between the houses in the play, and the young lover had to make a way
to see his beloved, climbing a high wall into her garden, climbing to
her very balcony by a scarf she flung down to him. To the young woman
from Amalon, these lovers' voices came with a strange compulsion, so
that they played with her heart between them. She was in turn the youth,
pleading in a voice that touched every heart string from low to high;
then she was the woman, soft and timid, hesitating in moments of
delicious doubt, yet almost fearful of her power to resist,
--half-wishing to be persuaded, half-frightened lest she yield.

When the moment of surrender came, she became both of them; and, when
they parted, it was as if her heart went in twain, a half with each,
both to ache until they were reunited. Between the acts she awoke to
reality, only to say to herself: "So much I shall have to think
about--so much--I shall never be able to think about it enough."

Feverishly she followed the heart-breaking tragedy to its close,
suffering poignantly the grief of each lover, suffering death for each,
and feeling her life desolated when the end came.

But then the dull curtain shut her back into her own little world, where
there was no love like that, and beside the little bent man she went out
into the night.

The next morning had come a further delight, an invitation to a ball
from Brigham. Most of the day was spent in one of the shops, choosing a
gown of wondrous beauty, and having it fitted to her.

[Illustration: FULL OF ZEST FOR THE MEASURE AS ANY YOUTH]

When she looked into the little cracked mirror that night, she saw a
strange new face and figure; and, when she entered the ballroom, she
felt that others noted the same strangeness, for many looked at her
until she felt her cheeks burn. Then Brigham arose from a sofa, where he
had been sitting with his first wife and his last. He came gallantly
toward her; Brigham, whom she knew to be the most favoured of God on
earth and the absolute ruler of all the realm about her--an affable,
unpretentious yet dignified gentleman of seventy, who took her hand
warmly in both his own, looked her over with his kindly blue eyes, and
welcomed her to Zion in words of a fatherly gentleness. Later, when he
had danced with some of his wives, Brigham came to dance with her, light
of foot and full of zest for the measure as any youth.

Others danced with her, but during it all she kept finding herself back
before the magic square that framed the land where a man loved but one
woman. She remembered that Brigham sat with four of his wives in one of
the boxes, enthusiastically applauding that portrayal of a single love.
As the picture came back to her now, there seemed to have been something
incongruous in this spectacle. She observed the seamed and hardened
features of his earliest wife, who kept to the sofa during the evening,
beside the better favoured Amelia, whom the good man had last married,
and she thought of his score or so of wives between them.

Then she knew that what she had seen the night before had been the
truth; that she could love no man who did not love her alone. She tried
to imagine the lover in the play going from balcony to balcony, sighing
the same impassioned love-tale to woman after woman; or to imagine him
with many wives at home, to whom would be taken the news of his death in
the tomb of his last. So she thought of the play and not of the ball,
stepping the dances absently, and, when it was all over, she fell
asleep, rejoicing that, before their death, the two dear lovers had been
sealed for time and eternity, so that they could awaken together in the
Kingdom.

They went home the next day, driving down the valley that rolled in
billows of green between the broken ranges of the Wasatch and the
Oquirrh. It was no longer of the Kingdom she thought, nor of Brigham and
his wives; only of a clean-limbed youth in doublet and hose, a plumed
cap, and a silken cloak, who, in a voice that brought the tears back of
her eyes, told of his undying love for one woman--and of the soft,
tender woman in the moonlight, who had trusted him and let herself go to
him in life and in death.

The world had not ended. She thought that, in truth, it could not have
ended yet; for had she not a life to live?




CHAPTER XXXI.


_The Lion of the Lord Sends an Order_

They reached home in very different states of mind. The girl was eager
for the solitude of her favourite nook in the cañon, where she could
dream in peace of the wonderland she had glimpsed; but the little bent
man was stirred by dread and chilled with forebodings. To him, as well
as to the girl, the change in the first city of Zion had been a thing to
wonder at. But what had thrilled her with amazed delight brought pain to
him. Zion was no longer held inviolate.

And now the truth was much clearer to him. Not only had the Lord
deferred His coming, but He had set His hand again to scatter Israel for
its sin. Instead of letting them stay alone in their mountain retreat
until the beginning of His reign on earth, He had brought the Gentiles
upon them in overwhelming numbers. Where once a thousand miles of
wilderness lay between them and Gentile wickedness, they were now hemmed
about with it, and even it polluted the streets of the holy city itself.

Far on the east the adventurous Gentile had first pushed out of the
timber to the richly grassed prairies; then, later, on to the plains,
scorched brown with their sparse grass, driving herds of cattle ahead,
and stopping to make farms by the way. And now on the west, on the east,
and on the north, the Lord had let them pitch their tents and build
their cabins, where they would barter their lives for gold and flocks
and furs and timber, for orchard fruits and the grains of the field.
Little by little they had ventured toward the outer ramparts of Israel,
their numbers increasing year by year, and the daring of their
onslaughts against the desert and mountain wastes. With the rifle and
the axe they had made Zion but a station on the great highway between
the seas; a place where curious and irreverent Gentiles stopped to gaze
in wonder at and perhaps to mock the Lord's chosen; a place that would
become but one link in a chain of Gentile cities, that would be forced
to conform to the meretricious customs of Gentile benightedness.

It had been a fine vengeance upon them for their sin; one not unworthy
of Him who wrought it. It had come so insidiously, with such apparent
naturalness, little by little--a settler here, a settler there; here an
acre of gray desert charmed to yellow wheat; there a pouch of shining
gold washed from the burning sands; another wagon-train with hopeful men
and faithful women; a cabin, two cabins, a settlement, a schoolhouse, a
land of unwalled villages,--and democracy; a wicked government of men
set up in the very face and front of God-governed Israel.

At first they had come with ox-teams, but this was slow, and the big
Kentucky mules brought them faster; then had come the great rolling
Concord stages with their six horses; then the folly of an electric
telegraph, so that instant communication might be had with far-off
Babylon; and now the capstone in the arch of the Lord's vengeance,--a
railway,--flashing its crowded coaches over the Saints' old trail in
sixty easy hours,--a trail they had covered with their oxen in ninety
days of hardship. The rock of their faith would now be riven, the veil
of their temple rent, and their leaders corrupted.

Even of Brigham, the daring already told tales that promised this last
thing should come to pass; how he was become fat-souled, grasping, and
tricky, using his sacred office to enlarge his wealth, seizing the
cañons with their precious growths of wood, the life-giving waterways,
and the herding-grounds; taking even from the tithing, of which he
rendered no stewardship, and hiding away millions of the dollars for
which the faithful had toiled themselves into desert graves. Truly,
thought Joel Rae, that bloody day in the Meadows had been cunningly
avenged.

One morning, a few weeks after he had reached home from the north, he
received a call from Seth Wright.

"Here's a letter Brother Brigham wanted me to be sure and give you,"
said this good man. "He said he didn't know you was allowing to start
back so soon, or he'd have seen you in person."

He took the letter and glanced at the superscription, written in
Brigham's rather unformed but plain and very decided-looking hand.

"So you've been north, Brother Seth? What do you think of Israel there?"

The views of the Wild Ram of the Mountains partook in certain ways of
his own discouragement.

"Zion has run to seed, Brother Rae; the rank weeds of Babylon is a-goin'
to choke it out, root and branch! We ain't got no chance to live a pure
and Godly life any longer, with railroads coming in, and Gentiles with
their fancy contraptions. It weakens the spirit, and it plays the very
hob with the women. Soon as they git up there now, and see them new
styles from St. Looey or Chicago, they git downright daft. No more
homespun for 'em, no more valley tan, no more parched corn for coffee,
nor beet molasses nor unbolted flour. Oh, I know what I'm talkin'
about."

The tone of the good man became as of one who remembers hurts put upon
his own soul. He continued:

"You no sooner let a woman git out of the wagon there now than she's
crazy for a pink nubia, and a shell breastpin, and a dress-pattern, and
a whole bolt of factory and a set of chiny cups and saucers and some of
this here perfumery soap. And _that_ don't do 'em. Then they let out a
yell for varnished rockin'-cheers with flowers painted all over 'em in
different colours, and they tell you they got to have bristles
carpet--bristles on it that long, prob'ly!" The injured man indicated a
length of some eighteen or twenty inches.

"Of course all them grand things would please our feelings, but they
take a woman's mind off of the Lord, and she neglects her work in the
field, and then pretty soon the Lord gets mad and sics the Gentiles on
to us again. But I made my women toe the mark mighty quick, I told 'em
they could all have one day a week to work out, and make a little
pin-money, hoein' potatoes or plantin' corn or some such business, and
every cent they earned that way they could squander on this here
pink-and-blue soap, if they was a mind to; but not a York shilling of my
money could they have for such persuasions of Satan--not while we got
plenty of soap-grease and wood-ashes to make lye of and a soap-kittle
that cost four eighty-five, in the very Lord's stronghold. I dress my
women comfortable and feed 'em well--not much variety but plenty _of_,
and I've done right by 'em as a husband, and I tell 'em if they want to
be led away now into the sinful path of worldliness, why, I ain't goin'
to have any ruthers about it at all! But you be careful, Brother Rae,
about turning your women loose in one of them ungodly stores up there.
That reminds me, you had Prudence up to Conference, and I guess you
don't know what that letter's about."

"Why, no; do you?"

"Well, Brother Brigham only let a word or two drop, but plain enough; he
don't have to use many. He was a little mite afraid some one down here
would cut in ahead of him."

Joel Rae had torn open the big blue envelope in a sudden fear, and now
he read in Brigham's well-known script:--

"DEAR BROT. JOEL:--

"I was ancus to see more of your daughter, and would of kept her hear at
my house if you had not hurried off. I will let you seal her to me when
I come to Pine valle next, late this summer or after Oct. conference. If
anything happens and I am to bisy will have you bring her hear. Tell her
of this and what it will mean to her in the Lord's kingdom and do not
let her company with gentiles or with any of the young brethren around
there that might put Notions into her head. Try to due right and never
faint in well duing, keep the faith of the gospel and I pray the Lord to
bless you. BRIGHAM YOUNG."

The shrewd old face of the Bishop had wrinkled into a smile of quiet
observation as the other read the letter. In relating the incident to
the Entablature of Truth subsequently, he said of Joel Rae at the moment
he looked up from this letter: "He'll never be whiter when he's dead! I
see in a minute that the old man had him on the bark."

"You know what's in this, Brother Seth--you know that Brigham wants
Prudence?" Joel Rae had asked, looking up from the letter, upon which
both his hands had closed tightly.

"Well, I told you he dropped a word or two, jest by way of keeping off
the Princes of Israel down here."

"I must go to Salt Lake at once and talk to him."

"Take her along; likely he'll marry her right off."

"But I can't--I couldn't--Brother Seth, I wish her not to marry him."

The Bishop stared blankly at him, his amazement freezing upon his lips,
almost, the words he uttered.

"Not--want--her--to marry--Brother Brigham Young, Prophet, Seer, and
Revelator, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
in all the world!"

"I must go up and talk to him at once."

"You won't talk him out of it. Brother Brigham has the habit of
prevailing. Of course, he's closer than Dick's hat-band, but she'll have
the best there is until he takes another."

"He may listen to reason--"

"Reason?--why, man, what more reason could he want,--with that splendid
young critter before him, throwing back her head, and flashing her big,
shiny eyes, and lifting her red lips over them little white
teeth--reason enough for Brother Brigham--or for other people I could
name!"

"But he wouldn't be so hard--taking her away from me--"

Something in the tones of this appeal seemed to touch even the heart of
the Wild Ram of the Mountains, though it told of a suffering he could
not understand.

"Brigham is very sot in his ways," he said, after a little, with a
curious soft kindness in his voice,--"in fact, a _sotter_ man I never
knew!"

He drove off, leaving the other staring at the letter now crumpled in
his hand. He also said, in his subsequent narrative to the Entablature
of Truth: "You know I've always took Brother Rae for jest a natural born
_not_, a shy little cuss that could be whiffed around by anything and
everything, but when I drove off he had a plumb ornery fighting look in
them deep-set eyes of his, and blame me if I didn't someway feel sorry
for him,--he's that warped up, like an old water-soaked sycamore plank
that gits laid out in the sun."

But this look of belligerence had quickly passed from the face of Joel
Rae when the first heat of his resentment had cooled.

After that he merely suffered, torn by his reverence for Brigham, who
represented on earth no less a power than the first person of the
Trinity, and by the love for this child who held him to a past made
beautiful by his love for her mother,--by a thousand youthful dreams and
fancies and wayward hopes that he had kept fresh through all the years;
torn between Brigham, whose word was as the word of God, and Prudence
who was the living flower of her dead mother and all his dead hopes.

Could he persuade Brigham to leave her? The idea of refusing him, if he
should persist, was not seriously to be thought of. For twenty-five
years he, in common with the other Saints, had held Brigham's lightest
command to be above all earthly law; to be indeed the revealed will of
God. His kingship in things material no less than in things spiritual
had been absolute, undisputed, undoubted--indeed, gloried in by the
people as much as Brigham himself gloried when he declared it in and out
of the tabernacle. Their blind obedience had been his by divine right,
by virtue of his iron will, his matchless courage, his tireless spirit,
and his understanding of their hearts and their needs, born of his
common suffering with them. Nothing could be done without his sanction.
No man could enter a business, or change his home from north to south,
without first securing his approval; even the merchants who went east or
west for goods must first report to him their wishes, to see if he had
contrary orders for them! From the invitation list of a ball to the
financing of a corporation, his word was law; in matters of marriage as
well--no man daring even to seek a wife until the Prophet had approved
his choice. The whole valley for five hundred miles was filled with his
power as with another air that the Saints must breathe. In his
oft-repeated own phrase, it was his God-given right to dictate all
matters, "even to the ribbons a woman should wear, or the setting up of
a stocking." And his people had not only submitted blindly to his rule,
but had reverenced and even loved him for it.

Twenty-five years of such allegiance, preceded by a youth in which the
same gospel of obedience was bred into his marrow--this was not to be
thrown off by a mere heartache; not to be more than striven against,
half-heartedly, in the first moment of anguish.

He thought of Brigham's home in the Lion House, the score or so of
plain, elderly women, hard-working, simple-minded; the few favourites of
his later years, women of sightlier exteriors; and he pictured the long
dining-room, where, at three o'clock each afternoon, to the sound of a
bell, these wives and half a hundred children marched in, while the
Prophet sat benignantly at the head of the table and blessed the meal.
He tried to fix Prudence in this picture, but at every effort he saw,
not her, the shy, sweet woman, full of surprised tenderness, but a
creature hardened, debased, devoid of charm, dehumanised, a brood-beast
of the field.

And yet this was not rebellion. His mind was clear as to that. He could
not refuse, even had refusal not been to incur the severest penalties
both in this world and in the world to come. The habit of obedience was
all-powerful.

Presently he saw Prudence coming across the fields in the late
afternoon from the road that led to the cañon. He watched her jealously
until she drew near, then called her to him. In a few words he told her
very gravely the honour that was to be done her.

When she fully understood, he noted that her mind seemed to attain an
unusual clearness, her speech a new conciseness; that she was displaying
a force of will he had never before suspected.

Her reply, in effect, was that she would not marry Brigham Young if all
the angels in heaven came to entreat her; that the thought was not a
pretty one; and that the matter might be considered settled at that very
moment. "It's too silly to talk about," she concluded.

Almost fearfully he looked at her, yielding a little to her spirit of
rebellion, yet trying not to yield; trying not to rejoice in the amused
flash of her dark eyes and the decision of her tones. But then, as he
looked, and as she still faced him, radiant in her confidence, he felt
himself going with her--plunging into the tempting wave of apostasy.




CHAPTER XXXII.


_A New Face in the Dream_

In a settled despair the little bent man waited for the end. Already he
felt himself an outcast from Israel. In spirit he had disobeyed the
voice of Brigham, which was the voice of God; exulting sinfully in spite
of himself in this rebellion. Praying to be bowed and bent and broken,
to have all trace of the evil self within him burned out, he had now let
that self rise up again to cry out a want. Praying that crosses might
daily be added to his burden, he had now refused to take up one the
bearing of which might have proved to Heaven the extinction of his last
selfish desire. He had been put to the test, as he prayed to be, and he
had failed miserably to meet it. And now he knew that even his life was
waning with his faith.

During the year when he waited for the end of the world, he had been
nerved to an unwonted vigour. Now he was weak and fit for no further
combat. He waited, with an indifference that amazed him, for the day
when he should openly defy Brigham, and have penalties heaped upon him.

First he would be ordered on a mission to some far corner of the world.
It would mean that he must go alone, "without purse or scrip," leaving
Prudence. He would refuse to go. Thereupon he would be sternly
disfellowshiped. Then, having become an apostate, he would be a fair
mark for many things, perhaps for simple persecution--perhaps for blood
atonement. He had heard Brigham himself say in the tabernacle that he
was ready to "unsheathe his bowie knife" and send apostates "to hell
across lots."

He was ready to welcome that. It were easier to die now than to live;
and, as for being cut off from his glory in the after-time, he had
already forfeited that; would miss it even if he died in fellowship with
Brigham and full of churchly honours; would miss it even if the power on
high should forgive him,--for he himself, he knew, could not forgive his
own sin. So it was little matter about his apostasy, and Prudence should
be saved from a wifehood that, ever since he had pictured her in it, had
seemed to him for the first time unspeakably bad.

They talked but little about it that day, after her first abrupt
refusal. There was too much for each of them to think of. He was obliged
to dwell upon the amazing fact that he must lie in hell until he could
win his own forgiveness, regardless of what gentle pardoning might be
his from God. This, to him, simple and obvious truth, was now his daily
torture.

As for Prudence, she had to be alone to dream her dreams of a love that
should be always single. Brigham's letter, far from disturbing these,
had brought them a zest hitherto lacking. Neither the sacrilege of
refusing him, its worldly unwisdom, nor its possible harm to the little
bent man of sorrows, had as yet become apparent to her. Each day, when
such duties as were hers in the house had been performed, she walked out
to be alone,--always to Box Cañon, that green-sided cleft in the
mountain, with the brook lashing itself to a white fury over the
boulders at the bottom. She would go up out of the hot valley into its
cool freshness and its pleasant wood smells, and there, in the softened
blue light of a pine-hung glade, she would rest, and let her fancy build
what heaven-reaching towers it would. On some brown bed of pine-needles,
or on a friendly gray boulder close by the water-side, where she could
give her eyes to its flow and foam, and her ears to its music,--music
like the muffled tinkling of little silver bells in the distance,--she
would let herself go out to her dream with the joyous, reckless abandon
of falling water.

It was commonly a dream of a youth in doublet and hose, a plumed cap,
and a cloak of purple satin, who came in the moonlight to the balcony of
his love, and sighed his passion in tones so moving that she thought an
angel must have yielded--as did the girl in the balcony who had let down
the scarf to him. She already knew how that girl's heart must have
fluttered at the moment,--how she must have felt that the hands were
mad, wicked, uncontrollable hands, no longer her own.

There was one place in the dream that she managed not without some
ingenuity. It had to be made plain that the lover under the window did
not come from a long, six-doored house, with a wife behind each door;
that this girl, pale in the moonlight, with quickening heart and
rebellious hands on the scarf, and arms that should open to him, was to
be not only his first wife but his last; that he was never even to
consider so much as the possibility of another, but was to cleave unto
her, and to love her with a single heart for all the days of her life
and his own.

There were various ways of bringing this circumstance forward. Usually
she had Brigham march on at the head of his great family and counsel the
youth to take more wives, in order that he should be exalted in the
Kingdom. Whereupon the young man would fold his love in his arms and
speak words of scorn, in the same thrilling manner that he spoke his
other words, for any exaltation which they two could not share alone.
Brigham, at the head of his wives, would then slink off, much abashed.

She had come naturally to see her own face as the face of this happily
loved girl in the dream. She knew no face for the youth. There was none
in Amalon; not Jarom Tanner, six feet three, who became a helpless,
grinning child in her presence; nor Moroni Peterson, who became a
solemn and ghastly imbecile; nor Ammaron Wright, son of the Bishop, who
had opened the dance of the Young People's Auxiliary with prayer, and
later tried to kiss her in a dark corner of the room. So the face of the
other person in her dream remained of an unknown heavenly beauty.

And then one afternoon in early May a strange youth came singing down
the cañon; came while she mused by the brook-side in her best-loved
dream. Long before she saw him, she heard his music, a young, clear,
care-free voice ringing down from the trail that went over the mountains
to Kanab and into Kimball Valley; one of the ways that led out to the
world that she wondered about so much. It was a voice new to her, and
the words of his ballad were also new. At first she heard them from
afar:--

  "There was a young lady came a-tripping along,
     And at each side a servant-O,
   And in each hand a glass of wine
     To drink with the Gypsy Davy-O.

  "And will you fancy me, my dear,
     And will you be my Honey-O?
   I swear by the sword that hangs by my side
     You shall never want for money-O.

  "Oh, yes, I will fancy you, kind sir,
     And I will be your Honey-O,
   If you swear by the sword that hangs by your side
     I shall never want for money-O."

The singer seemed to be making his way slowly. Far up the trail, she had
one fleeting glimpse of a man on a horse, and then he was hid again in
the twilight of the pines. But the music came nearer:--

  "Then she put on her high-heeled shoes,
     All made of Spanish leather-O,
   And she put on her bonnie, bonnie brown,
     And they rode off together-O.

  "Soon after that, her lord came home
     Inquiring for his lady-O,
   When some of the servants made this reply,
     She's a-gone with the Gypsy Davy-O.

  "Then saddle me my milk-white steed,
     For the black is not so speedy-O,
   And I'll ride all night and I'll ride all day
     Till I overtake my lady-O."

