It was a summer evening when he came. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. “I am off[50], Lucy,” he said. He took her two hands in his, and gazed 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.
“A couple of months. I will come back, my darling.”
“And how about father?” she asked.
“He will give his consent, if the mines work all right. And they will, for sure.”
“Oh, well; of course,” she whispered.
“Thank God!” he said hoarsely and kissed her. “So good-bye, my darling-good-bye. In two months you will see me.”
Lucy stood at the gate. She was 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 passed. John Ferrier was sad when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the loss of his child. He did not want 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. But he was silent: to express an unorthodox opinion was dangerous in those days in the Land of the Saints.
Its invisibility, and the mystery made this religious organization terrible. It was omniscient and omnipotent. The man who said something against the Church vanished away. A rash word or a hasty act led to annihilation.
The Mormons needed women. Polygamy without a female population was a barren doctrine. Strange rumours came-rumours of murdered immigrants. Fresh women appeared in the harems of the Elders-women with the traces of an unextinguishable horror upon their faces. None knew who belonged to this ruthless society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and
violence were secret. Hence every man feared his neighbour.
One fine morning, John Ferrier heard the click of the latch. He looked through the window and saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man. It was Brigham Young himself.
Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief. Young, however, received his salutations coldly, and followed him with a stern face into the sitting-room.
“Brother Ferrier,” he said, “the true believers are good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you to the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to become rich under our protection. Is not this so?”
“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.
“In return for this, you promised to embrace the true faith. This you promised to do, and this you neglected.”
“And how did I neglect it?” asked Ferrier. “I give to the common fund, I visit the Temple. I…”
“Where are your wives?” asked Young.
“It is true that I am not married,” Ferrier answered. “But women are few, and there are many men who are better husbands than myself. I am not a lonely man: I have my daughter.”
“Yes, I want to talk to you about your daughter,” said the leader of the Mormons. “She is the flower of Utah.”
John Ferrier groaned internally.
“They say that she is engaged 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 weds a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin’.”
John Ferrier did not answer, but he played nervously with his riding-whip.
“The girl is young, and we don’t want to deprive her of all choice. We Elders have many heifers, but our children must also have decent wives. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and they will gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What will say you to that?”
Ferrier remained silent for some time.
“Give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is very young-she is too young to marry.”
“She will have a month to choose,” said Young. “At the end of that time she will give her answer.”
He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and flashing eyes.
“John Ferrier,” he thundered, “do not put your weak wills[51] against the orders of the Holy Four!”
And he went away. Ferrier heard his heavy step along the path.
Ferrier was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, when he saw his daughter. She was standing beside him. She heard everything.
“Oh, father, father, what shall we do?” she said.
“Don’t be afraid,” he answered. “We’ll fix it up somehow or another[52]. You still like that chap, do you?”
A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.
“He’s a good lad, and he’s a Christian. Some people will go to Nevada tomorrow, and I’ll send him a message. If I know anything of that young man, he’ll be back here soon.”
Lucy laughed through her tears.
“When he comes, he will give us some advise. But it is for you that I am frightened, dear. One hears such dreadful stories about those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to them.”
“But we don’t oppose him,” her father answered. “We have time. We have a clear month before us; at the end of that, I guess we will leave Utah.”
“Leave Utah!”
“Yes.”
“But the farm?”
“We will sell as much as we can. I don’t want to knuckle under to any man, under to this darned prophet. I’m a free-born American.”
“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.
“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. There’s no danger at all.”
John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone, but she observed that he fastened the doors that night, and carefully cleaned and loaded the old shotgun.
Chapter IV
A Flight For Life
Next morning John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City and found his acquaintance, who was going to 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. After that he returned home.
As he approached his farm, he saw two horses. When he entered his house, he found two young men in his sitting-room. One, with a long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair[53], with his feet upon the stove. The other was standing in front of the window with his hands in his pocket. He was 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.”
