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 Fe 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 Canon is Suspended

Follett waited with a new eagerness next day for their walk to the canon. 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 canon, 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 canon, 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 Canon, 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 canon, 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 canons 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 canon 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 canon'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 canon 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 Canon 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 canon 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.