She stood transfixed, something within her responding to the hidden
singer, as she had once heard a closed piano sound to a voice that sang
near it. Soon she could get broken glimpses of him as he wound down the
trail, now turning around the end of a fallen tree, then passing behind
a giant spruce, now leaning far back while the horse felt a way
cautiously down some sharp little declivity. The impression was
confused,--a glint of red, of blue, of the brown of the horse, a figure
swaying loosely to the horse's movements, and then he was out of sight
again around the big rock that had once fallen from high up on the side
of the cañon; but now, when he came from behind that, he would be
squarely in front of her. This recalled and alarmed her. She began to
pick a way over the boulders and across the trail that lay between her
and the edge of the pines, hearing another verse of the song, almost at
her ear:--

  "He rode all night and he rode all day,
   Till he came to the far deep water-O,
   Then he stopped and a tear came a-trickling down his cheek,
   For there he saw his lady-O."

Before she could reach a shelter in the pines, while she was poised for
the last step that would take her out of the trail, he was out from
behind the rock, before her, almost upon her, reining his horse back
upon its haunches,--then in another instant lifting off his
broad-brimmed hat to her in a gracious sweep. It was the first time she
had seen this simple office performed outside of the theatre.

She looked up at him, embarrassed, and stepped back across the narrow
trail, her head down again, so that he was free to pass. But instead of
passing, she became aware that he had dismounted.

When she looked up, he was busily engaged in adjusting something about
his saddle, with an expression of deepest concern in his blue eyes. His
hat was on the ground and his yellow hair glistened where the band had
pressed it about his head.

"It's that latigo strap," he remarked, in a tone of some annoyance.
"I've had to fix it every five miles since I left Kanab!" Then looking
up at her with a friendly smile: "Dandy most stepped on you, I reckon."

The amazement of it was that, after her first flurry at the sound of
his voice and his half-seen movements up the trail, it should now seem
all so commonplace.

"Oh, no, I was well out of his way."

She started again to cross the trail, stepping quickly, with her eyes
down, but again his voice came, less deliberate this time, and with
words in something less than intelligible sequence.

"Excuse me, Miss--but--now how many miles to--what's the name of the
nearest settlement--I suppose you live hereabouts?"

"What did you say?"

"I say is there any place where I could get to stop a day or so in
Amalon?"

"Oh--I didn't understand--I think so; at least, my father sometimes--but
there's Elder Wardle, he often takes in travellers."

"You say your father--"

"Not always--I don't know, I'm sure--" she looked doubtful.

"Oh, all right! I'll ask him,--if you'll show me his place."

"It's the first place on the left after you leave the cañon--with the
big peach orchard--I'm not going home just yet."

He stroked the muzzle of the horse.

"Oh, I'm in no hurry, I'm just looking over the country a little. Your
father's name is--"

"Ask for Elder Rae--or one of his wives will say if they can keep you
over night."

She caught something new in his glance, and felt the blood in her face.

"I must go now--you can find your way--I must go."

"Well, if you _must_ go,"--he picked up his hat,--"but I'll see you
again. You'll be coming home this evening, I reckon?"

"The first house on the left," she answered, and stepped once more
across the trail and into the edge of the pines. She went with the same
mien of importance that Tom Potwin wore on his endless errands; and with
quite as little reason, too; for the direction in which she had started
so earnestly would have led her, after a few steps, straight up a
granite cliff a thousand feet high. As she entered the pines she heard
him mount his horse and ride down the trail, and then the rest of his
song came back to her:--

  "Will you forsake your houses and lands,
     Will you forsake your baby-O?
   Will you forsake your own wedded lord
     To foller a Gypsy Davy-O?

  "Yes, I'll forsake my houses and lands,
     Yes, I'll forsake my baby-O,
   For I am bewitched, and I know the reason why;
     It's a follering a Gypsy Davy-O.

  "Last night I lay on a velvet couch
     Beside my lord and baby-O;
   To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground,
     In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O.

  "To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground,
     In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O!"

When his voice died away and she knew he must be gone, she came out
again to her nook beside the stream where, a moment before, her dream
had filled her. But now, though nothing had happened beyond the riding
by of a strange youth, the dream no longer sufficed. In place of the
moonlit balcony was the figure of this young stranger swaying with his
horse down between the hollowed shoulders of the Pine Mountains and
reining up suddenly to sweep his broad hat low in front of her. She was
surprised by the clearness with which she could recall the details of
his appearance,--a boyish-looking fellow, with wide-open blue eyes and a
sunbrowned face under his yellow hair, the smallest of moustaches, and a
smile of such winning good-humour that it had seemed to force her own
lips apart in answer.

Around the broad, gray hat had been a band of braided silver; when he
stepped, the spurs on his high-heeled boots had jingled and clanked of
silver; around his neck with a knot at the back and the corners flapping
down on the front of his blue woollen shirt, had been a white-dotted
handkerchief of scarlet silk; and about his waist was knotted a long
scarf of the same colour; dogskin "chapps" he had worn, fronted with the
thick yellowish hair outside; his saddle-bags, back of the saddle,
showing the same fur; his saddle had been of stamped Spanish leather
with a silver capping on the horn and on the circle of the cantle; and
on the right of the saddle she had seen the coils of a lariat of
plaited horsehair.

The picture of him stayed in her mind, the sturdy young figure,--rather
loose-jointed but with an easy grace of movement,--and the engaging
naturalness of his manner. But after all nothing had happened save the
passing of a stranger, and she must go alone back to her dream. Yet now
the dream might change; a strange youth might come riding out of the
east, sitting a sorrel horse with a star and a white hind ankle, a long
rangy neck and strong quarters; and he--the youth--would wear a broad,
gray hat, with a band of silver filigree, a scarlet kerchief at his
throat, a scarlet sash at his waist, and yellow dogskin "chapps."

Still, she thought, he could hardly have a place in the dream. The real
youth of the dream had been of an unearthly beauty, with a rose-leaf
complexion and lustrous curls massed above a brow of marble. The
stranger had not been of an unearthly beauty. To be sure, he was very
good to look at, with his wide-open blue eyes and his yellow hair, and
he had appeared uncommonly fresh and clean about the mouth when he
smiled at her. But she could not picture him sighing the right words of
love under a balcony in the moonlight. He had looked to be too intensely
business-like.




CHAPTER XXXIII.


_The Gentile Invasion_

When she came across the fields late in the afternoon, the strange
youth's horse was picketed where the bunch-grass grew high, and the
young man himself talked with her father by the corral bars. She had
never realised how old her father was, how weak, and small, and bent,
until she saw him beside this erect young fellow. Her heart went out to
the older man with a new sympathy as she saw his feebleness so sharply
in relief against the well-blooded, hard-muscled vigour of the younger.
When she would have passed them, her father called to her.

"Prudence, this is Mr. Ruel Follett. He will stay with us to-night."

The sombrero was off again and she felt the blue eyes seeking hers,
though she could not look up from the ground when she had given her
little bow. She heard him say:

"I already met your daughter, sir, at the mouth of the cañon."

She went on toward the house, hearing them resume their talk, the
stranger saying, "That horse can sure carry all the weight you want to
put on him and step away good; he'll do it right at both ends,
too--Dandy will--and he's got a mighty tasty lope."

Later she brought him a towel when he had washed himself in the tin
basin on the bench outside the house. He had doffed the "chapps" and
hung them on a peg, the scarlet kerchief was also off, his shirt was
open at the neck, and soap and water had played freely over his head. He
took the towel from her with a sputtering, "Thank you," and with a pair
of muscular, brown hands proceeded to scour himself dry until the yellow
hair stood about him as a halo--without, however, in the least
suggesting the angelic or even saintly: for his face, from the friction
inflamed to a high degree, was now a mass of red with two inquiring
spots of blue near the upper edge. But then the clean mouth opened in
its frank smile, and her own dark lashes had to fall upon her cheeks
until she turned away.

At supper and afterwards Mr. Follett talked freely of himself, or seemed
to. He was from the high plains and the short-grass country, wherever
that might be--to the east and south she gathered. He had grown up in
that country, working for his father, who had been an overland
freighter, until the day the railroad tracks were joined at Promontory.
He, himself, had watched the gold and silver spikes driven into the tie
of California mahogany two years before; and then, though they still
kept a few wagon trains moving to the mining camps north and south of
the railroad, they had looked for other occupations.

Now their attention was chiefly devoted to mines and cattle. There were
great times ahead in the cattle business. His father remembered when
they had killed cattle for their hides and tallow, leaving the meat to
the coyotes. But now, each spring, a dozen men, like himself, under a
herd boss, would drive five thousand head to Leavenworth, putting them
through ten or twelve miles a day over the Abiline trail, keeping them
fat and getting good prices for them. There was plenty of room for the
business. "Over yonder across the hills," as Mr. Follett put it. There
was a herding ground four hundred miles wide, east and west, and a
thousand miles north and south, covered with buffalo grass, especially
toward the north, that made good stock feed the year around. He himself
had, in winter, followed a herd that drifted from Montana to Texas; and
in summer he had twice ranged from Corpus Christi to Deadwood.

Down in the Panhandle they were getting control of a ranch that would
cover five thousand square miles. Some day they would have every one of
its three million acres enclosed with a stout wire fence. It would be a
big ranch, bigger than the whole state of Connecticut--bigger than
Delaware and Rhode Island "lumped together", he had been told. Here they
would have the "C lazy C" brand on probably a hundred and fifty
thousand head of cattle. He thought the business would settle down to
this conservative basis with the loose ends of it pulled together; with
closer attention paid to branding, for one thing; branding the calves,
so they would no longer have to rope a full-grown steer, and tie it with
a scarf such as he wore about his waist.

But they were also working some placer claims up around Helena, and
developing a quartz prospect over at Carson City. And the freighting was
by no means "played out." He, himself, had driven a six-mule team with
one line over the Santa Fé trail, and might have to do it again. The
resources of the West were not exhausted, whatever they might say. A man
with a head on him would be able to make a good living there for some
years to come.

Both father and daughter found him an agreeable young man in spite of
his being an alien from the Commonwealth of Israel. He remained with
them three days looking over the country about Amalon, talking with its
people and making himself at least not an object of suspicion and
aversion, as the casual Gentile was apt to be. Prudence found herself
usually at ease with him; he was so wholly likable and unassuming. Yet
at times he seemed strangely mature and reserved to her, so that she was
just a little awed.

He told her in their evenings many wonder-tales of that outside world
where the wicked Gentiles lived; of populous cities on the western edge
of it, and of vast throngs that crowded the interior clear over to the
Atlantic Ocean. She had never realised before what a small handful of
people the Lord had set His hand to save, and what vast numbers He had
made with hearts that should be hardened to the glorious articles of the
new covenant.

The wastefulness of it rather appalled her. Out of the world with its
myriad millions, only the few thousand in this valley of the mountains
had proved worthy of exaltation. And this young man was doubtless a fair
sample of them,--happy, unthinking, earning perdition by mere
carelessness. If only there were a way to save them--if only there were
a way to save even this one--but she hardly dared speak to him of her
religion.

When he left he told them he was making a little trip through the
settlements to the north, possibly as far as Cedar City. He did not know
how long he would be gone, but if nothing prevented he might be back
that way. He shook hands with them both at parting, and though he spoke
so vaguely about a return, his eyes seemed to tell Prudence that he
would like very much to come. He had talked freely about everything but
the precise nature of his errand in the valley.

In her walks to the cañon she thought much of him when he had gone. She
could not put his face into the dream because he was too real and
immanent. He and the dream would not blend, even though she had decided
that his fresh-cheeked, clear-eyed face, with its clean smile and the
yellow hair above it was almost better to look at than the face of the
youth in the play. It was not so impalpable; it satisfied. So she mused
about them alternately, the dream and the Gentile,--taking perhaps a
warmer interest in the latter for his aliveness, for the grasp of his
hand at parting, which she, with astonishment, had felt her own hand
cordially returning.

Her father talked much of the young man. In his prophetic eye this
fearless, vigorous young stranger was the incarnate spirit of that
Gentile invasion to which the Lord had condemned them for their sins. He
had come, resourceful, determined, talking of mighty enterprises, of
cattle, and gold, and wheat, of wagon-trains, and railroad,--an eloquent
forerunner of the Gentile hordes that should come west upon the
shoulders of Israel, and surround, assimilate, and reduce them, until
they should lose all their powers and gifts and become a mere sect among
sects, their name, perhaps, a hissing and a scorn. He foresaw the
invasion of which this self-poised, vital youth of three or four and
twenty was a sapper; and he knew it was a just punishment from on high
for the innocent blood they had shed. Yet now he viewed it rather
impersonally, for he felt curiously disconnected from the affairs of the
Church and the world.

He no longer preached on the Sabbath, giving his ill-health as an
excuse. In truth he felt it would not be honest since, in his secret
heart, he was now an apostate. But with his works of healing he busied
himself more than ever, and in this he seemed to have gained new power.
Weak as he was physically, gray-haired, bloodless, fragile, with what
seemed to be all of his remaining life burning in his deep-set eyes, he
yet laid his hands upon the sick with a success so marked that his fame
spread and he was sent for to rebuke plagues and fevers from as far away
as Beaver.

For two weeks they heard nothing of the wandering Gentile, and Prudence
had begun to wonder if she would ever see him again; also to wonder why
an uncertainty in the matter should seem to be of importance.

But one evening early in June they saw him walking up in the dusk, the
light sombrero, the scarlet kerchief against the blue woollen shirt, the
holster with its heavy Colt's revolver at either hip, the easy moving
figure, and the strong, yet boyish face.

He greeted them pleasantly, though, the girl thought, with some
restraint. She could not hear it in his words, but she felt it in his
manner, something suppressed and deeply hidden. They asked where his
horse was and he replied with a curious air of embarrassment:--

"Well, you see, I may be obliged to stop around here a quite some while,
so I put up with this man Wardle--not wanting to impose upon you
all--and thanking you very kindly, and not wishing to intrude--so I just
came to say 'howdy' to you."

They expressed regret that he had not returned to them, Joel Rae urging
him to reconsider; but he declined politely, showing a desire to talk of
other things.

They sat outside in the warm early evening, the young man and Prudence
near each other at one side of the door, while Joel Rae resumed his
chair a dozen feet the other side and lapsed into silence. The two young
people fell easily into talk as on the other evenings they had spent
there. Yet presently she was again aware, as in the moment of his
greeting, that he laboured under some constraint. He was uneasy and
shifted his chair several times until at length it was so placed that he
could look beyond her to where her father had tilted his own chair
against the house and sat huddled with his chin on his breast. He talked
absently, too, at first, of many things and without sequence; and when
he looked at her, there was something back of his eyes, plain even in
the dusk, that she had not seen there before. He was no longer the
ingenuous youth who had come to them from off the Kanab trail.

In a little while, however, this uneasiness seemed to vanish and he was
speaking naturally again, telling of his life on the plains with a
boyish enthusiasm; first of the cattle drives, of the stampede of a herd
by night, when the Indians would ride rapidly by in the dark, dragging a
buffalo-robe over the ground at the end of a lariat, sending the
frightened steers off in a mad gallop that made the earth tremble. They
would have to ride out at full speed in the black night, over ground
treacherous with prairie-dog holes, to head and turn the herd of
frenzied cattle, and by riding around and around them many times get
them at last into a circle and so hold them until they became quiet
again. Often this was not until sunrise, even with the lullabys they
sang "to put them to sleep."

Then he spoke of adventures with the Indians while freighting over the
Santa Fé trail, and of what a fine man his father, Ezra Calkins, was. It
was the first time he had mentioned the name and her ear caught it at
once.

"Your father's name is Calkins?"

"Yes--I'm only an adopted son."

Unconsciously she had been letting her voice fall low, making their chat
more confidential. She awoke to this now and to the fact that he had
done the same, by noting that he raised his voice at this time with a
casual glance past her to where her father sat.

"Yes--you see my own father and mother were killed when I was eight
years old, and the people that murdered them tried to kill me too, but I
was a spry little tike and give them the slip. It was a bad country, and
I like to have died, only there was a band of Navajos out trading
ponies, and one morning, after I'd been alone all night, they picked me
up and took care of me. I was pretty near gone, what with being scared
and everything, but they nursed me careful. They took me away off to the
south and kept me about a year, and then one time they took me with them
when they worked up north on a buffalo hunt. It was at Walnut Creek on
the big bend of the Arkansas that they met Ezra Calkins coming along
with one of his trains and he bought me of those Navajos. I remember he
gave fifty silver dollars for me to the chief. Well, when I told him all
that I could remember about myself--of course the people that did the
killing scared a good deal of it out of me--he took me to Kansas City
where he lived, and went to law and made me his son, because he'd lost a
boy about my age. And so that's how we have different names, he telling
me I'd ought to keep mine instead of taking his."

She was excited by the tale, which he had told almost in one breath, and
now she was eager to question, looking over to see if her father would
not also be interested; but the latter gave no sign.

"You poor little boy, among those wretched Indians! But why were your
father and mother killed? Did the Indians do it?"

"No, not Indians that did it--and I never did know why they killed
them--they that _did_ do it."

"But how queer! Don't you know who it was?"

Before answering, he paused to take one of the long revolvers from its
holster, laying it across his lap, his right hand still grasping it.

"It was tiring my leg where it was," he explained. "I'll just rest
myself by holding it here. I've practised a good smart bit with these
pistols against the time when I'd meet some of them that did it--that
killed my father and mother and lots of others, and little children,
too."

"How terrible! And it wasn't Indians?"

"No--I _told_ you that already--it wasn't Indians."

"Don't you know who it was?"

"Oh, yes, I know all of them I want to know. The fact is, up there at
Cedar City I met some people that got confidential with me one day, and
told me a lot of their names. There was Mr. Barney Carter and Mr. Sam
Woods, and they talked right freely about some folks. I found out what I
was wanting to know, being that they were drinking men."

He had moved slightly as he spoke and she glanced at the revolver still
held along his knee.

"Isn't that dangerous--seems to me it's pointed almost toward father."

"Oh, not a bit dangerous, and it rests me to hold it there. You see it
was hereabouts this thing happened. In fact, I came down here looking
for a big man, and a little girl that I remembered, whose father and
mother were killed at the same time mine was. This little girl was about
three or four, I reckon, and she was taken by one of the murderers. He
seemed like an awful big man to me. By the way, that's mean whiskey your
Bishop sells on the sly up at Cedar City. Why, it's worse than Taos
lightning. Well, this Barney Carter and Mr. Sam Woods, they would drink
it all right, but they said one drink made a man ugly and two made him
so downright bad that he'd just as lief tear his wife's best bonnet to
pieces as not. But they seemed to like me pretty well, and they drank a
lot of this whiskey that the Bishop sold me, and then they got talking
pretty freely about old times. I gathered that this man that took the
little girl is a pretty big man around here. Of course I wasn't
expecting anything like that; I thought naturally he'd be a low-down
sort to have been mixed up in a thing like that."

He spoke his next words very slowly, with little pauses.

"But I found out what his name was--it was--"

He stopped, for there had been an indistinct sound from where her father
sat, now in the gloom of the evening. She called to him:

"Did you speak, father?"

There was no reply or movement from the figure in the chair, and Follett
resumed:

"I guess he was just asleep and dreaming about something. Well,
anyway--I--I found out afterwards by telling it before him, that Mr.
Barney Carter and his drunken friend had given me his name right, though
I could hardly believe it before."

"What an awful, awful thing! What wickedness there is in the world!"

"Oh, a tolerable lot," he assented.

He had been all animation and eagerness in the telling of the story, but
had now become curiously silent and listless; so that, although she was
eager with many questions about what he had said, she did not ask them,
waiting to see if he would not talk again. But instead of talking, he
stayed silent and presently began to fidget in his chair. At last he
said, "If you'll excuse us, Miss Prudence, your pa and I have got a
little business matter to talk over--to-night. I guess we can go down
here by the corral and do it."

But she arose quickly and bade him good night. "I hope I shall see you
to-morrow," she said.

She bent over to kiss her father as she went in, and when she had done
so, warned him that he must not sit in the night air.

"Why your face is actually wet with a cold sweat. You ought to come in
at once."

"After a very little, dear. Go to bed now--and always be a good girl!"

"And you've grown so hoarse sitting here."

"In a little while,--always be a good girl!"

She went in with a parting admonition: "Remember your cough--good
night!"

When she had gone neither man stirred for the space of a minute. The
little man, huddled in his seat, had not changed his position; he still
sat with his chair tilted back against the house, his chin on his
breast.

The other had remained standing where the girl left him, the revolver in
his hand. After the minute of silence he crossed over and stood in
front of the seated man.

"Come," he said, gruffly, "where do you want to go?"




CHAPTER XXXIV.


_How the Avenger Bungled His Vengeance_

At last he stood up, slowly, unsteadily, grasping Follett by the arm for
support. He spoke almost in a whisper.

"Come back here first--to talk--then I'll go with you."

He entered the house, the young man following close, suspicious,
narrowly watchful.

"No fooling now,--feel the end of that gun in your back?" The other made
no reply. Inside the door he took a candle from the box against the wall
and lighted it.

"Don't think I'm trying anything--come here."

They went on, the little bent man ahead, holding the candle well up. His
room was at the far end of the long house. When they reached it, he
closed the door and fixed the candle on the table in some of its own
grease. Then he pointed Follett to the one stool in the little cell-like
room, and threw himself face down on the bed.

Follett, still standing, waited for him to speak. After a moment's
silence he grew impatient.

"Come, come! What would you be saying if you were talking? I can't wait
here all night."

But the little man on the bed was still silent, nor did he stir, and
after another wait Follett broke out again.

"If you want to talk, _talk_, I tell you. If you don't want to, I can
say all I have to say, _quick_."

Then the other turned himself over on the bed and half sat up, leaning
on his elbow.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but you see I'm so weak"--the strained
little smile came to his face--"and tremble so, there's so much to think
of--do _you_ hear those women scream--_there_! did you hear that?--but
of course not. Now--wait just a moment--have you come to kill me?"

"You and those two other hellions--the two that took me and that boy out
that night to bury us."

