LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.
The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so
unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumfoundered. Gregson sprang
out of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and water. I
stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and
his brows drawn down over his eyes.
“Stangerson too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”
“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair.
“I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”
“Are you—are you sure of this piece of intelligence?” stammered
Gregson.
“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the first to
discover what had occurred.”
“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed.
“Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”
“I have no objection,” Lestrade answered, seating himself. “I freely
confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the
death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was
completely mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out
what had become of the Secretary. They had been seen together at Euston
Station about half-past eight on the evening of the third. At two in
the morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road. The question
which confronted me was to find out how Stangerson had been employed
between 8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become of him
afterwards. I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of the
man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats. I then
set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the
vicinity of Euston. You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion
had become separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put
up somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the
station again next morning.”
“They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,”
remarked Holmes.
“So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making
enquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and
at eight o’clock I reached Halliday’s Private Hotel, in Little George
Street. On my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there,
they at once answered me in the affirmative.
“‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’ they said. ‘He
has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’
“‘Where is he now?’ I asked.
“‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’
“‘I will go up and see him at once,’ I said.
“It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and
lead him to say something unguarded. The Boots volunteered to show me
the room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor
leading up to it. The Boots pointed out the door to me, and was about
to go downstairs again when I saw something that made me feel sickish,
in spite of my twenty years’ experience. From under the door there
curled a little red ribbon of blood, which had meandered across the
passage and formed a little pool along the skirting at the other side.
I gave a cry, which brought the Boots back. He nearly fainted when he
saw it. The door was locked on the inside, but we put our shoulders to
it, and knocked it in. The window of the room was open, and beside the
window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his nightdress. He was
quite dead, and had been for some time, for his limbs were rigid and
cold. When we turned him over, the Boots recognized him at once as
being the same gentleman who had engaged the room under the name of
Joseph Stangerson. The cause of death was a deep stab in the left side,
which must have penetrated the heart. And now comes the strangest part
of the affair. What do you suppose was above the murdered man?”
I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror,
even before Sherlock Holmes answered.
“The word RACHE, written in letters of blood,” he said.
“That was it,” said Lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we were all
silent for a while.
There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the
deeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to
his crimes. My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle
tingled as I thought of it.
“The man was seen,” continued Lestrade. “A milk boy, passing on his way
to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews
at the back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay
there, was raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which
was wide open. After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the
ladder. He came down so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to
be some carpenter or joiner at work in the hotel. He took no particular
notice of him, beyond thinking in his own mind that it was early for
him to be at work. He has an impression that the man was tall, had a
reddish face, and was dressed in a long, brownish coat. He must have
stayed in the room some little time after the murder, for we found
blood-stained water in the basin, where he had washed his hands, and
marks on the sheets where he had deliberately wiped his knife.”
I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer, which
tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of
exultation or satisfaction upon his face.
“Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the
murderer?” he asked.
“Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber’s purse in his pocket, but it seems
that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty odd
pounds in it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these
extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were
no papers or memoranda in the murdered man’s pocket, except a single
telegram, dated from Cleveland about a month ago, and containing the
words, ‘J. H. is in Europe.’ There was no name appended to this
message.”
“And there was nothing else?” Holmes asked.
“Nothing of any importance. The man’s novel, with which he had read
himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair
beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the
window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.”
Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.
“The last link,” he cried, exultantly. “My case is complete.”
The two detectives stared at him in amazement.
“I have now in my hands,” my companion said, confidently, “all the
threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details
to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the
time that Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up to the
discovery of the body of the latter, as if I had seen them with my own
eyes. I will give you a proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand
upon those pills?”
“I have them,” said Lestrade, producing a small white box; “I took them
and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a place
of safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my taking
these pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance
to them.”
“Give them here,” said Holmes. “Now, Doctor,” turning to me, “are those
ordinary pills?”
They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small,
round, and almost transparent against the light. “From their lightness
and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water,” I
remarked.
“Precisely so,” answered Holmes. “Now would you mind going down and
fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so
long, and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain
yesterday.”
I went downstairs and carried the dog upstairs in my arms. Its laboured
breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end.
Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded
the usual term of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the
rug.
“I will now cut one of these pills in two,” said Holmes, and drawing
his penknife he suited the action to the word. “One half we return into
the box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wine
glass, in which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our
friend, the Doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves.”