"Did you think of the consequences?"

"I reckoned you'd be called paid for, any time any one come gunning for
you. I didn't think there'd _be_ any consequences."

"Hereafter, I mean; to your soul. What a pity you didn't wait a little
longer! Those other two are already punished."

"Don't lie to me now?"

The little smile lighted his face again.

"I have a load of sin on me--but I don't think I ever did lie to any
one--I guess I never was tempted--"

"Oh, you've _acted_ lies enough."

[Illustration: "OH, MAN ... HOW I'VE LONGED FOR THAT BULLET OF YOURS!"]

"You're right--that's so. But I'm telling you
truth now--those two men had both been in the Meadows that day and it
killed them. One went crazy and ran off into the desert. They found his
bones. The other shot himself a few years ago. Those of us that live are
already in hell--"

He sat up, now, animated for the moment.

"--in hell right here, I tell you. I'd have welcomed you, or any other
man that would kill me, any time this fifteen years. I'd have gone out
to meet you. Do you think I like to hear the women scream? Do you think
I'm not crazed myself by this thing--right back of me here,
_now_--crawling, bleeding, breathing on me--trying to come here in front
where I must _see_ it? Don't you see God has known how to punish me
worse than you could, just by keeping me alive and sane? Oh, man! you
don't know how I've longed for that bullet of yours, right here through
the temples where the cries sound worst. I didn't dare to do it
myself--I was afraid I'd make my punishment worse if I tried to shirk;
but I used to hope you would come as you said you would. I wonder I
didn't know you at once."

He put his hands to his head and fell back again on the pillow, with a
little moan.

"Well, it ain't strange I didn't know _you_. I was looking for a big
man. You seemed as big as a house to me that day. I forgot that I'd
grown up and you might be small. When those fellows got tight up there
and let on like it was you that some folks hinted had took a child and
kept it out of that muss, I couldn't hardly believe it; and everybody
seeming to regard you so highly. And I couldn't believe this big girl
was little Prue Girnway that I remembered. It seemed like you two would
have to be a great big man and a little bit of a baby girl with yellow
hair; and now I find you're--say, Mister, _honestly_, you're such a
poor, broke-down, little coot it seems a'most like a shame to put a
bullet through you, in spite of all your doings!"

The little man sat up again, with new animation in his eyes,--the same
eager boyishness that he had somehow kept through all his years.

"_Don't_!" he exclaimed, earnestly. "Let me beg you, don't kill me! For
your own sake--not for mine. I'm a poor, meatless husk. I'll die soon at
best, and I'm already in a hell you can't make any hotter. Let me do you
this service; let me persuade you not to kill me. Have you ever killed a
man?"

"No, not yet; I've allowed to a couple of times, but it's never come
just that way."

"You ought to thank God. Don't ever. You'll be in hell as sure as you
do,--a hell right here that you must carry inside of you forever--that
even God can't take out of you. Listen--it's a great secret, worth
millions. If you're so bad you can't forgive yourself, you have to
suffer hell-fire no matter how much the Lord forgives you. It sounds
queer, but there's the limit to His power. He's made us so nearly in His
image that we have to win our own forgiveness; why, you can see
yourself, it _had_ to be that way; there would have been no dignity
to a soul that could swallow all its own wickedness so long as the Lord
could. God has given us to know good and evil for ourselves--and we have
to take the consequences. Look at me. I suffer day and night, and always
must. God has forgiven me, but I can't forgive myself, for my own sin
and my people's sin,--for my preaching was one of the things that led
them into that meadow. I know that Christ died for us, but that can't
put out this fire that I _have_ to build in my own soul. I tell you a
man is like an angel, he can be good or bad; he has a power for heaven
but the same power for hell--"

"See here, I don't know anything about all this hell-talk, but I do
know--"

"I tell you death is the very last thing I have left to look forward to,
but if you kill me it will be your own undoing. You will never get me
out of your eyes or your ears, poor wreck as I am--so feeble. You can
see what my punishment has been. A little while ago I was young, and
strong, and proud like you, fearing nothing and wanting everything, but
something was wrong. I was climbing up as I thought, and then all at
once I saw I had been climbing down--down into a pit I never could get
out of. You will be there if you kill me." He sank back on the bed
again.

Follett slowly put the revolver into its holster and sat down on the low
stool.

"I don't know anything about all this hell-talk, but I see I can't kill
you--you're such a poor, miserable cuss. And I thought you were a big
strong man, handy with a gun and all that, and like as not I'd have to
make a quick draw on you when the time come. And now look at you! Why,
Mister, I'm doggoned if I ain't almost _sorry_ for you! You sure have
been getting your deservance good and plenty. Say, what in God's name
did you all do such a hellish thing for, anyway?"

"We had been persecuted, hunted, and driven, our Prophet murdered, our
women and children butchered, and another army was on the way."

"Well, that was because you were such an ornery lot, always setting
yourself up against the government wherever you went, and acting
scandalous--"

"We did as the Lord directed us--"

"Oh, shucks!"

"And then we thought the time had come to stand up for our rights; that
the Lord meant us to be free and independent."

"Secesh, eh?" Follett was amused. "You handful of Mormons--Uncle Sam
could have licked you with both hands tied behind him. Why, you crazy
fool, he'd have spit on you and drowned every last one of you, old
Brigham Young and all. Fighting the United States! A few dozen
women-butchers going to do what the whole South couldn't! Well, I _am_
danged."

He mused over it, and for awhile neither spoke.

"And the nearest you ever got to it was cutting up a lot of women and
children after you'd cheated the men into giving up their guns!"

The other groaned.

"There now, that's right--don't you see that hurts worse than killing?"

"But I certainly wish I could have got those other two that took us off
into the sage-brush that night. I didn't guess what for, but the first
thing I knew the other boy was scratching, and kicking, and hollering,
and like to have wriggled away, so the cuss that was with me ran up to
help. Then I heard little John making kind of a squeally noise in his
throat like he was being choked, and that was all I wanted. I legged it
into the sage-brush. I heard them swearing and coming after me, and ran
harder, and, what saved me, I tripped and fell down and hurt myself, so
I lay still and they lost track of me. I was scared, I promise you that;
but after they got off a ways I worked in the other direction by spells
till I got to a little wady, and by sunup they weren't in sight any
longer. When I saw the Indians coming along I wasn't a bit scared. I
knew _they_ weren't Mormons."

"I used to pray that you might come back and kill me."

"I used to wish I would grow faster so I could. I was always laying out
to do it."

"But see how I've been punished. Look at me--I'm fifty. I ought to be in
my prime. See how I've been burnt out."

"But look here, Mister, what about this girl? Do you think you've been
doing right by keeping her here?"

"No, no! it was a wrong as great as the other."

"Why, they're even passing remarks about her mother, those that don't
know where you got her,--saying it was some one you never married,
because the book shows your first wife was this one-handed woman here."

"I know, I know it. I meant to let her go back at first, but she took
hold of me, and her father and mother were both dead."

"She's got a grandfather and grandmother, alive and hearty, back at
Springfield."

"She is all that has kept me alive these last years."

"She's got to go back to her people now. She'll want to bad enough when
she knows about this."

"About this? Surely you won't tell her--"

"Look here now, why not? What do you expect?"

"But she loves me--she _does_--and she's all I've got. Man, man! don't
pile it all on me just at the last."

He was off the bed and on his knees before Follett.

"Don't put it all on me. I've rounded up my back to the rest of it, but
keep this off; please, please don't. Let her always think I'm not bad.
Give me that one thing out of all the world."

He tried to reach the young man's hand, but was pushed roughly away.

"Don't do that--get up--stop, I tell you. That ain't any way to do.
There now! Lie down again. What do you _want_? I'm not going to leave
that ain't any way to do. There now! Lie down again. What do you want?
I'm not going to leave that girl with you nor with your infernal
Church. You understand that."

"Yes, yes, I know it. It was right that you should be the one to come
and take her away. The Lord's vengeance was well thought out. Oh, how
much more he can make us suffer than you could with your clumsy
killings! She must go, but wait--not yet--not yet. Oh, my God! I
couldn't stand it to see her go. It would cut into my heart and leave me
to bleed to death. No, no, no--don't! Please don't! Don't pile it all on
me at the last. The end has come anyway. Don't do that--don't, don't!"

"There, there, be still now." There was a rough sort of soothing in
Follett's voice, and they were both silent a moment. Then the young man
went on:

"But what do you expect? Suppose everything was left to you, Mister.
Come now, you're _trying_ to talk fair. Suppose I leave it to you--only
you know you can't keep her."

"Yes, it can't be, but let her stay a little while; let me see her a few
times more; let me know she doesn't think I'm bad; and promise never to
tell her all of it. Let her always think I was a good man. Do promise me
that. I'd do it for you, Follett. It won't hurt you. Let her think I was
a good man."

"How long do you want her to stay here?--a week, ten days?"

"It will kill me when she goes!"

"Oh, well, two weeks?"

"That's good of you; you're kinder at your age than I was--I shall die
when she goes."

"Well, I wouldn't want to live if I were you."

"Just a little longer, knowing that she cares for me. I've never been
free to have the love of a woman the way you will some day, though I've
hungered and sickened for it--for a woman who would understand and be
close. But this girl has been the soul of it some way. See here,
Follett, let her stay this summer, or until I'm dead. That can't be a
long time. I've felt the end coming for a year now. Let her stay,
believing in me. Let me know to the last that I'm the only man who has
been in her heart, who has won her confidence and her love. Oh, I mean
fair. You stay with us yourself and watch. Come--but look there, _look_,
man!"

"Well,--what?"

"That candle is going out,--we'll be in the dark"--he grasped the
other's arm--"in the dark, and now I'm afraid again. Don't leave me
here! It would be an awful death to die. Here's that thing now on the
bed behind me. It's trying to get around in front where I'll have to see
it--get another candle. No--don't leave me,--this one will go out while
you're gone." All his strength went into the grip on Follett's arm. The
candle was sputtering in its pool of grease.

"There, it's gone--now don't, don't leave me. It's trying to crawl over
me--I smell the blood--"

"Well--lie down there--it serves you right. There--stop it--I'll stay
with you."

Until dawn Follett sat by the bunk, submitting his arm to the other's
frenzied grip. From time to time he somewhat awkwardly uttered little
words that were meant to be soothing, as he would have done to a
frightened child.

When morning brought the gray light into the little room, the haunted
man fell into a doze, and Follett, gently unclasping the hands from his
arm, arose and went softly out. He was cramped from sitting still so
long, and chilled, and his arm hurt where the other had gripped it. He
pulled back the blue woollen sleeve and saw above his wrist livid marks
where the nails had sunk into his flesh.

Then out of the room back of him came a sharp cry, as from one who had
awakened from a dream of terror. He stepped to the door again and looked
in.

"There now--don't be scared any more. The daylight has come; it's all
right--all right--go to sleep now--"

He stood listening until the man he had come to kill was again quiet.
Then he went outside and over to the creek back of the willows to bathe
in the fresh running water.




CHAPTER XXXV.


_Ruel Follett's Way of Business_

By the time the women were stirring that morning, Follett galloped up on
his horse. Prudence saw him from the doorway as he turned in from the
main road, sitting his saddle with apparent carelessness, his arms loose
from the shoulders, shifting lightly with the horse's motion, as one who
had made the center of gravity his slave. It was a style of riding that
would have made a scandal in any riding-school; but it seemed to be well
calculated for the quick halts, sudden swerves, and acute angles
affected by the yearling steer in his moments of excitement.

He dismounted, glowing from his bath in the icy water of the creek and
from the headlong gallop up from Beil Wardle's corral.

"Good morning, Miss Prudence."

"Good morning, Mr. Follett. Will you take breakfast with us directly?"

"Yes, and it can't be too directly for me. I'm wolfish. Miss Prudence,
your pa and me had some talk last night, and I'm going to bunk in with
you all for awhile, till I get some business fixed up."

She smiled with unaffected gladness, and he noticed that her fresh
morning colour was like that of the little wild roses he had lately
brushed the dew from along the creek.

"We shall be glad to have you."

"It's right kind of you; I'm proud to hear you say so." He had taken off
the saddle with its gay coloured Navajo blanket, and the bridle of
plaited rawhide with its conchos and its silver bit. Now he rubbed the
back of his horse where the saddle had been, ending with a slap that
sent the beast off with head down and glad heels in the air.

"There now, Dandy! don't bury your ribs too deep under that new grass."

"My father will be glad to have you and Dandy stay a long time."

He looked at her quickly, and then away before he spoke. It was a look
that she thought seemed to say more than the words that followed it.

"Well, the fact is, Miss Prudence, I don't just know how long I'll have
to be in these parts. I got some particular kind of business that's
lasting longer than I thought it would. I reckon it's one of those jobs
where you have to let it work itself out while you sit still and watch.
Sometimes you get business on hand that seems to know more about itself
than you do."

"That's funny."

"Yes, it's like when they first sent me out on the range. They were
cutting out steers from a big bunch, and they put me on a little blue
roan to hold the cut. Well, cattle hate to leave the bunch, so those
they cut out would start to run back, and I had to head and turn them. I
did it so well I was surprised at myself. No sooner did a steer head
back than I had the spurs in and was after it, and I'd always get it
stopped. I certainly did think I was doing it high, wide, and handsome,
like you might say; only once or twice I noticed that the pony stopped
short when the steer did without my pulling him up, as if he'd seen the
stop before I did. And then pretty soon after, a yearling that was just
the--excuse me--that was awful spry at dodging, led me a chase, the pony
stopped stiff-legged when the steer did, and while I was leaning one way
he was off after the steer the other way so quick that I just naturally
slid off. I watched him head and turn that steer all by himself, and
then I learned something. It seemed like he went to sleep when I got on
him. But after that I didn't pay any attention to the cattle. I let him
keep the whole lookout, and all I did was to set in the saddle. He was a
wise old cow-pony. He taught me a lot about chasing steers. He was
always after one the minute it left the cut, and he'd know just the
second it was going to stop and turn; he'd never go a foot farther than
the steer did, and he'd turn back just as quick. I knew he knew I was
green, but I thought the other men didn't, so I just set quiet and
played off like I was doing it all, when I wasn't really doing a thing
but holding on. He was old, and they didn't use him much except when
they wanted a rope-horse around the corral. And he'd made a lifelong
study of steers. He knew them from horns to tail, and by saying nothing
and looking wise I thought I'd get the credit of being smart myself.
It's kind of that way now. I'm holding tight and looking wise about some
business that I ain't what you could call up in."

He carried the saddle and bridle into the house, and she followed him.
They found Lorena annoyed by the indisposition of her husband.

"Dear me suz! Here's your pa bed-fast again. He's had a bad night and
won't open the door to let me tell him if he needs anything. He says he
won't even take spoon victuals, and he won't get up, and his chest don't
hurt him so that ain't it, and I never was any hand to be nattering
around a body, but he hadn't ought to go without his food like he does,
when the Father himself has a tabernacle of flesh like you or me--though
the Holy Ghost has not--and it's probably mountain fever again, so I'll
make some composition tea and he's just _got_ to take it. Of course I
never had no revelations from the Lord and never did I claim to have,
but you don't need the Holy Ghost coming upon you to tell you the plain
doings of common sense."

Whatever the nature of Mr. Follett's business, his confidence in the
soundness of his attitude toward it was perfect. He showed no sign of
abstraction or anxiety; no sign of aught but a desire to live agreeably
in the present,--a present that included Prudence. When the early
breakfast was over they went out about the place, through the
peach-orchard and the vineyard still dewy, lingering in the shade of a
plum-tree, finding all matters to be of interest. For a time they
watched and laughed at the two calves through the bars of the corral,
cavorting feebly on stiffened legs while the bereaved mothers cast
languishing glances at them from outside, conscious that their milk was
being basely diverted from the rightful heirs. They picked many blossoms
and talked of many things. There was no idle moment from early morning
until high noon; and yet, though they were very busy, they achieved
absolutely nothing.

In the afternoon Prudence donned her own sombrero, and they went to the
cañon to fish. From a clump of the yellowish green willows that fringed
the stream, Follett cut a slender wand. To this he fixed a line and a
tiny hook that he had carried in his hat, and for the rest of the
distance to the cañon's mouth he collected such grasshoppers as lingered
too long in his shadow. Entering the cañon, they followed up the stream,
clambering over broken rocks, skirting huge boulders, and turning aside
to go around a gorge that narrowed the torrent and flung it down in a
little cascade.

Here and there Follett would flicker his hook over the surface of a
shaded pool, poise it at the foot of a ripple, skim it across an eddy,
cast it under a shelf of rock or dangle it in some promising nook by the
willow roots, shielding himself meanwhile as best he could; here behind
a boulder, there bending a willow in front of him, again lying flat on
the bank, taking care to keep even his shadow off the stream and to go
silently.

From where she followed, Prudence would see the surface of the water
break with a curling gleam of gold, which would give way to a bubbling
splash; then she would see the willow rod bend, see it vibrate and
thrill and tremble, the point working slowly over the bank. Then perhaps
the rod would suddenly straighten out for a few seconds only to bend
again, slowly, gently, but mercilessly. Or perhaps the point continued
to come in until it was well over the bank and the end of the line close
by. Then after a frantic splashing on the margin of the stream the
conquered trout would be gasping on the bank, a thing of shivering
gleams of blended brown and gold and pink. At first she pitied the fish
and regretted the cruelty of man, but Follett had other views.

"Why," he said, "a trout is the crudest beast there is. Look at it
trying to swallow this poor little hopper that it thought tumbled into
the water by accident. It just loves to eat its stuff alive. And it
isn't particular. It would just as lief eat its own children. Now you
take that one there, and say he was ten thousand times as big as he is,
and you were coming along here and your foot slipped and Mr. Trout was
lying behind this rock here--_hungry_. Say! What a mouthful you'd make,
pink dress and all--he'd have you swallowed in a second, and then he'd
sneak back behind the rock there, wiping his mouth, and hoping your
little sister or somebody would be along in a minute and fall in too."

"Ugh!--Why, what horrible little monsters! Let me catch one."

And so she fished under his direction. They lurked together in the
shadows of rocks, while he showed her how to flicker the bait in the
current, here holding her hand on the rod, again supporting her while
she leaned out to cast around a boulder, each feeling the other's
breathless caution and looking deep into each other's eyes through
seconds of tense silence.

Such as they were, these were the only results of the lesson; results
that left them in easy friendliness toward each other. For the fish were
not deceived by her. He would point out some pool where very probably a
hungry trout was lying in wait with his head to the current, and she
would try to skim the lure over it. More than once she saw the fish dart
toward it, but never did she quite convince them. Oftener she saw them
flit up-stream in fright, like flashes of gray lightning. Yet at length
she felt she had learned all that could be taught of the art, and that
further failure would mean merely a lack of appetite or spirit in the
fish. So she went on alone, while Follett stopped to clean the dozen
trout he had caught.

While she was in sight he watched her, the figure bending lithe as the
rod she held, moving lightly, now a long, now a short step, half
kneeling to throw the bait into an eddy; then off again with determined
strides to the next likely pool. When he could no longer see her, he
fell to work on his fish, scouring their slime off in the dry sand.

When she returned, she found him on his back, his hat off, his arms
flung out above his head, fast asleep. She sat near by on a smooth rock
at the water's edge and waited--without impatience, for this was the
first time she had been free to look at him quite as she wished to. She
studied him closely now. He seemed to her like some young power of that
far strange eastern land. She thought of something she had heard him say
about Dandy: "He's game and fearless and almighty prompt,--but he's kind
and gentle too." She was pleased to think it described the master as
well as the horse. And she was glad they had been such fine playmates
the whole day long. When the shadow moved off his face and left it in
the slanting rays of the sun, she broke off a spruce bough and propped
it against the rock to shield him.

And then she sighed, for they could be playmates only in forgetfulness.
He was a Gentile, and by that token wicked and lost; unless--and in that
moment she flushed, feeling the warmth of a high purpose.

She would save him. He was worth saving, from his crown of yellow hair
to the high heels of his Mexican boots. Strong, clean, gentle, and--she
hesitated for a word--interesting--he must be brought into the Kingdom,
and she would do it. She looked up again and met his wide-open eyes.

They both laughed. "I sat up with your pa last night," he said, ashamed
of having slept. "We had some business to palaver about."

He had tied the fish into a bundle with aspen leaves and damp moss
around them, and now they went back down the stream. In the flush of her
new rôle as missionary she allowed herself to feel a secret motherly
tenderness for his immortal soul, letting him help her by hand or arm
over places where she knew she could have gone much better alone.

Back at the house they were met by the little bent man, who had tossed
upon his bed all day in the fires of his hell. He looked searchingly at
them to be sure that Follett had kept his secret. Then, relieved by the
frank glance of Prudence, he fell to musing on the two, so young, so
fresh, so joyous in the world and in each other, seeing them side by
side with those little half-felt, timidly implied, or unconsciously
expressed confidences of boy and girl; sensing the memory of his own
lost youth's aroma, his youth that had slipped off unrecked in the haze
of his dreams of glory. For this he felt very tenderly toward them,
wishing that they were brother and sister and his own.

That evening, while they sat out of doors, she said, very resolutely:

"I'm going to teach Mr. Follett some truth tomorrow from the Book of
Mormon. He says he has never been baptised in any church."

Follett looked interested and cordial, but her father failed to display
the enthusiasm she had expected, and seemed even a little embarrassed.

"You mean well, daughter, but don't be discouraged if he is slow to take
our truth. Perhaps he has a kind of his own as good as ours. A woman I
knew once said to me,' Going to heaven is like going to mill; if your
wheat is good the miller will never ask how you came.'"

"But, Father, suppose you get to mill and have only chaff?"

"That is the same answer I made, dear. I wish I hadn't."

Later, when Prudence had gone, the two men made their beds by the fire
in the big room. Follett was awakened twice by the other putting wood on
the fire; and twice more by his pitiful pleading with something at his
back not to come in front of him.




CHAPTER XXXVI.


_The Mission to a Deserving Gentile_

Not daunted by her father's strange lack of enthusiasm, Prudence arose
with the thought of her self-imposed mission strong upon her. Nor was
she in any degree cooled from it by a sight of the lost sheep striding
up from the creek, the first level sunrays touching his tousled yellow
hair, his face glowing, breathing his full of the wine-like air, and
joyously showing in every move his faultless attunement with all outside
himself. The frank simplicity of his greeting, his careless
unenlightenment of his own wretched spiritual state, thrilled her like
an electric shock with a strange new pity for him. She prayed on the
spot for power to send him into the waters of baptism. When the day had
begun, she lost no time in opening up the truth to him.

If the young man was at all amazed by the utter wholeness of her
conviction that she was stooping from an immense height to pluck him
from the burning, he succeeded in hiding it. He assumed with her at once
that she was saved, that he was in the way of being lost, and that his
behooving was to listen to her meekly. Her very evident alarm for his
lost condition, her earnest desire to save him, were what he felt moved
to dwell upon, rather than a certain spiritual condescension which he
could not wholly ignore.

After some general counsel, in the morning, she took out her old,
dog-eared "Book of Mormon," a first edition, printed at Palmyra, New
York, in 1830, "By Joseph Smith, Jr., Author and Proprietor," and led
the not unworthy Gentile again to the cañon. There in her favourite nook
of pines beside the stream, she would share with him as much of the
Lord's truth as his darkened mind could be made conscious of.

When at last she was seated on the brown carpet under the pines, her
back to a mighty boulder, the sacred record in her lap, and the Gentile
prone at her feet, she found it no easy task to begin. First he must be
brought to repent of his sins. She began to wonder what his sins could
be, and from that drifted into an idle survey of his profile, the line
of his throat as his head lay back on the ground, and the strong brown
hand, veined and corded, that curled in repose on his breast. She
checked herself in this; for it could be profitable neither to her soul
nor to his.

"I'll teach you about the Book of Mormon first," she ventured.

"I'd like to hear it," said Follett, cheerfully.

"Of course you don't know anything about it."

"It isn't my fault, though. I've been unfortunate in my bringing up,
that's all." He turned on his side and leaned upon his elbow so he could
look at her.

"You see, I've been brought up to believe that Mormons were about as bad
as Mexicans. And Mexicans are so mean that even coyotes won't touch
them. Down at the big bend on the Santa Fé Trail they shot a Mexican,
old Jesus Bavispee, for running off cattle. He was pretty well dried out
to begin with, but the coyotes wouldn't have a thing to do with him, and
so he just dried up into a mummy. They propped him up by the ford there,
and when the cowboys went by they would roll a cigarette and light it
and fix it in his mouth. Then they'd pat him on the head and tell him
what a good old boy he was--_star bueno_--the only good Mexican above
ground--and his face would be grinning all the time, as if it tickled
him. When they find a Mexican rustling cattle they always leave him
there, and they used to tell me that the Mormons were just as bad and
ought to be fixed that way too."

"I think that was horrible!"

"Of course it was. They were bigoted. But I'm not. I know right well
there must be good Mexicans alive, though I never saw one, and I suppose
of course there must be--"

"Oh, you're worse than I thought!" she cried. "Come now, do try. I want
you to be made better, for my sake." She looked at him with real
pleading in her eyes. He dropped back to the ground with a thrill of
searching religious fervour.

"Go on," he said, feelingly. "I'm ready for anything. I have kind of a
good feeling running through me already. I do believe you'll be a
powerful lot of benefit to me."

"You must have faith," she answered, intent on the book. "Now I'll tell
you some things first."

Had the Gentile been attentive he might have learned that the Book of
Mormon is an inspired record of equal authority with the Jewish
Scriptures, containing the revelations of Jehovah to his Israel of the
western world as the Bible his revelations to Israel in the Orient,--the
veritable "stick of Joseph," that was to be one with "the stick of
Judah;" that the angel Moroni, a messenger from the presence of God,
appeared to Joseph Smith, clad in robes of light, and told him where
were hid the plates of gold on which were graven this fulness of the
everlasting gospel; how that Joseph, after a few years of preparation,
was let to take these sacred plates from the hill of Cumorah; also an
instrument called the Urim and Thummim, consisting of two stones set in
a silver bow and made fast to a breast-plate, this having been prepared
by the hands of God for use in translating the record on the plates; how
Joseph, seated behind a curtain and looking through the Urim and Thummim
at the characters on the plates, had seen their English equivalents over
them, and dictated these to his amanuensis on the other side of the
curtain.

He might have learned that when the book was thus translated, the angel
Moroni had reclaimed the golden plates and the Urim and Thummim,
leaving the sacred deposit of doctrine to be given to the world by
Joseph Smith; that the Saviour had subsequently appeared to Joseph; also
Peter, James, and John, who laid hands upon him, ordained him, gave him
the Holy Ghost, authorised him to baptise for the remission of sins, and
to organise the Kingdom of God on earth.

"Do you understand so far?" she asked.

"It's fine!" he answered, fervently. "I feel kind of a glow coming over
me already."

She looked at him closely, with a quick suspicion, but found his profile
uninforming; at least of anything needful at the moment.

"Remember you must have faith," she admonished him, "if you are to win
your inheritance; and not question or doubt or find fault, or--or make
fun of anything. It says right here on the title-page, 'And now if there
be faults, it be the mistake of men; wherefore condemn not the things of
God that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.' There
now, remember!"

"Who's finding fault or making fun?" he asked, in tones that seemed to
be pained.

"Now I think I'd better read you some verses. I don't know just where to
begin."

"Something about that Urim and Thingamajig," he suggested.

"Urim and Thummim," she corrected--"now listen."

Again, had the Gentile remained attentive, he might have learned how
the Western Hemisphere was first peopled by the family of one Jared,
who, after the confusion of tongues at Babel, set out for the new land;
how they grew and multiplied, but waxed sinful, and finally exterminated
one another in fierce battles, in one of which two million men were
slain.

At this the fallen one sat up.

"'And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save
it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with loss of blood.
And it came to pass when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword and rested
a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass, after he
had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and
fell; and after he had struggled for breath he died.'"

The Gentile was animated now.

"Say, that Shiz was all right,--raised up on his hands and struggled for
breath after his head was cut off!"

Hereupon she perceived that his interest was become purely carnal. So
she refused to read of any more battles, though he urged her warmly to
do it. She returned to the expedition of Jared, while the lost sheep
fell resignedly on his back again.

"'And the Lord said, Go to work and build after the manner of barges
which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the brother of
Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the
manner which they had built, after the instructions of the Lord. And
they were small, and they were light upon the water, like unto the
lightness of a fowl upon the water; and they were built like unto a
manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water
like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish, and
the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a
dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door
thereof when it was shut was tight like unto a dish. And it came to pass
that the brother of Jared cried unto the Lord, saying--'"

She forgot him a little time, in the reading, until it occurred to her
that he was singularly quiet. She glanced up, and was horrified to see
that he slept. The trials of Jared's brother in building the boats that
were about the length of a tree, combined with his broken rest of the
night before, had lured him into the dark valley of slumber where his
soul could not lave in the waters of truth. But something in the
sleeping face softened her, and she smiled, waiting for him to awaken.
He was still only a waymark to the kingdom of folly, but she had made a
beginning, and she would persevere. He must be saved into the household
of faith. And indeed it was shameful that such as he should depend for
their salvation upon a chance meeting with an unskilled girl like
herself. She wondered somewhat indignantly how any able-bodied Saint
could rest in the valley while this man's like were dying in sin for
want of the word. As her eye swept the sleeping figure, she was even
conscious of a little wicked resentment against the great plan itself,
which could under any circumstances decree such as he to perdition.

He opened his eyes after awhile to ask her why she had stopped reading,
and when she told him, he declared brazenly that he had merely closed
his eyes to shut out everything but her words.

"I heard everything," he insisted, again raised upon his elbows. "' It
was built like unto a dish, and the length was about as long as a
tree--'"

"What was?"

"The Urim and Thummim."

When he saw that she was really distressed, he tried to cheer her.

"Now don't be discouraged," he said, as they started home in the late
afternoon. "You can't expect to get me roped and hog-tied the very first
day. There's lots of time, and you'll have to keep at it. When I was a
kid learning to throw a rope, I used to practise on the skull of a steer
that was nailed to a post. At first it didn't look like I could ever do
it. I'd forget to let the rope loose from my left hand, or I wouldn't
make the loop line out flat around my head, or she'd switch off to one
side, or something. But at last I'd get over the horns every time. Then
I learned to do it running past the post; and after that I'd go down
around the corral and practise on some quiet old heifer, and so on. The
only thing is--never give up."

"But what good does it do if you won't pay attention?"

"Oh, well, I can't learn a new religion all at once. It's like riding a
new saddle. You put one on and 'drag the cinches up and lash them, and
you think it's going to be fine, and you don't see why it isn't. But you
find out that you have to ride it a little at a time and break it in.
Now, you take a fresh start with me to-morrow."

"Of course I'm going to try."

"And it isn't as if I was regular out-and-out sinful. My adopted father,
Ezra Calkins, _he's_ a good man. But, now I think of it, I don't know
what church he ever did belong to. He'll go to any of 'em,--don't make
any difference which,--Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic; he says
he can get all he's looking for out of any of 'em, and he kind of likes
to change off now and then. But he's a good man. He won't hire any one
that cusses too bad or is hard on animals, and he won't even let the
freighters work on Sunday. He brought me up not to drink or gamble, or
go round with low folks and all like that, and not to swear except when
you're driving cattle and have to. 'Keep clean inside and out,' he says,
'and then you're safe,' he says. 'Then tie up to some good church for
company, if you want to, not thinking bad of the others, just because
you didn't happen to join them. Or it don't hurt any to graze a little
on all the ranges,' he says. And he sent me to public school and brought
me up pretty well, so you can see I'm not plumb wicked. Now after you
get me coming, I may be easier than you think."

She resolved to pray for some special gift to meet his needs. If he were
not really sinful, there was all the more reason why he should be saved
into the Kingdom. The sun went below the western rim of the valley as
they walked, and the cooling air was full of the fresh summer scents
from field and garden and orchard.

Down the road behind them, a half-hour later, swung the tall,
loose-jointed figure of Seth Wright, his homespun coat across his arm,
his bearskin cap in his hand, his heated brow raised to the cooling
breeze. His ruffle of neck whiskers, virtuously white, looked in the
dying sunlight quite as if a halo he had worn was dropped under his
chin. A little past the Rae place he met Joel returning from the
village.

"Evening, Brother Rae! You ain't looking right tol'lable."

"It's true, Brother Seth. I've thought lately that I'm standing in the
end of my days."

"Peart up, peart up, man! Look at me,--sixty-eight years come December,
never an ache nor a pain, and got all my own teeth. Take another wife.
That keeps a man young if he's got jedgment." He glanced back toward the
Rae house.

"And I want to speak to you special about something--this young dandy
Gentile you're harbouring. Course it's none of my business, but I
wouldn't want one of my girls companying with a Gentile--off up in that
cañon with him, at that--fishing one day, reading a book the next,
walking clost together,--and specially not when Brigham had spoke for
her. Oh, I know what I'm talking about! I had my mallet and frow up
there two days now, just beyond the lower dry-fork, splitting out shakes
for my new addition, and I seen 'em with my own eyes. You know what
young folks is, Elder. That reminds me--I'm going to seal up that
sandy-haired daughter of Bishop Tanner's next week some time; soon as we
get the roof on the new part. But I thought I'd speak to you about
this--a word to the wise!"

The Wild Ram of the Mountains passed on, whistling a lively air. The
little bent man went with slow, troubled steps to his own home. He did
know the way of young people, and he felt that he was beginning to know
the way of God. Each day one wall or another of his prison house moved a
little in upon him. In the end it would crush. He had given up
everything but Prudence; and now, for his wicked clinging to her, she
was to be taken from him; if not by Brigham, then by this Gentile, who
would of course love her, and who, if he could not make her love him,
would be tempted to alienate her by exposing the crime of the man she
believed to be her father. The walls were closing about him. When he
reached the house, they were sitting on the bench outside.

"Sometimes," Follett was saying, "you can't tell at first whether a
thing is right or wrong. You have to take a long squint, like when
you're in the woods on a path that ain't been used much lately and has
got blind. Put your face right close down to it and you can't see a sign
of a trail; it's the same as the ground both sides, covered with leaves
the same way and not a footprint or anything. But you stand up and look
along it for fifty feet, and there she is so plain you couldn't miss it.
Isn't that so, Mr. Rae?"

Prudence went in, and her father beckoned him a little way from the
door.

"You're sure you will never tell her anything about--anything, until I'm
gone?--You promised me, you know."

"Well, didn't I promise you?"

"Not under any circumstances?"

"You don't keep back anything about 'circumstances' when you make a
promise," retorted Mr. Follett.




CHAPTER XXXVII.


_The Gentile Issues an Ultimatum_

June went; July came and went. It was a hot summer below, where the
valley widens to let in Amalon; but up in the little-sunned aisle of Box
Cañon it was always cool. There the pines are straight and reach their
heads far into the sky, each a many-wired harp to the winds that come
down from the high divide. Their music is never still; now a low,
ominous rush, soft but mighty, swelling as it nears, the rush of a
winged host, rising swiftly to one fearsome crescendo until the listener
cowers instinctively as if under the tread of many feet; then dying away
to mutter threats in the distance, and to come again more fiercely; or,
it may be, to come with a gentler sweep, as if pacified, even yearning,
for the moment. Or, again, the same wind will play quieter airs through
the green boughs, a chamber-music of silken rustlings, of feathered fans
just stirring, of whisperings, and the sighs of a woman.

It is cool beneath these pines, and pleasant on the couches of brown
needles that have fallen through all the years. Here, in the softened
light, amid the resinous pungence of the cones and the green boughs,
where the wind above played an endless, solemn accompaniment to the
careless song of the stream below, the maiden Saint tried to save into
the Kingdom a youthful Gentile of whom she discovered almost daily some
fresh reason why he should not be lost. The reasons had become so many
that they were now heavy upon her. And yet, while the youth submitted
meekly to her ministry, appearing even to crave it, he was undeniably
either dense or stubborn--in either case of defective spirituality.

She was grieved by the number of times he fell asleep when she read from
the Book of Mormon. The times were many because, though she knew it not,
he had come to be, in effect, a night-nurse to the little bent man
below, who was now living out his days in quiet desperation, and his
nights in a fear of something behind him. Some nights Follett would have
unbroken rest; but oftener he was awakened by the other's grip on his
arm. Then he would get up, put fresh logs on the fire or light a candle
and talk with the haunted man until he became quiet again.

After a night like this it was not improbable that he would fall asleep
in very sound of the trumpet of truth as blown, by the grace of God,
through the seership of Joseph Smith. Still he had learned much in the
course of the two months. She had taught him between naps that, for
fourteen hundred years, to the time of Joseph Smith, there had been a
general and awful apostasy from the true faith, so that the world had
been without an authorised priesthood. She had also taught him to be ill
at ease away from her,--to be content when with her, whether they talked
of religion or tried for the big, sulky three-pounder that had his lair
at the foot of the upper Cascade.

Again she had taught him that other churches had wickedly done away with
immersion for the remission of sins and the laying on of hands for the
gift of the Holy Ghost; also that there was a peculiar quality in the
satisfaction of being near her that he had never known before,--an
astonishing truth that it was fine to think about when he lay where he
could look up at her pretty, serious face.

He fell asleep at night usually with a mind full of confusion,--infant
baptism--a slender figure in a pink dress or a blue--the Trinity--a firm
little brown hand pointing the finger of admonition at him--the
regeneration of man--hair, dark and lustrous, that fell often half away
from what he called its "lashings"--eternal punishment--earnest
eyes--the Urim and Thummim,--and a pleading, earnest voice.

He knew a few things definitely: that Moroni, last of the Nephites, had
hidden up unto the Lord the golden plates in the hill of Cumorah; and
that the girl who taught him was in some mysterious way the embodiment
of all the wonderful things he had ever thought he wanted, of all the
strange beauties he had crudely pictured in lonely days along the
trail. Here was something he had supposed could come true only in a
different world, the kind of world there was in the first book he had
ever read, where there had seemed to be no one but good fairies and
children that were uncommonly deserving. Yet he had never been able to
get clearly into his mind the nature and precise office of the Holy
Ghost; nor had he ever become certain how he could bring this wonderful
young woman in closer relationship with himself. He felt that to put out
his hand toward her--except at certain great moments when he could help
her over rough places and feel her golden weight upon his arm--would be
to startle her, and then all at once he would awaken from a dream to
find her gone. He thought he would feel very badly then, for probably he
would never be able to get back into the same dream again. So he was
cautious, resolving to make the thing last until it came true of itself.

Once when they followed the stream down, in the late afternoon, he had
mused himself so full of the wonder of her that he almost forgot his
caution in an amiable impulse to let her share in his feelings.

"You know," he began, "you're like as if I had been trying to think of a
word I wanted to say--some fine, big word, a fancy one--but I couldn't
think of it. You know how you can't think of the one you want sometimes,
only nothing else will do in place of it, and then all at once, when you
quit trying to think, it flashes over you. You're like that. I never
could think of you, but I just had to because I couldn't get along
without it, and then when I didn't expect it you just happened
along--the word came along and said itself."

Without speaking she had run ahead to pick the white and blue columbines
and pink roses. And he, alarmed at his boldness, fearing she would now
be afraid of him, went forward with the deep purpose of showing her a
light, careless mood, to convince her that he had meant nothing much.

To this end he told her lively anecdotes, chaste classics of the range
calculated to amuse, until they reached the very door of home:--About
the British sailor who, having drifted up the Sacramento valley, was
lured to mount a cow-pony known to be hysterical; of how he had declared
when they picked him up a moment later, "If I'd been aware of the gale
I'd have lashed myself to the rigging." Then about the other trusting
tenderfoot who was directed to insist at the stable in Santa Fé that
they give him a "bucking broncho;" who was promptly accommodated and
speedily unseated with much flourish, to the wicked glee of those who
had deceived him; and who, when he asked what the horse had done and was
told that he had "bucked," had thereupon declared gratefully, "Did he
only buck? It's a God's mercy he didn't _broncho_ too, or he'd have
killed me!"

From this he drifted into the anecdote of old Chief Chew-feather, who
became drunk one day and made a nuisance of himself in the streets of
Atchison; how he had been driven out of town by Marshal Ed Lanigan,
who, mounting his pony, chased him a mile or so, meantime emptying both
his six-shooters at the fleeing brave by way of making the exact
situation clear even to a clouded mind; and how the alarmed and sobered
chief had ridden his own pony to a shadow, never drawing rein until he
reached the encampment of his tribe at dusk, to report that "the whites
had broken out at Atchison."

He noticed, however, that she was affected to even greater constraint of
manner by these sallies, though he laughed heartily himself at each
climax as he made it, determined to show her that he had meant
absolutely nothing the moment before. He succeeded so little, that he
resolved never again to be reckless, if she would only be her old self
on the morrow. He would not even tell her, as he had meant to, that
looking into her eyes was like looking off under the spruces, where it
was dark and yet light.

The little bent man at the house would look at them with a sort of
helplessness when they came in, sometimes even forgetting the smile he
was wont to wear to hide his hurts. He was impressed anew each time he
saw them with the punishing power of such vengeance as was left to the
Lord. He could see more than either of the pair before him. The little
white-haired boy who had fought him with tooth and nail so long ago, to
be not taken from Prudence, had now come back with the might of a man,
even the might of a lover, to take her from him when she had become all
of his life. He could think of no sharper revenge upon himself or his
people. For this cowboy was the spirit incarnate of the oncoming East,
thorned on by the Lord to avenge his Church's crime.

Day after day he would lie consuming the little substance left within
him in an effort to save himself; to keep by him the child who had
become his miser's gold; to keep her respect above all, to have her
think him a good man. Yet never a way would open. Here was the boy with
the man's might, and they were already lovers, for he knew too well the
meaning of all those signs which they themselves but half understood.
And he became more miserable day by day, for he saw clearly it was only
his selfishness that made him suffer. He had met so many tests, and now
he must fail at the last great sacrifice.

Then in the night would come the terrors of the dark, the curses and
groans of that always-dying thing behind him. And always now he would
see the hand with the silver bracelet at the wrist, flaunting in his
face the shivering strands of gold with the crimson patch at the end.
Yet even this, because he could see it, was less fearful than the thing
he could not see, the thing that crawled or lurched relentlessly behind
him, with the snoring sound in its throat, the smell of warm blood and
the horrible dripping of it, whose breath he could feel on his neck and
whose nerveless hands sometimes fumbled weakly at his shoulder, as it
strove to come in front of him.

He sat sleepless in his chair with candles burning for three nights when
Follett, late in August, went off to meet a messenger from one of his
father's wagon-trains which, he said, was on its way north. Fearful as
was the meaning of his presence, he was inexpressibly glad when the
Gentile returned to save him from the terrors of the night.

And there was now a new goad of remorse. The evening before Follett's
return he had found Prudence in tears after a visit to the village. With
a sudden great outrush of pity he had taken her in his arms to comfort
her, feeling the selfishness strangely washed from his love, as the sobs
convulsed her.

"Come, come, child--tell your father what it is," he had urged her, and
when she became a little quiet she had told him.

"Oh, Daddy dear--I've just heard such an awful thing, what they talk of
me in Amalon, and of you and my mother--shameful!"

He knew then what was coming; he had wondered indeed, that this talk
should be so long in reaching her; but he waited silently, soothing her.

"They say, whoever my mother was, you couldn't have married her--that
Christina is your first wife, and the temple records show it. And oh,
Daddy, they say it means that I am a child of sin--and shame--and it
made me want to kill myself."