“This may be very interesting,” said Lestrade, in the injured tone of
one who suspects that he is being laughed at, “I cannot see, however,
what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson.”
“Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the
mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps
it up readily enough.”
As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer and
placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock
Holmes’ earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in
silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling
effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched
upon the cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but apparently neither
the better nor the worse for its draught.
Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared
upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the
table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was
his emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two
detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this check
which he had met.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” he cried, at last springing from his chair
and pacing wildly up and down the room; “it is impossible that it
should be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the
case of Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson. And
yet they are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of
reasoning cannot have been false. It is impossible! And yet this
wretched dog is none the worse. Ah, I have it! I have it!” With a
perfect shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the other pill in
two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier. The
unfortunate creature’s tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in
it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid
and lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.
Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. “I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought to know by this
time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of
deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other
interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was of the most deadly
poison, and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that
before ever I saw the box at all.”
This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could
hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog,
however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me
that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began
to have a dim, vague perception of the truth.
“All this seems strange to you,” continued Holmes, “because you failed
at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single
real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize
upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to
confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence
of it. Hence things which have perplexed you and made the case more
obscure, have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most
commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no
new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder
would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of
the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those
_outré_ and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it
remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more
difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.”
Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
impatience, could contain himself no longer. “Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes,” he said, “we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart
man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want something
more than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking
the man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young
Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade
went after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too.
You have thrown out hints here, and hints there, and seem to know more
than we do, but the time has come when we feel that we have a right to
ask you straight how much you do know of the business. Can you name the
man who did it?”
“I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,” remarked Lestrade.
“We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more
than once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence
which you require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer.”
“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time
to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”
Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He
continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest
and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.
“There will be no more murders,” he said at last, stopping abruptly and
facing us. “You can put that consideration out of the question. You
have asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere
knowing of his name is a small thing, however, compared with the power
of laying our hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have
good hopes of managing it through my own arrangements; but it is a
thing which needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and desperate
man to deal with, who is supported, as I have had occasion to prove, by
another who is as clever as himself. As long as this man has no idea
that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of securing him; but
if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his name, and vanish
in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city.
Without meaning to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that
I consider these men to be more than a match for the official force,
and that is why I have not asked your assistance. If I fail I shall, of
course, incur all the blame due to this omission; but that I am
prepared for. At present I am ready to promise that the instant that I
can communicate with you without endangering my own combinations, I
shall do so.”
Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance,
or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had
flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other’s beady
eyes glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time
to speak, however, before there was a tap at the door, and the
spokesman of the street Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his
insignificant and unsavoury person.
“Please, sir,” he said, touching his forelock, “I have the cab
downstairs.”
“Good boy,” said Holmes, blandly. “Why don’t you introduce this pattern
at Scotland Yard?” he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs from
a drawer. “See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an
instant.”
“The old pattern is good enough,” remarked Lestrade, “if we can only
find the man to put them on.”
“Very good, very good,” said Holmes, smiling. “The cabman may as well
help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins.”
I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about
to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about it.
There was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and
began to strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the
room.
“Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,” he said, kneeling over
his task, and never turning his head.
The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put
down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the
jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.
“Gentlemen,” he cried, with flashing eyes, “let me introduce you to Mr.
Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph
Stangerson.”
The whole thing occurred in a moment—so quickly that I had no time to
realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’
triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s dazed,
savage face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had
appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might
have been a group of statues. Then, with an inarticulate roar of fury,
the prisoner wrenched himself free from Holmes’s grasp, and hurled
himself through the window. Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but
before he got quite through, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon
him like so many staghounds. He was dragged back into the room, and
then commenced a terrific conflict. So powerful and so fierce was he,
that the four of us were shaken off again and again. He appeared to
have the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and
hands were terribly mangled by his passage through the glass, but loss
of blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance. It was not until
Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and
half-strangling him that we made him realize that his struggles were of
no avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his
feet as well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless
and panting.
“We have his cab,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It will serve to take him to
Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,” he continued, with a pleasant
smile, “we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very
welcome to put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no
danger that I will refuse to answer them.”
PART II.
_The Country of the Saints._
CHAPTER I.
ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.