Another passion of tears and sobs had overwhelmed her and all but broken
down the little man. Yet he controlled himself and soothed her again to
quietness.

"It is all wrong, child, all wrong. You are not a child of sin, but a
child of love, as rightly born as any in Amalon. Believe me, and pay no
heed to that talk."

"They have been saying it for years, and I never knew."

"They say what is not true."

"You were married to my mother, then?"

He waited too long. She divined, clear though his answer was, that he
had evaded, or was quibbling in some way.

"You are the daughter of a truly married husband and wife, as truly
married as were ever any pair."

And though she knew he had turned her question, she saw that he must
have done it for some great reason of his own, and, even in her grief,
she would not pain him by asking another. She could feel that he
suffered as she did, and he seemed, moreover, to be pitifully and
strangely frightened.

When Follett came riding back that evening he saw that Prudence had been
troubled. The candle-light showed sadness in her dark eyes and in the
weighted corners of her mouth. He was moved to take her in his arms and
soothe her as he had seen mothers do with sorry little children. But
instead of this he questioned her father sharply when their corn-husk
mattresses had been put before either side of the fireplace for the
night. The little man told him frankly the cause of her grief. There was
something compelling in the other's way of asking questions. When the
thing had been made plain, Follett looked at him indignantly.

"Do you mean to say you let her go on thinking that about herself?"

"I told her that her father and mother had been rightly married."

"Didn't she think you were fooling her in some way?"

"I--I can't be sure--"

"She _must_ have, or she wouldn't be so down in the mouth now. Why
didn't you tell her the truth?"

"If only--if only she could go on thinking I am her father--only a
little while--"

Follett spoke with the ring of a sudden resolution in his voice.

"Now I'll tell you one thing, Mister man, something has got to be done
by _some one_. I can't do it because I'm tied by a promise, and so I
reckon you ought to!"

"Just a little time! Oh, if you only knew how the knives cut me on every
side and the fires burn all through me!"

"Well, think of the knives cutting that girl,--making her believe she
has to be ashamed of her mother. You go to sleep now, and try to lie
quiet; there ain't anything here to hurt you. But I'll tell you one
thing,--you've got to toe the mark."




CHAPTER XXXVIII.


_The Mission Service in Box Cañon is Suspended_

Follett waited with a new eagerness next day for their walk to the
cañon. But Prudence, looking at him with eyes that sorrow was clouding,
said that she could not go. He felt a sharp new resentment against the
man who was letting her suffer rather than betray himself, and he again
resolved that this man must be made to "toe the mark," to "take his
needings;" and that, meantime, the deceived girl must be effectually
reassured. Something must be said to take away the hurt that was tugging
at the corners of her smile to draw them down. To this end he pleaded
with her not to deprive him of the day's lesson, especially as the time
was now at hand when he must leave. And so ably did he word his appeal
to her sense of duty that at last she consented to go.

Once in the cañon, however, where the pines had stored away the cool
gloom of the night against the day's heat, she was glad she had come.
For, better than being alone with that strange, new hurt, was it to have
by her side this friendly young man, who somehow made her feel as if it
were right and safe to lean upon him,--despite his unregenerate
condition. And presently there, in the zeal of saving his soul, she was
almost happy again.

Yet he seemed to-day to be impatient under the teaching, and more than
once she felt that he was on the point of interrupting the lesson to
some end of his own.

He seemed insufficiently impressed even with the knowledge of astronomy
displayed by the prophets of the Book of Mormon, hearing, without a
quiver of interest, that when at Joshua's command the sun seemed to
stand still upon Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, the real
facts were that the earth merely paused in its revolutions upon its own
axis and about the sun. Without a question he thus heard Ptolemy refuted
and the discoveries of Copernicus anticipated two thousand years before
that investigator was born. He was indeed deplorably inattentive. She
suspected, from the quick glances she gave him, that he had no
understanding at all of what she read. Yet in this she did him
injustice, for now she came to the passage, "They all did swear unto him
that whoso should vary from the assistance which Akish desired should
lose his head; and whoso should divulge whatsoever thing Akish should
make known unto them should lose his life." This time he sat up.

"There it is again--they don't mind losing their heads. They were sure
the fightingest men--don't you think so now?"

As he went on talking she laid the book down and leaned back against
the trunk of the big pine under which they sat. He seemed to be saying
something that he had been revolving in his mind while she read.

"I'd hate to have you think you been wasting your time on me this
summer, but I'm afraid I'm just too downright unsanctified."

"Oh, don't say that!" she cried.

"But I _have_ to. I reckon I'm like the red-roan sorrel Ed Harris got
for a pinto from old man Beasley. 'They's two bad things about him,'
says the old man. 'I'll tell you one now and the other after we swap.'
'All right,' says Ed. 'Well, first, he's hard to catch,' says Beasley.
'That ain't anything,' says Ed,--'just picket him or hobble him with a
good side-line.' So then they traded. 'And the other thing,' says the
old man, dragging up his cinches on Ed's pinto,--'he ain't any good
after you get him caught.' So that's like me. I've been hard to teach
all summer, and now I'm not any good after you get me taught."

"Oh, you are! Don't say you're not."

"I couldn't ever join your Church--"

Her face became full of alarm.

"--only for just one thing;--I don't care very much for this having so
many wives."

She was relieved at once. "If _that's_ all--I don't approve of it
myself. You wouldn't have to."

"Oh, that's what you say _now_"--he spoke with an air of shrewdness and
suspicion,--"but when I got in you'd throw up my duty to me constant
about building up the Kingdom. Oh, I know how it's done! I've heard your
preachers talk enough."

"But it _isn't_ necessary. I wouldn't--I don't think it would be at all
nice of you."

He looked at her with warm sympathy. "You poor ignorant girl! Not to
know your own religion! I read in that book there about this marrying
business only the other day. Just hand me that one."

She handed him the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," from which she had
occasionally taught him the Lord's word as revealed to Joseph Smith. The
revelation on celestial marriage had never been among her selections. He
turned to it now.

"Here, right in the very first of it--" and she heard with a sinking
heart,--"'Therefore prepare thyself to receive and obey the instructions
which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law
revealed unto them must obey the same; for behold! I reveal unto you a
new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant then are
ye damned, for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter
into my glory.'

"There now!"

"I never read it," she faltered.

"And don't you know they preach in the tabernacle that anybody who
rejects polygamy will be damned?"

"My father never preached that."

"Well, he knows it--ask him."

It was proving to be a hard day for her.

"Of course," he continued, "a new member coming into the Church might
think at first he could get along without so many wives. He might say,
'Well, now, I'll draw a line in this marrying business. I'll never take
more than two or three wives or maybe four.' He might even be so taken
up with one young lady that he'd say, 'I won't even marry a second
wife--not for some time yet, that is--not for two or three years, till
she begins to get kind of houseworn,' But then after he's taken his
second, the others would come easy. Say he marries, first time, a tall,
slim, dark girl,"--he looked at her musingly while she gazed intently
into the stream in front of them.

"--and then say he meets a little chit of a thing, kind of heavy-set
like, with this light yellow hair and pretty light blue eyes, that he
saw one Sunday at church--"

Her dark face was flushing now in pained wonder.

"--why then it's so easy to keep on and marry others, with the preachers
all preaching it from the pulpit."

"But you wouldn't have to."

"No, you wouldn't have to marry any one after the second--after this
little blonde--but you'd have to marry her because it says here that you
'shall abide the law or ye shall be damned, saith the Lord God.'"

He pulled himself along the ground closer to her, and went on again in
what seemed to be an extremity of doubt.

"Now I don't want to be lost, and yet I don't want to have a whole lot
of wives like Brigham or that old coot we see so often on the road. So
what am I going to do? I might think I'd get along with three or four,
but you never can tell what religion will do to a man when he really
gets it."

He reached for her small brown hand that still held the Book of Mormon
open on her lap, and took it in both his own. He went on, appealingly:

"Now you try to tell me right--like as if I was your own brother--tell
me as a sister. Try to put yourself in the place of the girl I'd marry
first--no, don't; it seems more like your sister if I hold it this
way--and try to think how she'd feel when I brought home my second.
Would that be doing square by her? Wouldn't it sort of get her on the
bark? But if I join your Church and don't do that, I might as well be
one of those low-down Freewill Baptists or Episcopals. Come now, tell me
true, letting on that you're my sister."

She had not looked at him since he began, nor did she now.

"Oh, I don't know--I don't _know_--it's all so mixed! I thought you
could be saved without that."

"There's the word of God against me."

"I wouldn't want you to marry that way,--if I were your sister."

"That's right now, try to feel like a sister. You wouldn't want me to
have as many wives as those old codgers down there below, would you?"

"No--I'm sure you shouldn't have but one. Oh, you couldn't marry more
than one, could you?" She turned her eyes for the first time upon him,
and he saw that some inward warmth seemed to be melting them.

"Well, I'd hate to disappoint you if you were my sister, but there's the
word of the Lord--"

"Oh, but could you _anyway_, even if you didn't have a sister, and there
was no one but _her_ to think of?"

He appeared to debate with himself cautiously.

"Well, now, I must say your teaching has taken a powerful hold on me
this summer--" he reached under her arm and caught her other hand.
"You've been like a sister to me and made me think about these things
pretty deep and serious. I don't know if I could get what you've taught
me out of my mind or not."

"But how could you _ever_ marry another wife?"

"Well, a man don't like to think he's going to the bad place when he
dies, all on account of not marrying a few more times. It sort of takes
the ambition all out of him."

"Oh, it couldn't be right!"

"Well now, I'll do as you say. Do I forget all these things you've been
teaching me, and settle down with one wife,--or do I come into the
Kingdom and lash the cinches of my glory good and plenty by marrying
whenever I get time to build a new end on the house, like old man
Wright does?"

She was silent.

"Like a sister would tell a brother," he urged, with a tighter pressure
of her two hands. But this seemed to recall another trouble to her mind.

"I--I'm not fit to be your sister--don't talk of it--you don't know--"
Her voice broke, and he had to release her hand. Whereupon he put his
own back up against the pine-tree, reached his arm about her, and had
her head upon his shoulder.

"There, there now!"

"But you don't know."

"Well, I _do_ know--so just you straighten out that face. I do know, I
tell you. Now don't cry and I'll fix it all right, I promise you."

"But you don't even know what the trouble is."

"I do--it's about your father and mother--when they were married."

"How did you know?"

"I can't tell you now, but I will soon. Look here, you can believe what
I tell you, can't you?"

"Yes, I can do that."

"Well, then, you listen. Your father and mother were married in the
right way, and there wasn't a single bit of crookedness about it. I
wouldn't tell you if I didn't know and couldn't prove it to you in a
little while. Say, there's one of our wagon-trains coming along here
toward Salt Lake next Monday. It's coming out of its way on purpose to
pick me up. I'll promise to have it proved to you by that time. Now, is
that fair? Can you believe me?"

She looked up at him, her face bright again.

"Oh, I _do_ believe you! You don't know how glad you make me. It was an
awful thing--oh, you are a dear"--and full upon his lips she kissed the
astounded young man, holding him fast with an arm about his neck.
"You've made me all over new--I was feeling so wretched--and of course I
can't see how you know anything about it, but I know you are telling the
truth." Again she kissed him with the utmost cordiality. Then she stood
up to arrange her hair, her face full of the joy of this assurance. The
young man saw that she had forgotten both him and his religious
perplexities, and he did not wish her to be entirely divested of concern
for him at this moment.

"But how about me? Here I am, lost if I do and lost if I don't. You
better sit down here again and see if there isn't some way I can get
that crown of glory."

She sat down by him, instantly sobered from her own joy, and calmly gave
him a hand to hold.

"Well, I'll tell you," she said, frankly. "You wait awhile. Don't do
anything right away. I'll have to ask father." And then as he reached
over to pick up the Book of Mormon,--"No, let's not read any more
to-day. Let's sit a little while and only think about things." She was
so free from embarrassment that he began to doubt if he had been so very
deeply clever, after all, in suggesting the relationship between them.
But after she had mused awhile, she seemed to perceive for the first
time that he was very earnestly holding both of her hands. She blushed,
and suddenly withdrew them. Whereat he was more pleased than when she
had passively let them lie. He approached the matter of salvation for
himself once more.

"Of course I can wait awhile for you to find out the rights of this
thing, but I'm afraid I can't be baptised even if you tell me to
be--even if you want me to obey the Lord and marry some pretty little
light-complected, yellow-haired thing afterwards--after I'd married my
first wife. Fact is, I don't believe I could. Probably I'd care so much
for the first one that I'd have blinders on for all the other women in
the world. She'd have me tied down with the red ribbon in her hair"--he
touched the red ribbon in her own, by way of illustration--"just like I
can tie the biggest steer you ever saw with that little silk rag of
mine--hold him, two hind legs and one fore, so he can't budge an inch.
I'd just like to see some little, short, kind of plump, pretty
yellow-haired thing come between us."

For an instant, she looked such warm, almost indignant approval that he
believed she was about to express an opinion of her own in the matter,
but she stayed silent, looking away instead with a little movement of
having swallowed something.

"And you, too, if you were my sister, do you think I'd want you married
to a man who'd begin to look around for some one else as soon as he got
you? No, sir--you deserve some decent young fellow who'd love you all
to pieces day in and day out and never so much as look at this little
yellow-haired girl--even if she was almost as pretty as you."

But she was not to be led into rendering any hasty decision which might
affect his eternal salvation. Moreover, she was embarrassed and
disturbed.

"We must go," she said, rising before he could help her. When they had
picked their way down to the mouth of the cañon, he walking behind her,
she turned back and said, "Of course you could marry that little
yellow-haired girl with the blue eyes first, the one you're thinking so
much about--the little short, fat thing with a doll-baby face--"

But he only answered, "Oh, well, if you get me into your Church it
wouldn't make a bit of difference whether I took her first or second."




CHAPTER XXXIX.


_A Revelation Concerning the True Order of Marriage_

While matters of theology and consanguinity were being debated in Box
Cañon, the little bent man down in the first house to the left, in his
struggle to free himself, was tightening the meshes of his fate about
him. In his harried mind he had formed one great resolution. He believed
that a revelation had come to him. It seemed to press upon him as the
culmination of all the days of his distress. He could see now that he
had felt it years before, when he first met the wife of Elder Tench, the
gaunt, gray woman, toiling along the dusty road; and again when he had
found the imbecile boy turning upon his tormentors. A hundred times it
had quickened within him. And it had gained in force steadily, until
to-day, when it was overwhelming him. Now that his flesh was wasted, it
seemed that his spirit could see far.

His great discovery was that the revelation upon celestial marriage
given to Joseph Smith had been "from beneath,"--a trick of Satan to
corrupt them. Not only did it flatly contradict earlier revelations, but
the very Book of Mormon itself declared again and again that polygamy
was wickedness. Joseph had been duped by the powers of darkness, and all
Israel had sinned in consequence. Upon the golden plates delivered to
him, concerning the divine source of which there could be no doubt, this
order of marriage had been repeatedly condemned and forbidden. But as to
the revelation which sanctioned it there could rightly be doubt; for had
not Joseph himself once warned them that "some revelations are from God,
some from men, and some from the Devil." Either the Book of Mormon was
not inspired, or the revelation was not from God, since they were
fatally in opposition.

It came to him with the effect of a blinding light, yet seemed to endow
him with a new vigour, so that he felt strong and eager to be up, to
spread his truth abroad. Some remnant of that old fire of inspiration
flamed up within him as he lay on the hard bed in his little room, with
the summer scents floating in and the out-of-doors sounds,--a woman's
voice calling a child afar off, the lowing of cattle, the rhythmic
whetting of a scythe-blade, the echoing strokes of an axe, the mellow
fluting of a robin,--all coming to him a little muted, as if he were no
longer in the world.

He raised upon his elbow, glowing with the flush of old memories when
his heart had been perfect with the Lord; when he had wrought miracles
in the face of the people; when he had besought Heaven fearlessly for
signs of its favour; when he had dreamed of being a pillar of fire to
his people in their march across the desert, and another Lion of the
Lord to fight their just battles. The little bent man of sorrows had
again become the Lute of the Holy Ghost.

He knew it must be a true revelation. And, while he might not now have
strength to preach it as it should be preached, there were other mighty
men to spread its tidings. Even his simple announcement of it must work
a revolution. Others would see it when he had once declared it. Others
would spread it with power until the Saints were again become a purified
people. But he would have been the prophet, seer, and revelator, to whom
the truth was given, and so his suffering would not have been in vain;
perhaps that suffering had been ordained to the end that his vision
should be cleared for this truth.

He remembered the day was Saturday, and he began at once to word the
phrases in which he would tell his revelation on the morrow. He knew
that this must be done tactfully, in spite of its divine source. It
would be a momentous thing to the people and to the priesthood. It was
conceivable, indeed, that members of the latter might dispute it and
argue with him, or even denounce him for a heretic. But only at first;
the thing was too simply true to be long questioned. In any event, his
duty was plain; with righteousness as the girdle of his loins he must
go forth on the morrow and magnify his office in the sight of Heaven.

When the decision had been taken he lay in an ecstasy of anticipation,
feeling new pulses in all his frame and the blood warm in his face. It
would mean a new dawn for Israel. There would, however, be a vexing
difficulty in the matter of the present wives of the Saints. The song of
Lorena came in to him now:--

  "I was riding out this morning
     With my cousin by my side;
   She was telling her intentions
     For to soon become a bride."

The accent fell upon the first and third syllables with an upward surge
of melody that seemed to make the house vibrate. He thought perhaps some
of the Saints would find it well to put away all but the one rightful
wife, making due provision, of course, for their support. Lorena's
never-ending ballad came like the horns that blew before the walls of
Jericho, bringing down the ramparts of his old belief. Some of the
Saints would doubtless put away the false wives as a penance. He might
even bring himself to do it, since, in the light of his wondrous new
revelation, it would be obeying the Lord's will.

When Prudence came softly in to him, like a cool little breath of
fragrance from the cañon, he smiled up to her with a fulness of delight
she had never seen in his face before.

There was a new light in her own eyes, new decisions presaged, a new
desire imperfectly suppressed. He stroked her hand as she sat beside him
on the bed, wondering if she had at last learned her own secret. But she
became grave, and was diverted from her own affairs when she observed
him more closely.

"Why, you're sick--you're burning up with fever! You must be covered up
at once and have sage tea."

He laughed at her, a free, full laugh, such as she had never heard from
him in all the years.

"It's no fever, child. It's new life come to me. I'm strong again. My
face burns, but it must be the fire of health. I have a work given to
me--God has not wholly put me aside."

"But I believe you _are_ sick. Your hands are so hot, and your eyes look
so unnatural. You must let me--"

"Now, now--haven't I learned to tell sickness from the glow of a holy
purpose?"

"You're sure you are well?"

"Better than for fifteen years."

She let herself be convinced for the moment.

"Then please tell me something. Must a man who comes into our faith, if
he is baptised rightly, also marry more than one wife if he is to be
saved? Can't he be sure of his glory with one if he loves her--oh, very,
_very_ much?"

He was moved at first to answer her out of the fulness of his heart,
telling her of the wonderful new revelation. But there came the impulse
to guard it jealously in his own breast a little longer, to glory
secretly in it; half-fearful, too, that some virtue would go out of it
should he impart it too soon to another.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Ruel Follett would join our Church if he didn't have to marry more than
one wife. If he loved some one very much, I'm afraid he would find it
hard to marry another girl--oh, he simply _couldn't_--no matter how
pretty she was. He never could do it." Here she pulled one of the
scarlet ribbons from her broad hat. She gave a little exclamation of
relief as if she had really meant to detach it.

"Tell him to wait a little."

"That's what I did tell him, but it seems hardly right to let him join
believing that is necessary. I think some one ought to find out that one
wife is all God wants a man ever to have, and to tell Mr. Follett so
very plainly. His mind is really open to truth, and you know he might do
something reckless--he shouldn't be made to wait too long."

"Tell him to wait till to-morrow. I shall speak of this in meeting then.
It will be all right--all right, dear. Everything will be all right!"

"Only I am sure you are sick in spite of what you say. I know how to
prove it, too--can you eat?"

"I'm too busy thinking of great things to be hungry."

"There--you would be hungry if you were well."

"I can't tell you how well I am, and as for food--our Elder Brother has
been feeding me all day with the bread of truth. Such wonderful new
things the Lord has shown me!"

"But you must not get up. Lie still and we will nurse you."

He refused the food she brought him, and refused Lorena's sage tea. He
was not to be cajoled into treating as sickness the first real happiness
he had felt for years. He lay still until his little room grew shadowy
in the dusk, filled with a great reviving hope that the Lord had raised
a new prophet to lead Israel out of bondage.

As the night fell, however, the shadows of the room began to trouble him
as of old, and he found himself growing hotter and hotter until he
burned and gasped and the room seemed about to stifle him. He arose from
the bed, wondering that his feet should be so heavy and clumsy, and his
knees so weak, when he felt otherwise so strong. His head, too, felt
large, and there rang in his ears a singing of incessant quick beats. He
made his way to the door, where he heard the voices of Prudence and
Follett. It was good to feel the cool night air upon his hot face, and
he reassured Prudence, who chided him for leaving his bed.

"When you hear me discourse tomorrow you will see how wrong you were
about my being sick," he said. But she saw that he supported himself
carefully from the doorway along the wall to the near-by chair, and
that he sank into it with every sign of weakness. His eyes, however,
were aglow with his secret, and he sat nodding his head over it in a
lively way. "Brigham was right," he said, "when he declared that any of
us might receive revelations from on high; even the least of us--only we
are apt to be deaf to the whispered words until the Lord has scourged
us. I have been deaf a long time, but my ears are at last unstopped--who
is it coming, dear?"

A tall figure, vague in the dusk, was walking briskly up the path that
led in from the road. It proved to be the Wild Ram of the Mountains,
freshened by the look of rectitude that the razor gave to his face each
Saturday night.

"Evening, Brother Rae--evening, you young folks. Thank you, I will take
a chair. You feeling a bit more able than usual, Brother Rae?"

"Much better, Brother Seth. I shall be at meeting tomorrow."

"Glad to hear it, that's right good--you ain't been out for so long. And
we want to have a rousing time, too."

"Only we're afraid he has a fever instead of being so well," said
Prudence. "He hasn't eaten a thing all day."

"Well, he never did overeat himself, that I knew of," said the Bishop.
"Not eating ain't any sign with him. Now it would be with me. I never
believed in fasting the flesh. The Spirit of the Lord ain't ever so
close to me as after I've had a good meal of victuals,--meat and
potatoes and plenty of good sop and a couple of pieces of pie. Then I
can unbutton my vest and jest set and set and hear the promptings of the
Lord God of Hosts. I know some men ain't that way, but then's the time
when I beautify _my_ inheritance in Zion the purtiest. And I'm mighty
glad Brother Joel can turn out to-morrow. Of course you heard the news?"

"What news, Brother Seth?"

"Brother Brigham gets here at eleven o'clock from New Harmony."

"Brother Brigham _coming_?"

"We're getting the bowery ready down in the square tonight so's to have
services out of doors."

"He's coming to-morrow?" The words came from both Prudence and her
father.

"Of course he's coming. Ben Hadley brought word over. They'll have a
turkey dinner at Beil Wardle's house and then services at two."

The flushed little man with the revelation felt himself grow suddenly
cold. He had thought it would be easy to launch his new truth in Amalon
and let the news be carried to Brigham. To get up in the very presence
of him, in the full gaze of those cold blue eyes, was another matter.

"But it's early for him. He doesn't usually come until after Conference,
after it's got cooler."

The Bishop took on the air of a man who does not care to tell quite all
that he knows.

"Yes; I suspicion some one's been sending tales to him about a certain
young woman's carryings on down here."

He looked sharply at Prudence, who looked at the ground and felt
grateful for the dusk. Follett looked hard at them both and was plainly
interested. The Bishop spoke again.

"I ain't got no license to say so, but having done that young woman
proud by engaging himself to marry her, he might 'a' got annoyed if any
one had 'a' told him she was being waited on by a handsome young
Gentile, gallivantin' off to cañons day after day--holding hands, too,
more than once. Oh, I ain't _saying_ anything. Young blood is young
blood; mine ain't always been old, and I never blamed the young, but, of
course, the needs of the Kingdom is a different matter. Well, I'll have
to be getting along now. We're going to put up some of the people at our
house, and I've got to fix to bed mother down in the wagon-box again, I
reckon. I'll say you'll be with us to-morrow, then, Brother Joel?"

The little bent man's voice had lost much of its life.

"Yes, Brother Seth, if I'm able."

"Well, I hope you are." He arose and looked at the sky. "Looks as if we
might have some falling weather. They say it's been moisting quite a bit
up Cedar way. Well,--good night, all!"

When he was gone the matter of his visit was not referred to. With some
constraint they talked a little while of other things. But as soon as
the two men were alone for the night, Follett turned to him, almost
fiercely.

"Say, now, what did that old goat-whiskered loon mean by his hintings
about Prudence?"

The little man was troubled.

"Well, the fact is, Brigham has meant to marry her."

"You don't mean you'd have let him? Say, I'd hate to feel sorry for
holding off on you like I have!"

"No, no, don't think that of me."

"Well, what were you going to do?"

"I hardly knew."

"You better find out."

"I know it--I did find out, to-day. I know, and it will be all right.
Trust me. I lost my faith for a moment just now when I heard Brother
Brigham was coming to-morrow; but I see how it is,--the Lord has wished
to prove me. Now there is all the more reason why I should not flinch.
You will see that I shall make it all right to-morrow."

"Well, the time's about up. I've been here over two months now, just
because you were so kind of helpless. And one of our wagon-trains will
be along here about next Monday. Say, she wouldn't ever have married
him, would she?"

"No, she refused at once; she refused to consider it at all."

He was burning again with his fever, and there was something in his
eagerness that seemed to overcome Follett's indignation.

"Well, let it go till to-morrow, then. And you try to get some rest
now. That's what I'm going to do."

But the little bent man, flushed though he was, felt cold from the night
air, and, piling more logs on the fire, he drew his chair close in front
of it.

As often as Follett wakened through the night he saw him sitting there,
sometimes reading what looked like a little old Bible, sometimes
speaking aloud as if seeking to memorise a passage.

The last Follett remembered to have heard was something he seemed to be
reading from the little book,--"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not
want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside
the still waters."

He fell asleep again with a feeling of pity for the little man.




CHAPTER XL.


_A Procession, a Pursuit, and a Capture_

Follett awoke to find himself superfluous. The women were rushing
excitedly through their housework in order to be at hand when the
procession of Brigham and his suite should march in. Of Joel Rae he
caught but a glimpse through the door of his little room, the face
flushed that had a long time been sallow and bloodless. When the door
had closed he could hear the voice, now strong again. He seemed to be,
as during the night, rehearsing something he meant to say. And later it
was plain that he prayed, though he heard nothing more than the high
pleading of the voice.

Follett would not have minded these things, but Prudence was gone and no
one could tell him where. From Christina of the rock-bound speech he
blasted the items that she was wearing "a dress all new" and "a
red-ribbon hat." Lorena, too, with all her willingness of speech, knew
nothing definite.

"All I know is she fixed herself up like she was going to an evening
ball or party. I wish to the lands I'd kep' my complexion the way she
does hern. And she had on her best lawn that her pa got her in Salt
Lake, the one with the little blue figures in it. She does look sweeter
than honey on a rag in a store dress, and that Leghorn hat with the red
bow, though what she wanted to start so early for I don't know. The
procession can't be along yet, but she might have gone down to march
with them, or to help decorate the bowery. I know when I was her age I
was always a great hand for getting ready long before any one come, when
my mother was making a company for me, putting up my waterfall and
curling my beau-catchers on a hot pipe-stem. But, land! I ain't no time
to talk with _you_."

Down at the main road he hesitated. To the right he could see where the
green mouth of the cañon invited; but to the left lay the village where
Prudence doubtless was. He would find her and bring her away. For
Follett had determined to toe the mark himself now.

In the one street of Amalon there was the usual Sabbath hush; but above
this was an air of dignified festivity. The village in its Sunday best
homespun, with here and there a suit of store goods, was holding its
breath. In the bowery a few workers, under the supervision of Bishop
Wright, were adding the last touches of decoration. It was a spot of
pleasant green in the dusty square--a roof of spruce boughs, with
evergreens and flowers garnishing the posts, and a bank of flowers and
fruit back of the speaker's stand.

But Prudence was not there, and he wondered with dismay if she had
joined the rest of the village and gone out to meet the Prophet. He had
seen the last of them going along the dusty road to the north, men and
women and little children, hot, excited, and eager. It did not seem like
her to be among them, and yet except for those before him working about
the bowery, and a few mothers with children in arms, the town was
apparently deserted.

But even as he waited, he heard the winding alarm of a bugle, and saw a
scurrying of backs in the dusty haze far up the road. The Wild Ram of
the Mountains gave a few hurried commands for the very final touches,
called off his force from the now completed bowery, and a solitary
Gentile was for the moment left to greet the oncoming procession.

Presently, however, from the dark interiors of the log houses came the
mothers with babies, a few aged sires too feeble for the march, and such
of the remaining housewives as could leave for a little time the dinners
they were cooking. They made but a thin line along the little street,
and Follett saw at once that Prudence was not among them. He must wait
to see if she marched in the approaching procession.

Already the mounted escort was coming into view, four abreast, captained
by Elder Wardle, who, with a sash of red and gold slanted across his
breast, was riding nervously, as if his seat could be kept only by the
most skillful horsemanship, a white mule that he was known to treat with
fearless disrespect on days that were not great. Behind the martial
Wardle was Peter Peterson, Peter Long Peterson, and Peter Long Peter
Peterson, the most martial looking men in Amalon after their leader; and
then came a few more fours of proudly mounted Saints.

After this escort, separated by an interval that would let the dust
settle a little, came the body of the procession. First a carriage
containing the Prophet, portly, strong-faced, easy of manner, as became
a giant who felt kindly in his might. By his side was his wife, Amelia,
the reigning favourite, who could play the piano and sing "Fair Bingen
on the Rhine" with a dash that was said to be superb. Behind this float
of honour came other carriages, bearing the Prophet's Counsellors, the
Apostles, Chief Bishop, Bishops generally, Elders, Priests, and Deacons,
each taking precedence near the Prophet's carriage by seniority of rank
or ordination. Along the line of carriages were outriders, bearing
proudly aloft banners upon which suitable devices were printed:

"God bless Brigham Young!"

"Hail to Zion's Chief!"

"The Lion of the Lord."

"Welcome to our Mouthpiece of God!"

Behind the last carriage came the citizens in procession, each
detachment with its banner. The elderly brethren stepped briskly under
"Fathers in Israel"; the elderly sisters gazed proudly aloft to "Mothers
in Israel." Then came a company of young men whose banner announced them
as "Defenders of Zion." They were followed by a company of maidens led
by Matilda Wright, striving to be not too much elated, and whose banner
bore the inscription, "Daughters of Zion." At the last came the
children, openly set up by the occasion, and big-eyed with importance,
the boy who carried their banner, "The Hope of Israel," going with
wonderful rigidity, casting not so much as an eye either to right or
left.

But Prudence had not been in this triumphal column, nor was she among
any of the women who stood with children in their arms, or who rushed to
the doors with sleeves rolled up and a long spoon or fork in their
hands.

Then all at once a great inspiration came to Follett. When the last
dusty little white-dressed girl had trudged solemnly by, and the head of
the procession was already winding down the lane that led to Elder
Wardle's place, he called himself a fool and turned back. He walked like
a man who has suddenly remembered that which he should not have
forgotten. And yet he had remembered nothing at all. He had only thought
of a possibility, but one that became more plausible with every step;
especially when he reached the Rae house and found it deserted. Whenever
he thought of his stupidity, which was every score of steps, he would
break into a little trot that made the willows along the creek on his
left run into a yellowish green blur.

He was breathing hard by the time he had made the last ascent and stood
in the cool shade of the comforting pines. He waited until his pulse
became slower, wiping his forehead with the blue neckerchief which
Prudence had suggested that she liked to see him wear in place of the
one of scarlet. When he had cooled and calmed himself a little, he
stepped lightly on. Around the big rock he went, over the "down timber"
beyond it, up over the rise down which the waters tumbled, and then
sharply to the right where their nook was, a call to her already on his
lips.

But she was not there. He could see the place at a glance. Nothing below
met his eye but the straight red trunks of the pines and the brown
carpet beneath them. A jay posed his deep shining blue on a cluster of
scarlet sumac, and, cocking his crested head, screamed at him mockingly.
The cañon's cool breath fanned him and the pine-tops sighed and sang. At
first he was disheartened; but then his eyes caught a gleam of white and
red under the pine, touched to movement by a low-swinging breeze.

It was her hat swaying where she had hung it on a broken bough of the
tree she liked to lean against. And there was her book; not the book of
Mormon, but a secular, frivolous thing called "Leaflets of Memory, an
Illuminated Annual for the Year 1847." It was lying on its face, open at
the sentimental tale of "Anastasia." He put it down where she had left
it. The cañon was narrow and she would hardly leave the waterside for
the steep trail. She would be at the upper cascade or in the little park
above it, or somewhere between. He crossed the stream, and there in the
damp sand was the print of a small heel where she had made a long step
from the last stone. He began to hurry again, clambering recklessly over
boulders, or through the underbrush where the sides of the stream were
steep. When the upper cascade came in sight his heart leaped, for there
he caught the fleeting shimmer of a skirt and the gleam of a dark head.

He hurried on, and after a moment's climb had her in full view, standing
on the ledge below which the big trout lay. There he saw her turn so
that he would have sworn she looked at him. It seemed impossible that
she had not seen him; but to his surprise she at once started up the
stream, swiftly footing over the rough way, now a little step, now a
free leap, grasping a willow to pull herself up an incline, then
disappearing around a clump of cedars.

He redoubled his speed over the rocks. When she next came into view,
still far ahead, he shouted long and loud. It was almost certain that
she must hear; and yet she made no sign. She seemed even to speed ahead
the faster for his hail.

Again he sprang forward to cover the distance between them, and again he
shouted when the next view of her showed that he was gaining. This time
he was sure she heard; but she did not look back, and she very plainly
increased her speed.

For an instant he stood aghast at this discovery; then he laughed.

"Well if you _want_ a race, you'll get it!"

He was off again along the rough bed of the stream. He shouted no more,
but slowly increased the gain he had made upon her. Instead of losing
time by climbing up over the bank, he splashed through the water at two
places where the little stream was wide and shallow. Then at last he saw
that he was closing in upon her. Soon he was near enough to see that she
also knew it.

He began at that moment an extended course of marvelling at the ways of
woman. For now she had reached the edge of the little open park, and was
placidly seating herself on a fallen tree in the grove of quaking
aspens. He could not understand this change of manner. And when he
reached the opening she again astounded him by greeting him with every
manifestation of surprise, from the first nervous start to the pushing
up of her dark brows.

"Why," she began, "how did you ever think of coming _here_?"

But he had twice hurried fruitlessly this hot morning and he was not
again to be baffled. As he advanced toward her, she regarded him with
some apprehension until he stopped a safe six feet away. She had noted
certain lines of determination in his face.

"Now what's the use of pretending?--what did you run for?"

"I?--_run_?"

Again the curving black brows went up in frank surprise.

"Yes,--you _run_!"

He took a threatening step forward, and the brows promptly fell to
serious intentness of his face.

"What did you do it for?"

She stood up. "What did I do it for?--what did I do _what_ for?"

But his eyes were searching her and she had to lower her own. Then she
looked up again, and laughed nervously.

"I--I don't know--I couldn't help it." Again she laughed. "And why did
you run? How did you think of coming here?"

"I'll tell you how, now I've caught you." He started toward her, but she
was quickly backing away into the opening of the little park, still
laughing.

"Look out for that blow-down back of you!" he called. In the second that
she halted to turn and discover his trick he had caught her by the arm.

"There--I caught you fair--_now_ what did you run for?"

"I couldn't help it." Her face was crimson. His own was pale under the
tan. They could hear the beating of both their hearts. But with his
capture made so boldly he was dumb, knowing not what to say.

The faintest pulling of the imprisoned arm aroused him.

"I'd 'a' followed you till Christmas come if you'd kept on. Clear over
the divide and over the whole creation. I never _would_ have given you
up. I'm never _going_ to."

He caught her other wrist and sought to draw her to him.

With head down she came, slowly, yielding yet resisting, with little
shudders of terror that was yet a strange delight, with eyes that dared
give him but one quick little look, half pleading and half fear. But
then after a few tense seconds her struggles were all housed far within
his arms; there was no longer play for the faintest of them; and she was
strained until she felt her heart rush out to him as she had once felt
it go to her dream of a single love,--with the utter abandon of the
falling water beside them.

On the opposite side of the park across the half-acre of waving
bunch-grass, a many-pronged old buck in his thin red summer coat lay at
the edge of the quaking aspens, sunning the velvet of his tender new
horns to harden them against approaching combats. He had shrewdly noted
that the first comer did not see him; but this second was a creature of
action in whose presence it were ill-advised to linger. Noiselessly his
hindquarters raised from the ground, and then with a snort of
indignation and a mighty, crashing rush he was off through the trees and
up the hill. Doubtless the beast cherished a delusion of clever escape
from a dangerous foe; but neither of the pair standing so near saw or
heard him or would have been conscious of him even had he led past them
in wild flight the biggest herd it had ever been his lot to domineer.
For these two were lost to all but the wonder of the moment, pushing
fearfully on into the glory and sweetness of it.

His voice came to her in a dull murmur, and the sound of the running
water came, again like the muffled tinkling of little silver bells in
the distance. Both his arms were strong about her, and now her own hands
rose in rebellion to meet where the kerchief was knotted at the back of
his neck, quite as the hands of the other woman had rebelliously flung
down the scarf from the balcony. Then the brim of his hat came down over
her hair, and her lips felt his kiss.

They stood so a long time, it seemed to them, in the high grass, amid
the white-barked quaking aspens, while a little wind from the dark pines
at their side, lowered now to a yearning softness, played over them.
They were aroused at last by a squirrel that ran half-way down the trunk
of a near-by spruce to bark indignantly at them, believing they menaced
his winter's store of spruce cones piled at the foot of the tree. With
rattle after rattle his alarm came, until he had the satisfaction of
noting an effect.

The young man put the girl away from him to look upon her in the new
light that enveloped them both, still holding her hands.

"There's one good thing about your marriages,--they marry you for
eternity, don't they? That's for ever--only it isn't long enough, even
so--not for me."

"I thought you were never coming."

"But you said"--he saw the futility of it, however, and kissed her
instead.

"I was afraid of you all this summer," he said.

"I was afraid of you, too."

"You got over it yesterday all right."

"How?"

"You kissed me."

"Never--what an awful thing to say!"

"But you did--twice--don't you remember?"

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. If I did it wasn't at all like--like--"

"Like that--"

"No--I didn't think anything about it."

"And now you'll never leave me, and I'll never leave you."

They sat on the fallen tree.

"And to think of that old--"

"Oh, don't talk of it. That's why I ran off here--so I couldn't hear
anything about it until he went away."

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

"I didn't think you were so stupid."

"How was I to know where you were coming?"

But now she was reminded of something.

"Tell me one thing--did you ever know a little short fat girl, a blonde
that you liked very much?"

"Never!"

"Then what did you talk so much about her for yesterday if you didn't?
You'd speak of her every time."

"I didn't think you were so stupid."

"Well, I can't see--"

"You don't need to--we'll call it even."

And so the talk went until the sun had fallen for an hour and they knew
it was time to go below.

"We will go to the meeting together," she said, "and then father shall
tell Brigham,--tell him--"

"That you're going to marry me. Why don't you say it?"

"That I'm going to marry you, and be your only wife." She nestled under
his arm again.

"For time and eternity--that's the way your Church puts it."

Then, not knowing it, they took their last walk down the pine-hung
glade. Many times he picked her lightly up to carry her over rough
places and was loth to put her down,--having, in truth, to be bribed
thereto.

At their usual resting-place she put on her hat with the cherry ribbons,
and he, taking off his own, kissed her under it.

And then they were out on the highroad to Amalon, where all was a
glaring dusty gray under the high sun, and the ragged rim of the western
hills quivered and ran in the heat.

He thought on the way down of how the news would be taken by the little
bent man with the fiery eyes. She was thinking how glad she was that
young Ammaron Wright had not kissed her that time he tried to at the
dance--since kisses were like _that_.




CHAPTER XLI.


_The Rise and Fall of a Bent Little Prophet_

Down in the village the various dinners of ceremony to the visiting
officials were over. An hour had followed of decent rest and informal
chat between the visitors and their hosts, touching impartially on
matters of general interest; on irrigation, the gift of tongues, the
season's crop of peaches, the pouring out of the Spirit abroad, the best
mixture of sheep-dip; on many matters not unpleasing to the
practical-minded Deity reigning over them.

Then the entire populace of Amalon, in its Sunday best of "valley tan"
or store-goods, flocked to the little square and sat expectantly on the
benches under the green roof of the bowery, ready to absorb the
droppings of the sanctuary.

In due time came Brigham, strolling between Elder Wardle and Bishop
Wright, bland, affable, and benignant. On the platform about him sat his
Counsellors, the more distinguished of his suite, and the local
dignitaries of the Church.

Among these came the little bent man with an unwonted colour in his
face, coming in absorbed in thought, shaking hands even with Brigham
with something of abstraction in his manner. Prudence and Follett came
late, finding seats at the back next to a generous row of the Mrs. Seth
Wright.

The hymn to Joseph Smith was given out, and the congregation rose to
sing:--

  "Unchanged in death, with a Saviour's love,
   He pleads their cause in the courts above.

  "His home's in the sky, he dwells with the gods,
   Far from the rage of furious mobs.

  "He died, he died, for those he loved,
   He reigns, he reigns, in the realms above.

  "Shout, shout, ye Saints! This boon is given,--
   We'll meet our martyred seer in heaven."

When they had settled into their seats, the Wild Ram of the Mountains
arose and invoked a blessing on those present and upon those who had
gone behind the veil; adding a petition that Brigham be increased in his
basket and in his store, in wives, flocks, and herds, and in the gifts
of the Holy Spirit.

They sang another hymn, and when that was done, the little bent man
arose and came hesitatingly forward to the baize-covered table that
served as a pulpit. As President of the Stake it was his office to
welcome the visitors, and this he did.

There were whisperings in the audience when his appearance was noted. It
was the first time he had been seen by many of them in weeks. They
whispered that he was failing.

"He ought to be home this minute," was the first Mrs. Wardle's diagnosis
to the fifth Mrs. Wardle, behind her hymn-book, "with his feet in a
mustard bath and a dose of gamboge and a big brewing of catnip tea. I
can tell a fever as far as I can see it."

The words of official welcome spoken, he began his discourse; but in a
timid, shuffling manner so unlike his old self that still others
whispered of his evident illness. Inside he burned with his purpose,
but, with all his resolves, the presence of Brigham left him unnerved.
He began by referring to their many adversities since the day when they
had first knelt to entreat the mercy of God upon the land. Then he spoke
of revelations.

"You must all have had revelations, because they have come even to me.
Perhaps you were deaf to the voice, as I have been. Perhaps you have
trusted too readily in some revelation that came years ago, supposedly
from God--in truth, from the Devil. Perhaps you have been deaf to later
revelations meant to warn you of the other's falseness."

He was still uneasy, hesitating, fearful; but he saw interest here and
there in the faces before him. Even Brigham, though unseen by the
speaker, was looking mildly curious.