In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies
an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a
barrier against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra Nevada to
Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado
upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature
always in one mood throughout this grim district. It comprises
snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy valleys. There are
swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged cañons; and there are
enormous plains, which in winter are white with snow, and in summer are
grey with the saline alkali dust. They all preserve, however, the
common characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.
There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees or
of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other
hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight
of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their
prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily
through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark
ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks.
These are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.
In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from the
northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach
stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of
alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes. On
the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks,
with their rugged summits flecked with snow. In this great stretch of
country there is no sign of life, nor of anything appertaining to life.
There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull,
grey earth—above all, there is absolute silence. Listen as one may,
there is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing
but silence—complete and heart-subduing silence.
It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad
plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one
sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is
lost in the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden down
by the feet of many adventurers. Here and there there are scattered
white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull
deposit of alkali. Approach, and examine them! They are bones: some
large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate. The former have
belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. For fifteen hundred miles one
may trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered remains of
those who had fallen by the wayside.
Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. His appearance
was such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the
region. An observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was
nearer to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and haggard, and the
brown parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the projecting bones;
his long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and dashed with white;
his eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with an unnatural lustre;
while the hand which grasped his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that
of a skeleton. As he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and
yet his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a
wiry and vigorous constitution. His gaunt face, however, and his
clothes, which hung so baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed
what it was that gave him that senile and decrepit appearance. The man
was dying—dying from hunger and from thirst.
He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little
elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the
great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of
savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might
indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there
was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild
questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to
an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why
not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,” he
muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.
Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless
rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had
carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too
heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground
with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a
little moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small, scared face,
with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled, dimpled fists.
“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.
“Have I though,” the man answered penitently, “I didn’t go for to do
it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty
little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart
pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother’s care. The
child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she
had suffered less than her companion.
“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the
towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.
“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, showing the
injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s
mother?”
“Mother’s gone. I guess you’ll see her before long.”
“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she
‘most always did if she was just goin’ over to Auntie’s for tea, and
now she’s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain’t
there no water, nor nothing to eat?”
“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You’ll just need to be patient
awhile, and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up agin me like
that, and then you’ll feel bullier. It ain’t easy to talk when your
lips is like leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards
lie. What’s that you’ve got?”
“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically,
holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home
I’ll give them to brother Bob.”
“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently.
“You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though—you remember when
we left the river?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d’ye see. But there
was somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t
turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you
and—and——”
“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely,
staring up at his grimy visage.
“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian
Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie,
your mother.”
“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping her face
in her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.
“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some
chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and
we tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we’ve improved matters.
There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”
“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child, checking
her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.
“I guess that’s about the size of it.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing gleefully. “You gave
me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we’ll be with
mother again.”
“Yes, you will, dearie.”
“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you’ve been. I’ll bet she
meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot
of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was
fond of. How long will it be first?”
“I don’t know—not very long.” The man’s eyes were fixed upon the
northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared
three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly
did they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large
brown birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and
then settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were buzzards,
the vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of death.
“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their
ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did
God make this country?”
“In course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by this
unexpected question.
“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the
little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these
parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the
trees.”
“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked diffidently.
“It ain’t night yet,” she answered.
“It don’t matter. It ain’t quite regular, but He won’t mind that, you
bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the
waggon when we was on the Plains.”
“Why don’t you say some yourself?” the child asked, with wondering
eyes.
“I disremember them,” he answered. “I hain’t said none since I was half
the height o’ that gun. I guess it’s never too late. You say them out,
and I’ll stand by and come in on the choruses.”
“Then you’ll need to kneel down, and me too,” she said, laying the
shawl out for that purpose. “You’ve got to put your hands up like this.
It makes you feel kind o’ good.”
It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to see
it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the
little prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her
chubby face, and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to the
cloudless heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom
they were face to face, while the two voices—the one thin and clear,
the other deep and harsh—united in the entreaty for mercy and
forgiveness. The prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the shadow
of the boulder until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the broad
breast of her protector. He watched over her slumber for some time, but
Nature proved to be too strong for him. For three days and three nights
he had allowed himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly the eyelids
drooped over the tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and lower upon the
breast, until the man’s grizzled beard was mixed with the gold tresses
of his companion, and both slept the same deep and dreamless slumber.
Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight
would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the alkali
plain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and
hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but
gradually growing higher and broader until it formed a solid,
well-defined cloud. This cloud continued to increase in size until it
became evident that it could only be raised by a great multitude of
moving creatures. In more fertile spots the observer would have come to
the conclusion that one of those great herds of bisons which graze upon
the prairie land was approaching him. This was obviously impossible in
these arid wilds. As the whirl of dust drew nearer to the solitary
bluff upon which the two castaways were reposing, the canvas-covered
tilts of waggons and the figures of armed horsemen began to show up
through the haze, and the apparition revealed itself as being a great
caravan upon its journey for the West. But what a caravan! When the
head of it had reached the base of the mountains, the rear was not yet
visible on the horizon. Right across the enormous plain stretched the
straggling array, waggons and carts, men on horseback, and men on foot.
Innumerable women who staggered along under burdens, and children who
toddled beside the waggons or peeped out from under the white
coverings. This was evidently no ordinary party of immigrants, but
rather some nomad people who had been compelled from stress of
circumstances to seek themselves a new country. There rose through the
clear air a confused clattering and rumbling from this great mass of
humanity, with the creaking of wheels and the neighing of horses. Loud
as it was, it was not sufficient to rouse the two tired wayfarers above
them.
At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave ironfaced
men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with rifles. On
reaching the base of the bluff they halted, and held a short council
among themselves.
“The wells are to the right, my brothers,” said one, a hard-lipped,
clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.
“To the right of the Sierra Blanco—so we shall reach the Rio Grande,”
said another.
“Fear not for water,” cried a third. “He who could draw it from the
rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people.”
“Amen! Amen!” responded the whole party.
They were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and
keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag
above them. From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink,
showing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. At the sight
there was a general reining up of horses and unslinging of guns, while
fresh horsemen came galloping up to reinforce the vanguard. The word
“Redskins” was on every lip.
“There can’t be any number of Injuns here,” said the elderly man who
appeared to be in command. “We have passed the Pawnees, and there are
no other tribes until we cross the great mountains.”
“Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stangerson,” asked one of the
band.
“And I,” “and I,” cried a dozen voices.
“Leave your horses below and we will await you here,” the Elder
answered. In a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened their
horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope which led up to the
object which had excited their curiosity. They advanced rapidly and
noiselessly, with the confidence and dexterity of practised scouts. The
watchers from the plain below could see them flit from rock to rock
until their figures stood out against the skyline. The young man who
had first given the alarm was leading them. Suddenly his followers saw
him throw up his hands, as though overcome with astonishment, and on
joining him they were affected in the same way by the sight which met
their eyes.
On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a
single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man,
long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His
placid face and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep.
Beside him lay a little child, with her round white arms encircling his
brown sinewy neck, and her golden haired head resting upon the breast
of his velveteen tunic. Her rosy lips were parted, showing the regular
line of snow-white teeth within, and a playful smile played over her
infantile features. Her plump little white legs terminating in white
socks and neat shoes with shining buckles, offered a strange contrast
to the long shrivelled members of her companion. On the ledge of rock
above this strange couple there stood three solemn buzzards, who, at
the sight of the new comers uttered raucous screams of disappointment
and flapped sullenly away.
The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about
them in bewilderment. The man staggered to his feet and looked down
upon the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken him,
and which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of beasts.
His face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed, and he
passed his boney hand over his eyes. “This is what they call delirium,
I guess,” he muttered. The child stood beside him, holding on to the
skirt of his coat, and said nothing but looked all round her with the
wondering questioning gaze of childhood.
The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two castaways
that their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little
girl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported her
gaunt companion, and assisted him towards the waggons.
“My name is John Ferrier,” the wanderer explained; “me and that little
un are all that’s left o’ twenty-one people. The rest is all dead o’
thirst and hunger away down in the south.”
“Is she your child?” asked someone.
“I guess she is now,” the other cried, defiantly; “she’s mine ’cause I
saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier from this
day on. Who are you, though?” he continued, glancing with curiosity at
his stalwart, sunburned rescuers; “there seems to be a powerful lot of
ye.”
“Nigh upon ten thousand,” said one of the young men; “we are the
persecuted children of God—the chosen of the Angel Merona.”
“I never heard tell on him,” said the wanderer. “He appears to have
chosen a fair crowd of ye.”
“Do not jest at that which is sacred,” said the other sternly. “We are
of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in Egyptian
letters on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy
Joseph Smith at Palmyra. We have come from Nauvoo, in the State of
Illinois, where we had founded our temple. We have come to seek a
refuge from the violent man and from the godless, even though it be the
heart of the desert.”
The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John Ferrier. “I
see,” he said, “you are the Mormons.”
“We are the Mormons,” answered his companions with one voice.
“And where are you going?”
“We do not know. The hand of God is leading us under the person of our
Prophet. You must come before him. He shall say what is to be done with
you.”
They had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were surrounded
by crowds of the pilgrims—pale-faced meek-looking women, strong
laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. Many were the cries of
astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when they
perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution of the
other. Their escort did not halt, however, but pushed on, followed by a
great crowd of Mormons, until they reached a waggon, which was
conspicuous for its great size and for the gaudiness and smartness of
its appearance. Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the others were
furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece. Beside the driver there
sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years of age, but
whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as a leader. He
was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd approached he laid
it aside, and listened attentively to an account of the episode. Then
he turned to the two castaways.
“If we take you with us,” he said, in solemn words, “it can only be as
believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold. Better
far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you
should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts
the whole fruit. Will you come with us on these terms?”
“Guess I’ll come with you on any terms,” said Ferrier, with such
emphasis that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile. The leader
alone retained his stern, impressive expression.
“Take him, Brother Stangerson,” he said, “give him food and drink, and
the child likewise. Let it be your task also to teach him our holy
creed. We have delayed long enough. Forward! On, on to Zion!”
“On, on to Zion!” cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words rippled
down the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died away
in a dull murmur in the far distance. With a cracking of whips and a
creaking of wheels the great waggons got into motion, and soon the
whole caravan was winding along once more. The Elder to whose care the
two waifs had been committed, led them to his waggon, where a meal was
already awaiting them.
“You shall remain here,” he said. “In a few days you will have
recovered from your fatigues. In the meantime, remember that now and
for ever you are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he has
spoken with the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God.”
CHAPTER II.
THE FLOWER OF UTAH.
This is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations endured
by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final haven. From
the shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of the Rocky
Mountains they had struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in
history. The savage man, and the savage beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue,
and disease—every impediment which Nature could place in the way, had
all been overcome with Anglo-Saxon tenacity. Yet the long journey and
the accumulated terrors had shaken the hearts of the stoutest among
them. There was not one who did not sink upon his knees in heartfelt
prayer when they saw the broad valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight
beneath them, and learned from the lips of their leader that this was
the promised land, and that these virgin acres were to be theirs for
evermore.
Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as well as
a resolute chief. Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which the
future city was sketched out. All around farms were apportioned and
allotted in proportion to the standing of each individual. The
tradesman was put to his trade and the artisan to his calling. In the
town streets and squares sprang up, as if by magic. In the country
there was draining and hedging, planting and clearing, until the next
summer saw the whole country golden with the wheat crop. Everything
prospered in the strange settlement. Above all, the great temple which
they had erected in the centre of the city grew ever taller and larger.
From the first blush of dawn until the closing of the twilight, the
clatter of the hammer and the rasp of the saw was never absent from the
monument which the immigrants erected to Him who had led them safe
through many dangers.
The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl who had shared his
fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the Mormons
to the end of their great pilgrimage. Little Lucy Ferrier was borne
along pleasantly enough in Elder Stangerson’s waggon, a retreat which
she shared with the Mormon’s three wives and with his son, a headstrong
forward boy of twelve. Having rallied, with the elasticity of
childhood, from the shock caused by her mother’s death, she soon became
a pet with the women, and reconciled herself to this new life in her
moving canvas-covered home. In the meantime Ferrier having recovered
from his privations, distinguished himself as a useful guide and an
indefatigable hunter. So rapidly did he gain the esteem of his new
companions, that when they reached the end of their wanderings, it was
unanimously agreed that he should be provided with as large and as
fertile a tract of land as any of the settlers, with the exception of
Young himself, and of Stangerson, Kemball, Johnston, and Drebber, who
were the four principal Elders.