"You remember the revelation that came to Joseph in an early day when
there was trouble in raising money to print the Book of Mormon,--'Some
revelations are from God, some from man, and some from the Devil.'
Recalling the many chastenings God has put upon us, may we not have
failed to test all our other revelations by this one?"

Deep within he was angry at himself, for he was not speaking with words
of fire as he had meant to; he was feeling a shameful cowardice in the
presence of the Prophet. He had seen himself once more the Lute of the
Holy Ghost, strong and moving; but now he was a poor, low-spoken,
hesitating rambler. Nervously he went on, skirting about the edge of his
truth as long as he dared, but feeling at last that he must plunge into
its icy depths.

"In short, brethren, the Book of Mormon denounces and forbids our plural
marriages."

Even this astounding declaration he made without warmth, in tones so low
that many did not hear him. Those on the platform heard, however, and
now began to view his obvious physical weakness in a new light. Yet he
continued, gaining a little in force.

"The declarations on the subject in the Book of Mormon are so worded
that we cannot fail to read them as denouncing and forbidding the
practise of the Old Testament patriarchs in this matter of the family
life."

In rapid succession he cited the passages to which he referred, those
concerning David and Solomon and Noah and Ripkalish, who "did not do
that which was right in the sight of the Lord, for he did have many
wives."

There were murmurings and rustlings among the people now, and on his
right he heard Brigham stirring ominously in his chair; but he nerved
himself to keep on his feet, feeling he had that to say which should
make them hail him as a new prophet when they understood.

"But besides these warnings against the sin there are many early
revelations to Joseph himself condemning it."

He cited several of these, feeling the amazement and the alarm grow
about him.

"And now against these plain words, given at many times in many places,
written on the golden plates in letters that cannot lie, or brought to
Joseph by the angel of the Lord, we have only the one revelation on
celestial marriage. Read it now in the light of these other revelations
and see if it does not too plainly convict itself of having been
counterfeited to Joseph by an evil spirit. Such, brethren, has been the
revelation that the Lord has given to me again and again until it burns
within me, and I must cry it out to you. Try to receive it from me."

There was commotion among the people in front, chairs were moved at his
side, and a low voice called to him to sit down. He heard this voice
through the ringing that had been in his ears for many days, like the
beating of a sea against him, and he felt the strength go suddenly from
his knees.

He stumbled weakly back to his chair and sank into it with head bowed,
feeling, rather than seeing, the figure of Brigham rise from its seat
and step forward with deliberate, unruffled majesty.

As the Prophet faced his people they became quite silent, so that the
robins could be heard in the Pettigrew peach-trees across the street. He
poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table, and drank of it
slowly. Then, leaning a little forward, resting both his big cushiony
hands on the green of the table, the Lion of the Lord began to
roar--very softly at first. Slowly the words came, in tones scarce
audible, marked indeed almost by the hesitation of the first speaker.
But then a difference showed; gradually the tone increased in volume,
the words came faster, fluency succeeding hesitation, and now his voice
was high and searching, while his easy, masterful gestures laid their
old spell upon the people.

"It does not occupy my feelings to curse any individual," he had begun,
awkwardly; "in fact, I feel to render all thanks and praise for the
discourse to which we have just listened, but I couldn't help saying to
myself, 'Oh, dear, Granny! what a long tale our puss has got!'"

An uneasy titter came from the packed square of faces in front of him.
He went on with rising power:

"But it is foretold in the Book of Mormon that the Lord will remove the
bitter branches, and it's a good thing to find out where the bitter
branches are. We can remove them ourselves. We can't expect the Lord to
do _all_ our dirty work. Now hear it once more, you that need to hear
it--and damn all such poor pussyism as sniffles and whines and rejects
it! We don't want that scrubby breed here!--Listen, I say. The celestial
order of marriage is necessary for our exaltation to the fulness of the
Lord's glory in the world eternal. Where much is given much is required.
Understand me,--those that reject polygamy will be damned. Hear it now
once for all. I will give you to know that God, our Father, has many
wives, and so has Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother. Our God and Father in
heaven is _a being of tabernacle_, or, in other words, He has a body of
parts the same as you and I have. And that God and Father of ours was
Adam."

Again there was a stirring below as if a wind swept the people, and the
little man in his chair cowered for shame of himself. He had meant to do
a great thing; he had thrilled so strongly with it; it had promised to
master others as it had mastered him; and now he was shamed by the one
true Lion of the Lord.

"Hear it now," continued Brigham. "When God, our Father Adam, came into
the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought
one of his wives with him,--Eve. He made and organised this world. He is
Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days, _about whom holy men have
written and spoken_. He is our Father and our God, and the only God with
whom we have to do. I could tell you much more about this; but were I
to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it, in the
estimation of the superstitious and over-righteous of mankind. But I
will tell you this, that Jesus, our Elder Brother, was begotten in the
flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is
our Father in Heaven."

A chorus of Amens from the platform greeted this. It was led by the Wild
Ram of the Mountains. In his chair the little bent man now cowered lower
and lower, one moment praying for strength, the next for death; feeling
the blood surge through him like storm waves that would beat him down.
If only Heaven would send him one last moment of power to word this
truth so that it might prevail. But Brigham was continuing.

"And what of this Elder Brother, Jesus? Did he reject the patriarchal
order--like some poor pusillanimous cry-babies among us? No, I say! It
will be borne in mind that once on a time there was a marriage in Cana
of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that transaction it will be
discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that
occasion. If he was never married his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and
the other Mary also, whom Jesus loved, must have been highly unbecoming
and improper, to say the best of it. I will venture to say that, if
Jesus Christ was now to pass through the most pious countries in
Christendom, with a train of women such as used to follow Him, fondling
about Him, combing His hair, anointing Him with precious ointments,
washing His feet with tears, and wiping them with the hair of their
heads,--that, unmarried or even married, He would be mobbed, tarred and
feathered, and ridden, not on an ass, but on a rail. Now did He
multiply, and did He see His seed? Others may do as they like, but I
will not charge our Saviour with neglect or transgression in this or any
other duty."

He turned and went to his seat with a last threatening gesture, amid
many little sounds of people relaxing from strained positions.

But then, before another could arise, a wonder came upon them. The
little man stood up and came quickly forward, a strange new life in his
step, a new confidence in his bearing, a curious glow of new strength in
his face. Even his stoop had straightened for the moment. For, as he had
listened to Brigham's last words, the picture of his vision in the
desert had come back,--the cross in the sky, the crucified Saviour upon
it, the head in death-agony fallen over upon the shoulder. And then
before his eyes had come page after page of that New Testament with a
wash of blood across two of them. He felt the new life he had prayed for
pouring into his veins, and with it a fierce anger. The one on the cross
who had been more than man, who had shirked no sacrifice and loved
infinitely, was not thus to be assailed. A panorama of wrong--wrong
thinking and wrong doing--extended before his clearing gaze. For once
he seemed to see truth in a vision and to feel the power to utter it.

There was silence again as he stood in front of the little table, the
faces before him frozen into wonder that he should have either the power
or the temerity to answer Brigham. He spoke, and his voice was again
rough with force, and high and fearless, a voice many of them recalled
from the days when he had not been weak.

"Now I see what we have done. Listen, brethren, for God has not before
so plainly said it to any man, and I know my time is short among you. We
have gone back to the ages of Hebrew barbarism for our God--to the God
of Battles worshipped by a heathen people--a God who loved the reek of
blood and the smell of burning flesh. But you shall not--"

He turned squarely and fiercely to the face of Brigham.

"--you shall not confuse that bloody God of Battles with the true
Christ, nor yet with the true God of Love that this Christ came to tell
us of. Once I believed in Him. I was taught to by your priests. War
seemed a righteous thing, for we had been grievously put upon, and I
believed the God of Israel should avenge our wrongs as He had avenged
those of His older Zion. And hear me now--so long as I believed this, I
was no coward; while you, sir--"

A long forefinger was pointed straight at the amazed Brigham.

"--while you, sir, were a craven, contemptible in your cowardice. I
would have fought in Echo Cañon to the end, because I believed. But you
did not believe, and so you were afraid to fight. And for your cowardice
and your wretched lusts your name among all but your ignorant dupes
shall become a hissing and a scorn. For mark it well, unless you forsake
that heathen God of Battles and preach the divine Christ of the New
Testament, you shall come to hold only the ignorant, and them only by
keeping them ignorant."

The commotion among the people in front was now all but a panic. On the
platform the sires of Israel whispered one to another, while Brigham
gazed as if fascinated, driven to admiration for the speaker's power and
audacity. For the feverish, fleeting moment, Joel Rae was that veritable
Lion of the Lord he had prayed to be, putting upon the people his spell
of the old days. Heads were again strained up and forward, and amazed
horror was on most of the faces. Far back, Prudence trembled, feeling
that she must be away at once, until she felt the firm grasp of
Follett's hand. The speaker went on, having turned again to the front.

"Instead of a church you shall become justly hated and despised as a
people who foul their homes and dishonour beyond forgiveness the names
of wife and mother. Then your punishment shall come upon you as it has
already come for this and for other sins. Even now the Gentile is upon
us; and mark this truth that God has but now given me to know: we have
never been persecuted as a church,--but always as a political body
hostile to the government of this nation. Even so, you had no faith.
Believing as I believed, I would have fought that nation and died a
thousand bloody deaths rather than submit. But you had no faith, and you
were so low that you let yourselves be ruled by a coward--and I tell you
God _hates_ a coward."

Now the old pleading music came into his voice,--the music that had made
him the Lute of the Holy Ghost in the Poet's roster of titles.

"O brethren, let me beg you to be good--simply good. Nothing can prevail
against you if you are. If you are not, nothing shall avail you,--the
power of no priesthood, no signs, ordinances, or rituals. Believe me, I
know. Not even the forgiveness of the Father. For I tell you there is a
divinity within each of you that you may some day unwittingly affront;
and then you shall lie always in hell, for if you cannot forgive
yourself, the forgiveness of God will not free you even if it come
seventy times seven. I _know_. For fifteen years I have lain in hell for
the work this Church did at Mountain Meadows. A cross was put there to
the memory of those we slew. Not a day has passed but that cross has
been burned and cut into my living heart with a blade of white heat. Now
I am going to hell; but I am tired and ready to go. Nor do I go as a
coward, as _you_ will go--"

Again the long forefinger was flung out to point at Brigham.

"--but I shall go as a fighter to the end. I have not worshipped Mammon,
and I have conquered my flesh--conquered it after it had once all but
conquered me, so that I had to fight the harder--"

He stopped, waiting as if he were not done, but the spell was broken.
The life, indeed, had in the later moments been slowly dying from his
words; and, as they lost their fire, scattered voices of protest had
been heard; then voices in warning from behind him, and the sound of two
or three rising and pushing back their chairs.

Now that he no longer heard his own voice he stood quivering and
panic-stricken, the fire out and the pained little smile coming to make
his face gentle again. He turned weakly toward Brigham, but the Prophet
had risen from his seat and his broad back was rounded toward the
speaker. He appeared to be consulting a group of those who stood on the
platform, and they who were not of this group had also turned away.

The little bent man tried again to smile, hoping for a friendly glance,
perhaps a hand-clasp without words from some one of them. Seeing that he
was shunned, he stepped down off the platform at the side, twisting his
hat in his long, thin hands in embarrassment. A moment he stood so,
turning to look back at the group of priests and Elders around the
Prophet, seeking for any sign, even for a glance that should be not
unkind. The little pained smile still lighted his face, but no friendly
look came from the others. Seeing only the backs turned toward him, he
at length straightened out his crumpled hat, still smiling, and slowly
put it on his head; as he turned away he pulled the hat farther over his
eyes, and then he was off along the dusty street, looking to neither
side, still with the little smile that made his face gentle.

But when he had come to the end of the street and was on the road up the
hill, the smile died. He seemed all at once to shrink and stoop and
fade,--no longer a Lion of the Lord, but a poor, white-faced, horrified
little man who had meant in his heart to give a great revelation, and
who had succeeded only in uttering blasphemy to the very face of God's
prophet.

From below, the little groups of excited people along the street looked
up and saw his thin, bent figure alone in the fading sunlight, toiling
resolutely upward.

Other groups back in the square talked among themselves, not a few in
whispers. A listener among them might have heard such expressions as,
"He'll be blood-atoned sure!"--"They'll make a breach upon
him!"--"They'll accomplish his decease!"--"He'll be sent over the rim of
the basin right quick!" One indignant Saint, with a talent for
euphemism, was heard to say, "Brigham will have his spirit disembodied!"

To the priests and Elders on the platform Elder Wardle was saying, "The
trouble with him was he was crazy with fever. Why, I'll bet my best set
of harness his pulse ain't less than a hundred and twenty this minute."

The others looked at Brigham.

"He's a crazy man, sure enough," assented the Prophet, "but my opinion
is he'll stay crazy, and it wouldn't be just the right thing by Israel
to let him go on talking before strangers. You see, it _sounds_ so
almighty sane!"

Back in the crowd Prudence and Follett had lingered a little at the
latter's suggestion, for he had caught the drift of the talk. When he
had comprehended its meaning they set off up the hill, full of alarm.

At the door Christina met them. They saw she had been crying.

"Where is father, Christina?"

"Himself saddle his horse, and say, 'I go to toe some of those marks.'
He say, 'I see you plenty not no more, so good-bye!' He kissed me," she
added.

"Which way did he go?"

"So!" She pointed toward the road that led out of the valley to the
north.

"I'll go after him," said Follett.

"I'll go with you. Saddle Dandy and Kit--and Christina will have
something for you to eat; you've had nothing since morning."

"I reckon I know where we'll have to go," said Follett, as he went for
the saddles.




CHAPTER XLII.


_The Little Bent Man at the Foot of the Cross_

It was dusk when they rode down the hill together. They followed the
cañon road to its meeting with the main highway at the northern edge of
Amalon. Where the roads joined they passed Bishop Wright, who, with his
hat off, turned to stare at them, and to pull at his fringe of whisker
in seeming perplexity.

"He must have been on his way to our house," Prudence called.

"With that hair and whiskers," answered Follett, with some irrelevance,
"he looks like an old buffalo-bull just before shedding-time."

They rode fast until the night fell, scanning the road ahead for a
figure on horseback. When it was quite dark they halted.

"We might pass him," suggested Follett. "He was fairly tuckered out, and
he might fall off any minute."

"Shall we go on slowly?" she asked.

"We might miss him in the dark. But the moon will be up in an hour, and
then we can go at full speed. We better wait."

"Poor little sorry father! I wish we had gone home sooner."

"He certainly's got more spunk in him than I gave him credit for! He had
old Brigham and the rest of them plumb buffaloed for a minute. Oh, he
did crack the old bull-whip over them good!"

"Poor little father! Where could he have gone at this hour?"

"I've got an idea he's set out for that cross he's talked so much
about--that one up here in the Meadows."

"I've seen it,--where the Indians killed those poor people years ago.
But what did he mean by the crime of his Church there?"

"We'll ask him when we find him. And I reckon we'll find him right there
if he holds out to ride that far."

He tied her pony to an oak-bush a little off the road, threw Dandy's
bridle-rein to the ground to make him stand, and on a shelving rock near
by he found her a seat.

"It won't be long, and the horses need a chance to breathe. We've come
along at a right smart clip, and Dandy's been getting a regular
grass-stomach on him back there."

Side by side they sat, and in the dark and stillness their own great
happiness came back to them.

"The first time I liked you very much," she said, after he had kissed
her, "was when I saw you were so kind to your horse."

"That's the only way to treat stock. I can gentle any horse I ever saw.
Are you sure you care enough for me?"

"Oh, yes, yes, _yes_! It must be enough. It's so much I'm frightened
now."

"Will you go away with me?"

"Yes, I want to go away with you."

"Well, you just come out with me,--out of this hole. There's a fine big
country out there you don't know anything about. Our home will reach
from Corpus Christi to Deadwood, and from the Missouri clear over to
Mister Pacific Ocean. We'll have the prairies for our garden, and the
high plains will be our front yard, with the buffalo-grass thicker than
hair on a dog's back. And, say, I don't know about it, but I believe
they have a bigger God out there than you've got in this Salt Lake
Basin. Anyway, He acts more like you'd think God ought to act. He isn't
so particular about your knowing a lot of signs and grips and passwords
and winks. Going to your heaven must be like going into one of those
Free Mason lodges,--a little peek-hole in the door, and God shoving the
cover back to see if you know the signs. I guess God isn't so trifling
as all that,--having, you know, a lot of signs and getting ducked under
water three times and all that business. I don't exactly know what His
way is, but I'll bet it isn't any way that you'd have to laugh at if you
saw it--like as if, now, you saw old man Wright and God making signs to
each other through the door, and Wright saying:--

   _'Eeny meeny miny mo!
     Cracky feeny finy fo!'_

and God looking in a little book to see if he got all the words right."

"Anyway, I'm glad you weren't baptised, after what Father said to-day."

"You'll be gladder still when you get out there where they got a
full-grown man's God."

They talked on of many things, chiefly of the wonder of their love--that
each should actually be each and the two have come together--until a
full yellow moon came up, seemingly from the farther side of the hill in
front of them. When at last its light flooded the road so that it lay
off to the north like a broad, gray ribbon flung over the black land,
they set out again, galloping side by side mile after mile, scanning
sharply the road ahead and its near sides.

Down out of Pine Valley they went, and over more miles of gray alkali
desert toward a line of hills low and black in the north.

They came to these, followed the road out of the desert through a narrow
gap, and passed into the Mountain Meadows, reining in their horses as
they did so.

Before them the Meadows stretched between two ranges of low, rocky
hills, narrow at first but widening gradually from the gap through
which they had come. But the ground where the long, rich grass had once
grown was now barren, gray and ugly in the moonlight, cut into deep
gullies and naked of all but a scant growth of sage-brush which the moon
was silvering, and a few clumps of shadowy scrub-oak along the base of
the hills on either side.

Instinctively they stopped, speaking in low tones. And then there came
to them out of the night's silence a strange, weird beating; hollow,
muffled, slow, and rhythmic, but penetrating and curiously exciting,
like another pulse cunningly playing upon their own to make them beat
more rapidly. The girl pulled her horse close in by his, but he
reassured her.

"It's Indians--they must be holding the funeral of some chief. But no
matter--these Indians aren't any more account than prairie-dogs."

They rode on slowly, the funeral-drum sounding nearer as they went.

Then far up the meadow by the roadside they could see the hard, square
lines of the cross in the moonlight. Slower still they went, while the
drumbeats became louder, until they seemed to fall upon their own
ear-drums.

"Could he have come to this dreadful place?" she asked, almost in a
whisper.

"We haven't passed him, that's sure; and I've got a notion he did. I've
heard him talk about this cross off and on--it's been a good deal in his
mind--and maybe he was a little out of his head. But we'll soon see."

They walked their horses up a little ascent, and the cross stood out
more clearly against the sky. They approached it slowly, leaning forward
to peer all about it; but the shadows lay heavy at its base, and from a
little distance they could distinguish no outline.

But at last they were close by and could pierce the gloom, and there at
the foot of the cross, beside the cairn of stones that helped to support
it, was a little huddled bit of blackness. It moved as they looked, and
they knew the voice that came from it.

"O God, I am tired and ready! Take me and burn me!"

She was off her horse and quickly at his side. Follett, to let them be
alone, led the horses to the spring below. It was almost gone now, only
the feeblest trickle of a rivulet remaining. The once green meadows had
behaved, indeed, as if a curse were put upon them. Hardly had grass
grown or water run through it since the day that Israel wrought there.
When he had tied the horses he heard Prudence calling him.

"I'm afraid he's delirous," she said, when he reached her side. "He
keeps hearing cries and shots, and sees a woman's hair waving before
him, and he's afraid of something back of him. What can we do?"

At the foot of the cross the little man was again sounding his endless
prayer.

"Bow me, bend me, break me, for I have been soul-proud. Burn me out--"

She knelt by his side, trying to soothe him.

"Father--it's all right--it's Prudence--"

But at her name he uttered a cry with such terror in it that she
shuddered and was still. Then he began to mutter incoherently, and she
heard her own name repeated many times.

"If that awful beating would only stop," she said to Follett, who had
now brought water in the curled brim of his hat. She tried to have the
little man drink. He swallowed some of the water from the hat-brim,
shivering as he did so.

"We ought to have a fire," she said. Follett began to gather twigs and
sage-brush, and presently had a blaze in front of them.

In the light of the fire the little man could see their faces, and he
became suddenly coherent, smiling at them in the old way.

"Why have you come so far in the night?" he asked Prudence, taking one
of her cool hands between his own that burned.

"But, you poor little father! Why have _you_ come, when you should be
home in bed? You are burning with fever."

"Yes, yes, dear, but it's over now. This is the end. I came here--to be
here--I came to say my last prayer in the body. And they will come to
find me here. You must go before they come."

"Who will find you?"

"They from the Church. I didn't mean to do it, but when I was on my feet
something forced it out of me. I knew what they would do, but I was
ready to die, and I hoped I could awaken some of them."

"But no one shall hurt you."

"Don't tempt me to stay any longer, dear, even if they would let me. Oh,
you don't know, you don't know--and that Devil's drumming over there to
madden me as on that other night. But it's just--my God, how just!"

"Come away, then. Ruel will find your horse, and we'll ride home."

"It's too late--don't ask me to leave my hell now. It would only follow
me. It was this way that night--the night before--the beating got into
my blood and hammered on my brain till I didn't know. Prudence, I must
tell you--everything--"

He glanced at Follett appealingly, as he had looked at the others when
he left the platform that day, beseeching some expression of
friendliness.

"Yes, I must tell you--everything." But his face lighted as Follett
interrupted him.

"You tell her," said Follett, doggedly, "how you saved her that day and
kept her like your own and brought her up to be a good woman--that's
what you tell her." The gratitude in the little man's eyes had grown
with each word.

"Yes, yes, dear, I have loved you like my own little child, but your
father and mother were killed here that day--and I found you and loved
you--such a dear, forlorn little girl--will you hate me now?" he broke
off anxiously. She had both his hands in her own.

"But why, how _could_ I hate you? You are my dear little sorry
father--all I've known. I shall always love you."

"That will be good to take with me," he said, smiling again. "It's all
I've got to take--it's all I've had since the day I found you. You are
good," he said, turning to Follett.

"Oh, shucks!" answered Follett.

A smile of rare contentment played over the little man's face.

In the silence that followed, the funeral-drum came booming in upon them
over the ridge, and once they saw an Indian from the encampment standing
on top of the hill to look down at their fire. Then the little man spoke
again.

"You will go with him," he said to Prudence. "He will take you out of
here and back to your mother's people."

"She's going to marry me," said Follett. The little man smiled at this.

"It is right--the Gentile has come to take you away. The Lord is cunning
in His vengeance. I felt it must be so when I saw you together."

After this he was so quiet for a time that they thought he was sleeping.
But presently he grew restless again, and said to Follett:--

"I want you to have me buried here. Up there to the north, three
hundred yards from here on the right, is a dwarf cedar standing alone.
Straight over the ridge from that and half-way down the other side is
another cedar growing at the foot of a ledge. Below that ledge is a
grave. There are stones piled flat, and a cross cut in the one toward
the cedar. Make a grave beside that one, and put me in it--just as I am.
Remember that--_uncoffined_. It must be that way, remember. There's a
little book here in this pocket. Let it stay with me--but surely
uncoffined, remember, as--as the rest of them were."

"But, father, why talk so? You are going home with us."

"There, dear, it's all right, and you'll feel kind about me always when
you remember me?"

"Don't,--don't talk so."

"If that beating would only stay out of my brain--the thing is crawling
behind me again! Oh, no, not yet--not yet! Say this with me, dear:--

"_'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the
still waters.'_"

She said the psalm with him, and he grew quiet again.

"You will go away with your husband, and go at once--" He sat up
suddenly from where he had been lying, the light of a new design in his
eyes.

"Come,--you will need protection now--I must marry you at once. Surely
that will be an office acceptable in the sight of God. And you will
remember me better for it--and kinder. Come, Prudence; come, Ruel!"

"But, father, you are sick, and so weak--let us wait."

"It will give me such joy to do it--and this is the last."

She looked at Follett questioningly, but gave him her hand silently when
he arose from the ground where he had been sitting.

"He'd like it, and it's what we want,--all simple," he said.

In the light of the fire they stood with hands joined, and the little
man, too, got to his feet, helping himself up by the cairn against which
he had been leaning.

Then, with the unceasing beats of the funeral-drum in their ears, he
made them man and wife.

"Do you, Ruel, take Prudence by the right hand to receive her unto
yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife, and you to be her lawful and
wedded husband for time and eternity--"

Thus far he had followed the formula of his Church, but now he departed
from it with something like defiance coming up in his voice.

"--with a covenant and promise on your part that you will cleave to her
and to none other, so help you God, taking never another wife in spite
of promise or threat of any priesthood whatsoever, cleaving unto her
and her alone with singleness of heart?"

When they had made their responses, and while the drum was beating upon
his heart, he pronounced them man and wife, sealing upon them "the
blessings of the holy resurrection, with power to come forth in the
morning clothed with glory and immortality."

When he had spoken the final words of the ceremony, he seemed to lose
himself from weakness, reaching out his hands for support. They helped
him down on to the saddle-blanket that Follett had brought, and the
latter now went for more wood.

When he came back they were again reciting the psalm that had seemed to
quiet the sufferer.

"_'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me.'_"

Follett spread the other saddle-blanket over him. He lay on his side,
his face to the fire, one moment saying over the words of the psalm, but
the next listening in abject terror to something the others could not
hear.

"I wonder you don't hear their screams," he said, in one of these
moments; "but their blood is not upon you." Then, after a little:--

"See, it is growing light over there. Now they will soon be here. They
will know where I had to come, and they will have a spade." He seemed to
be fainting in his last weakness.

Another hour they sat silently beside him. Slowly the dark over the
eastern hill lightened to a gray. Then the gray paled until a flush of
pink was there, and they could see about them in the chill of the
morning.

Then came a silence that startled them all. The drum had stopped, and
the night-long vibrations ceased from their ears.

They looked toward the little man with relief, for the drumming had
tortured him. But his breathing was shallow and irregular now, and from
time to time they could hear a rattle in his throat. His eyes, when he
opened them, were looking far off. He was turning restlessly and
muttering again. She took his hands and found them cold and moist.

"His fever must have broken," she said, hopefully. The little man opened
his eyes to look up at her, and spoke, though absently, and not as if he
saw her.

"They will have a spade with them when they come, never fear. And the
spot must not be forgotten--three hundred yards north to the dwarf
cedar, then straight over the ridge and half-way down, to the other
cedar below the sandstone--and uncoffined, with the book here in this
pocket where I have it. 'Thou preparest a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup
runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.'"

He started up in terror of something that seemed to be behind him, but
fell back, and a moment later was rambling off through some sermon of
the bygone year.

"Sometimes, brethren, it has seemed to my inner soul that Christ came
not alone to reveal God to man, but to reveal man to God; taking on that
human form to reconcile the Father to our sins. Sometimes I have thought
He might so well have done this that God would view our sins as we view
the faults of our well-loved little children--loving us through
all--perhaps touched--even more amused than offended, at our childish
stumblings in these blind, twisted paths of right and wrong; knowing at
the last He should save the least of us who have been most awkward. But,
oh, brethren! beware of the sin for which you cannot win forgiveness
from that other God, that spirit of the true Father, fixed forever in
the breast of each of you."

The light was coming swiftly. Already their fire had paled, and the
embers, but a little before glowing red, seemed now to be only white
ashes.

From over the ridge back of them, whence had come the notes of the
funeral-drum, an Indian now slouched toward them, drawn by curiosity;
stopping to look, then advancing, to stop again.

At length he stood close by them, silent, gazing. Then, as if
understanding, he spoke to Follett.

"Big sick--go get big medicine! Then you give chitcup!"

He ran swiftly back, disappearing over the ridge.

The sick man was now delirious again, muttering disjointed texts and
bits of old sermons with which the Lute of the Holy Ghost, young and
ardent, had once thrilled the Saints.

"'For without shedding of blood there shall be no remission'--'but where
are now your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying the King of
Babylon shall not come against you nor against this land'--'But I say
unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you.' That is where the stain was,--the bloody stain that held the
leaves together--but I tore them apart and read,--"

The Indian who had come to them first now appeared again over the ridge,
and with him another. The second was accoutered lavishly with a girdle
of brilliant feathers, anklets of shell, and bracelets of silver, his
face barred by alternating streaks of vermilion and yellow, a lank braid
of his black hair hanging either side of his face, and on his head the
horns and painted skull of a buffalo. In one hand was a wand of red-dyed
wood with a beaded and quilled amulet at the end. The other down by his
side held something they did not at first notice.

The little man was growing weaker each moment, but still muttered as he
turned restlessly on the blanket.

"'And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them
likewise.'" His quick ear detecting the light step of the approaching
Indians, he sat up and grasped Follett's arm.

"What do they want? Let no one come now. Death is here and I am going
out to meet it--I am glad to go--so tired!"

Follett, looking up at the two Indians now standing awkwardly by them,
said, in a low tone, with a wave of his free arm:

"_Vamose_!"

"Big medicine!" grunted the Indian who had first come to them, pointing
to his companion. In an instant this other was before the sick man,
chanting and making passes with his wand.

Then, before Follett could rise, the Indian's other hand came up, and
they saw, slowly waved before the staring eyes of the little man, a long
mass of yellow hair that writhed and ran in little gleaming waves as if
it lived. It was tied about the wrist of the Indian with strips of
scarlet flannel--tied below a broad silver bracelet that glittered from
the bronzed arm.

The face of the sick man had a moment before been tranquil, almost
smiling; but now his eyes followed the hair with something of
fascination in them. Then a shade of terror darkened the peaceful look,
like the shadow of a cloud hurried by the wind over a fair green garden.

But with its passing there came again into his eyes the light of sanity.
He gazed at the hair, breathless, still in wonder; and then very slowly
there grew over his face the look of an unearthly peace, so that they
who were by him deferred the putting aside of the Indian. With eyes wide
open, full of a calm they could not understand, he looked and smiled,
his wan face flushing again in that last time. Then, reaching suddenly
out, his long white fingers tangled themselves feebly in the golden
skein, and with a little loving uplift of the eyes he drew it to his
breast. A few seconds he held it so, with an eagerness that told of some
sweet and mighty relief come to his soul,--some illumination of grace
that had seemed to be struck by the first sunrays from that hair into
his wondering eyes.

Slowly, then, the little smile faded,--the wistful light of it dying for
the last time. The tired head fell suddenly back and the wan lids closed
over lifeless eyes.

Still the hand clutched the hair to the quiet heart, the yellow strands
curling peacefully through the dead fingers as if in forgiveness. From
the look of rest on the still face it was as if, in his years of service
and sacrifice, the little man had learned how to forgive his own sin in
the flash of those last heart-beats when his soul had rushed out to
welcome Death.

Prudence had arisen before the end came and was standing in front of the
Indian to motion him away. Follett was glad she did not see the eyes
glaze nor the head drop. He leaned forward and gently loosed the limp
fingers from the yellow tangle. Then he sprang quickly up and put his
arm about Prudence. The two Indians backed off in some dismay. The one
who had first come to them spoke again.

"Big medicine! You give some chitcup?"

"No--no! Got no chitcup! _Vamose_!"

They turned silently and trotted back over the ridge.

"Come, sit here close by the fire, dear--no, around this side. It's all
over now."

"Oh! Oh! My poor, sorry little father--he was so good to me!" She threw
herself on the ground, sobbing.

Follett spread a saddle-blanket over the huddled figure at the foot of
the cross. Then he went back to take her in his arms and give her such
comfort as he could.




CHAPTER XLIII.


_The Gentile Carries off his Spoil_

Half an hour later they heard the sound of voices and wheels. Follett
looked up and saw a light wagon with four men in it driving into the
Meadows from the south. The driver was Seth Wright; the man beside him
he knew to be Bishop Snow, the one they called the Entablature of Truth.
The two others he had seen in Amalon, but he did not know their names.

He got up and went forward when the wagon stopped, leaning casually on
the wheel.

"He's already dead, but you can help me bury him as soon as I get my
wife out of the way around that oak-brush--I see you've brought along a
spade."

The men in the wagon looked at each other, and then climbed slowly out.

"Now who could 'a' left that there spade in the wagon?" began the Wild
Ram of the Mountains, a look of perplexity clouding his ingenuous face.

The Entablature of Truth was less disposed for idle talk.

"Who did you say you'd get out of the way, young man?"

"My wife, Mrs. Ruel Follett."

"Meaning Prudence Rae?"

"Meaning her that was Prudence Rae."

"Oh!"

The ruddy-faced Bishop scanned the horizon with a dreamy, speculative
eye, turning at length to his companions.

"We better get to this burying," he said.

"Wait a minute," said Follett.

They saw him go to Prudence, raise her from the ground, put a
saddle-blanket over his arm, and lead her slowly up the road around a
turn that took them beyond a clump of the oak-brush.

"It won't do!" said Wright, with a meaning glance at the Entablature of
Truth, quite as if he had divined his thought.

"I'd like to know why not?" retorted this good man, aggressively.

"Because times has changed; this ain't '57."

"It'll almost do itself," insisted Snow. "What say, Glines?" and he
turned to one of the others.

"Looks all right," answered the man addressed. "By heck! but that's a
purty saddle he carries!"

"What say, Taggart?"

"For God's sake, no, Bishop! No--I got enough dead faces looking at me
now from this place. I'm ha'nted into hell a'ready, like he said he was
yisterday. By God! I sometimes a'most think I'll have my ears busted
and my eyes put out to git away from the bloody things!"

"Ho! Scared, are you? Well, I'll do it myself. _You_ don't need to
help."

"Better let well enough alone, Brother Warren!" interposed Wright.

"But it _ain't_ well enough! Think of that girl going to a low cuss of a
Gentile when Brigham wants her. Why, think of letting such a critter get
away, even if Brigham didn't want her!"

"You know they got Brother Brigham under indictment for murder now,
account of that Aiken party."

"What of it? He'll get off."

"That he will, but it's because he's Brigham. _You_ ain't. You're just a
south country Bishop. Don't you know he'd throw you to the Gentile
courts as a sop quicker'n a wink if he got a chance,--just like he'll do
with old John D. Lee the minute George A. peters out so the chain will
be broke between Lee and Brigham?"

"And maybe this cuss has got friends," suggested Glines.

"Who'd know but the girl?" Snow insisted. "And Brother Brigham would fix
_her_ all right. Is the household of faith to be spoiled?"

"Well, they got a railroad running through it now," said Wright, "and a
telegraph, and a lot of soldiers. So don't you count on _me_, Brother
Snow, at any stage of it now or afterwards. I got a pretty sizable
family that would hate to lose me. Look out! Here he comes."

Follett now came up, speaking in a cheerful manner that nevertheless
chilled even the enthusiasm of the good Bishop Snow.

"Now, gentlemen, just by way of friendly advice to you,--like as not
I'll be stepping in front of some of you in the next hour. But it isn't
going to worry me any, and I'll tell you why. I'd feel awful sad for you
all if anything was to happen to me,--if the Injuns got me, or I was
took bad with a chill, or a jack-rabbit crept up and bit me to death, or
anything. You see, there's a train of twenty-five big J. Murphy wagons
will be along here over the San Bernardino trail. They are coming out of
their way, almost any time now, on purpose to pick me up. Fact is, my
ears have been pricking up all morning to hear the old bull-whips crack.
There were thirty-one men in the train when they went down, and there
may be more coming back. It's a train of Ezra Calkins, my adopted
father. You see, they know I've been here on special business, and I
sent word the other day I was about due to finish it, and they wasn't to
go through coming back without me. Well, that bull outfit will stop for
me--and they'll _get_ me or get pay for me. That's their orders. And it
isn't a train of women and babies, either. They're such an outrageous
rough lot, quick-tempered and all like that, that they wouldn't believe
the truth that I had an accident--not if you swore it on a stack of
Mormon Bibles topped off by the life of Joe Smith. They'd go right out
and make Amalon look like a whole cavayard of razor-hoofed buffaloes had
raced back and forth over it. And the rest of the two thousand men on
Ezra Calkins's pay-roll would come hanging around pestering you all with
Winchesters. They'd make you scratch gravel, sure!

"Now let's get to work. I see you'll be awful careful and tender with
me. I'll bet I don't get even a sprained ankle. You folks get him, and
I'll show you where he said the place was."

Two hours later Follett came running back to where Prudence lay on the
saddle-blanket in the warm morning sun.

"The wagon-train is coming--hear the whips? Now, look here, why don't we
go right on with it, in one of the big wagons? They're coming back
light, and we can have a J. Murphy that is bigger than a whole lot of
houses in this country. You don't want to go back there, do you?"

She shook her head.

"No, it would hurt me to see it now. I should be expecting to see him at
every turn. Oh, I couldn't stand that--poor sorry little father!"

"Well, then, leave it all; leave the place to the women, and good
riddance, and come off with me. I'll send one of the boys back with a
pack-mule for any plunder you want to bring away, and you needn't ever
see the place again."

She nestled in his arms, feeling in her grief the comfort of his
tenderness.

"Yes, take me away now."

The big whips could be heard plainly, cracking like rifle-shots, and
shortly came the creaking and hollow rumbling of the wagons and the
cries of the teamsters to their six-mule teams. There were shouts and
calls, snatches of song from along the line, then the rattling of
harness, and in a cloud of dust the train was beside them, the teamsters
sitting with rounded shoulders up under the bowed covers of the big
wagons.

A hail came from the rear of the train, and a bronzed and bearded man in
a leather jacket cantered up on a small pony.

"Hello there, Rool! I'm whoopin' glad to see you!"

He turned to the driver of the foremost wagon.

"All right, boys! We'll make a layby for noon."

Follett shook hands with him heartily, and turned to Prudence.

"This is my wife, Lew. Prudence, this is Lew Steffins, our
wagon-master."

"Shoo, now!--you young cub--married? Well, I'm right glad to see Mrs.
Rool Follett--and bless your heart, little girl!"

"Did you stop back there at the settlement?"

"Yes; and they said you'd hit the pike about dark last night, to chase a
crazy man. I told them I'd be back with the whackers if I didn't find
you. I was afraid some trouble was on, and here you're only married to
the sweetest thing that ever--why, she's been crying! Anything wrong?"

"No; never mind now, anyway. We're going on with you, Lew."

"Bully proud to have you. There's that third wagon--"

"Could I ride in that?" asked the girl, looking at the big lumbering
conveyance doubtfully.

"It carried six thousands pounds of freight to Los Angeles, little
woman," answered Steffins, promptly, "and I wouldn't guess you to heft
over one twenty-eight or thirty at the outside. I'll have the box filled
in with spruce boughs and a lot of nice bunch-grass, and put some
comforts over that, and you'll be all snug and tidy. You won't starve,
either, not while there's meat running."

"And say, Lew, she's got some stuff back at that place. Let the extra
hand ride back with a packjack and bring it on. She'll tell him what to
get."

"Sure! Tom Callahan can go."

"And give us some grub, Lew. I've hardly had a bite since yesterday
morning."

An hour later, when the train was nearly ready to start, Follett took
his wife to the top of the ridge and showed her, a little way below
them, the cedar at the foot of the sandstone ledge. He stayed back,
thinking she would wish to be there alone. But when she stood by the new
grave she looked up and beckoned to him.

"I wanted you by me," she said, as he reached her side. "I never knew
how much he was to me. He wasn't big and strong like other men, but now
I see that he was very dear and more than I suspected. He was so quiet
and always so kind--I don't remember that he was ever stern with me
once. And though he suffered from some great sorrow and from sickness,
he never complained. He wouldn't even admit he was sick, and he always
tried to smile in that little way he had, so gentle. Poor sorry little
father!--and yesterday not one of them would be his friend. It broke my
heart to see him there so wistful when they turned their backs on him.
Poor little man! And see, here's another grave all grown around with
sage and the stones worn smooth; but there's the cross he spoke of. It
must be some one that he wanted to lie beside. Poor little sorry father!
Oh, you will have to be so much to me!"

The train was under way again. In the box of the big wagon, on a springy
couch of spruce boughs and long bunch-grass, Prudence lay at rest, hurt
by her grief, yet soothed by her love, her thoughts in a whirl about
her.

Follett, mounted on Dandy, rode beside her wagon.

"Better get some sleep yourself, Rool," urged Steffins.

"Can't, Lew. I ain't sleepy. I'm too busy thinking about things, and I
have to watch out for my little girl there. You can't tell what these
cusses might do."

"There's thirty of us watching out for her now, young fellow."

"There'll be thirty-one till we get out of this neighbourhood, Lew."

He lifted up the wagon-cover softly a little later; and found that she
slept. As they rode on, Steffins questioned him.

"Did you make that surround you was going to make, Rool?"

"No, Lew, I couldn't. Two of them was already under, and, honest, I
couldn't have got the other one any more than you could have shot your
kid that day he up-ended the gravy-dish in your lap."

"Hell!"

"That's right! I hope I never have to kill any one, Lew, no matter _how_
much I got a right to. I reckon it always leaves uneasy feelings in a
man's mind."

       *       *       *       *       *

Eight days later a tall, bronzed young man with yellow hair and quick
blue eyes, in what an observant British tourist noted in his journal as
"the not unpicturesque garb of a border-ruffian," helped a dazed but
very pretty young woman on to the rear platform of the Pullman car
attached to the east-bound overland express at Ogden.

As they lingered on the platform before the train started they were
hailed and loudly cheered, averred the journal of this same Briton, "by
a crowd of the outlaw's companions, at least a score and a half of most
disreputable-looking wretches, unshaven, roughly dressed, heavily
booted, slouch-hatted (they swung their hats in a drunken frenzy), and
to this rough ovation the girl, though seemingly a person of some
decency, waved her handkerchief and smiled repeatedly, though her face
had seemed to be sad and there were tears in her eyes at that very
moment."

At this response from the girl, the journal went on to say, the ruffians
had redoubled their drunken pandemonium. And as the train pulled away,
to the observant tourist's marked relief, the young outlaw on the
platform had waved his own hat and shouted as a last message to one
"Lew," that he "must not let Dandy get gandered up," nor forget "to tie
him to grass."

Later, as the train shrieked its way through Echo Cañon, the observant
tourist, with his double-visored plaid cap well over his face,
pretending to sleep, overheard the same person across the aisle say to
the girl:--

"Now we're on our own property at last. For the next sixty hours we'll
be riding across our own front yard--and there aren't any keys and
passwords and grips here, either--just a plain Almighty God with no
nonsense about Him."

Whereupon had been later added to the journal a note to the effect that
Americans are not only quite as prone to vaunt and brag and tell big
stories as other explorers had asserted, but that in the West they were
ready blasphemers.

Yet the couple minded not the observant tourist, and continued to
enlarge and complicate his views of American life to the very bank of
the Missouri. Unwittingly, however, for they knew him not nor saw him
nor heard him, being occupied with the matter of themselves.

"You'll have to back me up when we get to Springfield," he said to her
one late afternoon, when they neared the end of their exciting journey.
"I've heard that old Grandpa Corson is mighty peppery. He might take you
away from me."

Her eyes came in from the brown rolling of the plain outside to light
him with their love; and then, the lamps having not yet been lighted,
the head of grace nestled suddenly on its pillow of brawn with only a
little tremulous sigh of security for answer.

This brought his arm quickly about her in a protecting clasp, plainly in
the sidelong gaze of the now scandalised but not less observant tourist.




             THE END.








End of Project Gutenberg's The Lions of the Lord, by Harry Leon Wilson