On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a substantial
log-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years that it
grew into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical turn of mind, keen
in his dealings and skilful with his hands. His iron constitution
enabled him to work morning and evening at improving and tilling his
lands. Hence it came about that his farm and all that belonged to him
prospered exceedingly. In three years he was better off than his
neighbours, in six he was well-to-do, in nine he was rich, and in
twelve there were not half a dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City
who could compare with him. From the great inland sea to the distant
Wahsatch Mountains there was no name better known than that of John
Ferrier.
There was one way and only one in which he offended the
susceptibilities of his co-religionists. No argument or persuasion
could ever induce him to set up a female establishment after the manner
of his companions. He never gave reasons for this persistent refusal,
but contented himself by resolutely and inflexibly adhering to his
determination. There were some who accused him of lukewarmness in his
adopted religion, and others who put it down to greed of wealth and
reluctance to incur expense. Others, again, spoke of some early love
affair, and of a fair-haired girl who had pined away on the shores of
the Atlantic. Whatever the reason, Ferrier remained strictly celibate.
In every other respect he conformed to the religion of the young
settlement, and gained the name of being an orthodox and
straight-walking man.
Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her adopted
father in all his undertakings. The keen air of the mountains and the
balsamic odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to
the young girl. As year succeeded to year she grew taller and stronger,
her cheek more ruddy, and her step more elastic. Many a wayfarer upon
the high road which ran by Ferrier’s farm felt long-forgotten thoughts
revive in their mind as they watched her lithe girlish figure tripping
through the wheatfields, or met her mounted upon her father’s mustang,
and managing it with all the ease and grace of a true child of the
West. So the bud blossomed into a flower, and the year which saw her
father the richest of the farmers left her as fair a specimen of
American girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope.
It was not the father, however, who first discovered that the child had
developed into the woman. It seldom is in such cases. That mysterious
change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by dates. Least of
all does the maiden herself know it until the tone of a voice or the
touch of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her, and she learns,
with a mixture of pride and of fear, that a new and a larger nature has
awoken within her. There are few who cannot recall that day and
remember the one little incident which heralded the dawn of a new life.
In the case of Lucy Ferrier the occasion was serious enough in itself,
apart from its future influence on her destiny and that of many
besides.
It was a warm June morning, and the Latter Day Saints were as busy as
the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields
and in the streets rose the same hum of human industry. Down the dusty
high roads defiled long streams of heavily-laden mules, all heading to
the west, for the gold fever had broken out in California, and the
Overland Route lay through the City of the Elect. There, too, were
droves of sheep and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture lands,
and trains of tired immigrants, men and horses equally weary of their
interminable journey. Through all this motley assemblage, threading her
way with the skill of an accomplished rider, there galloped Lucy
Ferrier, her fair face flushed with the exercise and her long chestnut
hair floating out behind her. She had a commission from her father in
the City, and was dashing in as she had done many a time before, with
all the fearlessness of youth, thinking only of her task and how it was
to be performed. The travel-stained adventurers gazed after her in
astonishment, and even the unemotional Indians, journeying in with
their pelties, relaxed their accustomed stoicism as they marvelled at
the beauty of the pale-faced maiden.
She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road
blocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen wild-looking
herdsmen from the plains. In her impatience she endeavoured to pass
this obstacle by pushing her horse into what appeared to be a gap.
Scarcely had she got fairly into it, however, before the beasts closed
in behind her, and she found herself completely imbedded in the moving
stream of fierce-eyed, long-horned bullocks. Accustomed as she was to
deal with cattle, she was not alarmed at her situation, but took
advantage of every opportunity to urge her horse on in the hopes of
pushing her way through the cavalcade. Unfortunately the horns of one
of the creatures, either by accident or design, came in violent contact
with the flank of the mustang, and excited it to madness. In an instant
it reared up upon its hind legs with a snort of rage, and pranced and
tossed in a way that would have unseated any but a most skilful rider.
The situation was full of peril. Every plunge of the excited horse
brought it against the horns again, and goaded it to fresh madness. It
was all that the girl could do to keep herself in the saddle, yet a
slip would mean a terrible death under the hoofs of the unwieldy and
terrified animals. Unaccustomed to sudden emergencies, her head began
to swim, and her grip upon the bridle to relax. Choked by the rising
cloud of dust and by the steam from the struggling creatures, she might
have abandoned her efforts in despair, but for a kindly voice at her
elbow which assured her of assistance. At the same moment a sinewy
brown hand caught the frightened horse by the curb, and forcing a way
through the drove, soon brought her to the outskirts.
“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver, respectfully.
She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily. “I’m awful
frightened,” she said, naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho
would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”
“Thank God you kept your seat,” the other said earnestly. He was a
tall, savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse,
and clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over
his shoulders. “I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,” he
remarked, “I saw you ride down from his house. When you see him, ask
him if he remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St. Louis. If he’s the same
Ferrier, my father and he were pretty thick.”
“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?” she asked, demurely.
The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes
sparkled with pleasure. “I’ll do so,” he said, “we’ve been in the
mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting
condition. He must take us as he finds us.”
“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I,” she answered,
“he’s awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me he’d have never
got over it.”
“Neither would I,” said her companion.
“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make much matter to you, anyhow.
You ain’t even a friend of ours.”
The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that Lucy
Ferrier laughed aloud.
“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of course, you are a friend
now. You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t
trust me with his business any more. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over
her little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with her
riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of
dust.
Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and taciturn.
He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting for silver,
and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital
enough to work some lodes which they had discovered. He had been as
keen as any of them upon the business until this sudden incident had
drawn his thoughts into another channel. The sight of the fair young
girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his
volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths. When she had vanished from
his sight, he realized that a crisis had come in his life, and that
neither silver speculations nor any other questions could ever be of
such importance to him as this new and all-absorbing one. The love
which had sprung up in his heart was not the sudden, changeable fancy
of a boy, but rather the wild, fierce passion of a man of strong will
and imperious temper. He had been accustomed to succeed in all that he
undertook. He swore in his heart that he would not fail in this if
human effort and human perseverance could render him successful.
He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again, until his
face was a familiar one at the farm-house. John, cooped up in the
valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning the
news of the outside world during the last twelve years. All this
Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested
Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and
could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in
those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a
silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to
be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became
a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues.
On such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her
bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young heart was no
longer her own. Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms,
but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her
affections.
It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled
up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He
threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.
“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing
tenderly down into her face; “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but
will you be ready to come when I am here again?”
“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing.
“A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my
darling. There’s no one who can stand between us.”
“And how about father?” she asked.
“He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all
right. I have no fear on that head.”
“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there’s
no more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad
breast.
“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. “It is
settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are
waiting for me at the cañon. Good-bye, my own darling—good-bye. In two
months you shall see me.”
He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his
horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though
afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at what
he was leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until he
vanished from her sight. Then she walked back into the house, the
happiest girl in all Utah.
CHAPTER III.
JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.
Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had
departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him
when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of
his adopted child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to the
arrangement more than any argument could have done. He had always
determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever
induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such a marriage he
regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever
he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was
inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to
express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in
the Land of the Saints.
Yes, a dangerous matter—so dangerous that even the most saintly dared
only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest something
which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring down a
swift retribution upon them. The victims of persecution had now turned
persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the most terrible
description. Not the Inquisition of Seville, nor the German
Vehmgericht, nor the Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able to put
a more formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over
the State of Utah.
Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this
organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and
omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out
against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or
what had befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home,
but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the hands
of his secret judges. A rash word or a hasty act was followed by
annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be of this
terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that men went
about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of the
wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.
At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the
recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished afterwards
to pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it took a wider range. The
supply of adult women was running short, and polygamy without a female
population on which to draw was a barren doctrine indeed. Strange
rumours began to be bandied about—rumours of murdered immigrants and
rifled camps in regions where Indians had never been seen. Fresh women
appeared in the harems of the Elders—women who pined and wept, and bore
upon their faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror. Belated
wanderers upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked,
stealthy, and noiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness. These
tales and rumours took substance and shape, and were corroborated and
re-corroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite name.
To this day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of the Danite
Band, or the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened one.
Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible
results served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it
inspired in the minds of men. None knew who belonged to this ruthless
society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and
violence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret.
The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the
Prophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth at
night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence every
man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which were
nearest his heart.
One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his wheatfields,
when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking through the window,
saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming up the pathway. His
heart leapt to his mouth, for this was none other than the great
Brigham Young himself. Full of trepidation—for he knew that such a
visit boded him little good—Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon
chief. The latter, however, received his salutations coldly, and
followed him with a stern face into the sitting-room.
“Brother Ferrier,” he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly
from under his light-coloured eyelashes, “the true believers have been
good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the
desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley,
gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our
protection. Is not this so?”
“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.
“In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you
should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages.
This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you
have neglected.”
“And how have I neglected it?” asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in
expostulation. “Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not
attended at the Temple? Have I not——?”
“Where are your wives?” asked Young, looking round him. “Call them in,
that I may greet them.”
“It is true that I have not married,” Ferrier answered. “But women were
few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not a
lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants.”
“It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,” said the leader of
the Mormons. “She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has found
favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land.”
John Ferrier groaned internally.
“There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve—stories that
she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip of idle tongues.
What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph Smith?
‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect; for if she
wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is
impossible that you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer your
daughter to violate it.”
John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his
riding-whip.
“Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested—so it has been
decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we would
not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of all
choice. We Elders have many heifers,[1] but our children must also be
provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either of
them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose
between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What say
you to that?”
[1] Heber C. Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred
wives under this endearing epithet.
Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.
“You will give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is very
young—she is scarce of an age to marry.”
“She shall have a month to choose,” said Young, rising from his seat.
“At the end of that time she shall give her answer.”
He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and
flashing eyes. “It were better for you, John Ferrier,” he thundered,
“that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra
Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against the orders of
the Holy Four!”
With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and
Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.
He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how he
should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid upon
his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance at her
pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed.
“I could not help it,” she said, in answer to his look. “His voice rang
through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?”
“Don’t you scare yourself,” he answered, drawing her to him, and
passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair.
“We’ll fix it up somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy kind o’
lessening for this chap, do you?”
A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.
“No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you say you did. He’s a
likely lad, and he’s a Christian, which is more than these folk here,
in spite o’ all their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting
for Nevada to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send him a message letting him
know the hole we are in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be
back here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.”
Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s description.
“When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you that
I am frightened, dear. One hears—one hears such dreadful stories about
those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to
them.”
“But we haven’t opposed him yet,” her father answered. “It will be time
to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before us; at
the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.”
“Leave Utah!”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“But the farm?”
“We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To tell
the truth, Lucy, it isn’t the first time I have thought of doing it. I
don’t care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do to their
darned prophet. I’m a free-born American, and it’s all new to me. Guess
I’m too old to learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he might
chance to run up against a charge of buckshot travelling in the
opposite direction.”
“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.
“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. In the
meantime, don’t you fret yourself, my dearie, and don’t get your eyes
swelled up, else he’ll be walking into me when he sees you. There’s
nothing to be afeared about, and there’s no danger at all.”
John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone,
but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to the
fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned and
loaded the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his bedroom.
CHAPTER IV.
A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
On the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet,
John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his
acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted him
with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the
imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it was that he
should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his mind, and
returned home with a lighter heart.
As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to
each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on entering
to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room. One, with a
long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair, with his feet
cocked up upon the stove. The other, a bull-necked youth with coarse
bloated features, was standing in front of the window with his hands in
his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. Both of them nodded to Ferrier as
he entered, and the one in the rocking-chair commenced the
conversation.
“Maybe you don’t know us,” he said. “This here is the son of Elder
Drebber, and I’m Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the
desert when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the
true fold.”
“As He will all the nations in His own good time,” said the other in a
nasal voice; “He grindeth slowly but exceeding small.”
John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were.
“We have come,” continued Stangerson, “at the advice of our fathers to
solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem good to
you and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drebber here has
seven, it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.”
“Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson,” cried the other; “the question is not
how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has now
given over his mills to me, and I am the richer man.”
“But my prospects are better,” said the other, warmly. “When the Lord
removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather
factory. Then I am your elder, and am higher in the Church.”
“It will be for the maiden to decide,” rejoined young Drebber, smirking
at his own reflection in the glass. “We will leave it all to her
decision.”
During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway,
hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two visitors.
“Look here,” he said at last, striding up to them, “when my daughter
summons you, you can come, but until then I don’t want to see your
faces again.”