John Ferrier bowed coldly. He guessed who his visitors were.
“We are here,” continued Stangerson, “to solicit the hand of your daughter. Let her choose. I have only four wives and Brother Drebber here has seven, so my claim is the stronger one.”
“No, no, Brother Stangerson,” cried the other; “the question is not how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father gave me his mills, and I am the richer man.”
“But my prospects are better,” said the other, warmly. “I shall have my father’s tanning yard[54] and his leather factory. Then I am older, and am higher in the Church.”
“The maiden will decide,” rejoined young Drebber.
“Look here,” said John Ferrier, “when my daughter summons you, you can come, but until then I don’t want to see your faces again.”
The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement.
“There are two ways out of the room,” cried Ferrier; “there is the door, and there is the window. Which one will you use?”
His brown face looked so savage, that his visitors sprang to their feet and ran away. The old farmer followed them to the door.
“You will pay for this!” Stangerson cried, white with rage. “You go against the Prophet and the Council of Four. You will rue it to the end of your days.”
“The hand of the Lord will be heavy upon you,” cried young Drebber; “He will arise and smite you!”
“Then I’ll start the smiting,” exclaimed Ferrier furiously, and rushed upstairs for his gun. Lucy seized him by the arm and restrained him. The clatter of horses’ hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.
“The young rascals!” he exclaimed.
“Father,” she said; “Jefferson will soon be here.”
“Yes. The sooner the better[55], for we do not know what their next move may be.”
Ferrier knew that his wealth and position were useless. He was a brave man, but he trembled. What to do next? He concealed his fears from his daughter, though she saw plainly that he was nervous.
He expected some message or remonstrance from Young, and it came. Next morning he found, to his surprise, a small square of paper just over his chest. On it was printed, in bold letters:
“You have twenty-nine days for amendment, and then…”
How did this warning come into his room? He said nothing to his daughter, and destroyed the paper.
Still more terrible was he next morning. They were having their breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. In the centre of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick, the number 28. To his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not enlighten her. That night he sat up with his gun and ward. He saw and he heard nothing, and yet in the morning a great 27 was upon the outside of his door.
Thus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found that his unseen enemies were telling him how many days he had. Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls, sometimes upon the floors, occasionally they were on small placards upon the garden gate or the railings. A horror came upon him at the sight of them. He became haggard and restless. He had but one hope in life now, and that was for the arrival of the young hunter from Nevada.
Twenty changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there was no news of Jefferson Hope. There came no sign of him. At last, when the old farmer saw three, he lost heart[56], and abandoned all hope of escape. With his limited knowledge of the mountains which surrounded the settlement, he knew that he was powerless. The roads were strictly watched and guarded, and none could pass along them without an order from the Council.
He was sitting alone one evening. That morning showed the figure 2 upon the wall of his house. The next day will be the last. What will happen then? Was there no escape from the invisible network round them?
What was that? In the silence he heard a gentle scratching sound. It came from the door of the house. Ferrier crept into the hall and listened intently. There was a pause for a few moments, and then the insidious sound was repeated. Someone was evidently tapping very gently upon one of the panels of the door. Was it some midnight assassin? The suspense shook his nerves and chilled his heart. John Ferrier sprang forward and drew the bolt and opened the door.
Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the stars were twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before the farmer’s eyes. Ferrier looked to right and to left, and at his own feet he saw astonishment a man upon the ground. It was Jefferson Hope.
“Good God!” gasped John Ferrier. “How you scared me!”
“Give me food,” the other said, hoarsely.
He saw the cold meat and bread which were lying upon the table, and devoured it voraciously. “How is Lucy?” he asked.
“All right. She does not know the danger,” her father answered.
“That is well. They watch the house on every side[57]. That is why I crawled.”
John Ferrier realized that he had a devoted ally. He seized the young man’s hand and wrung it cordially.
“I am proud of you,” he said.
“You see,” the young hunter answered. “I have a respect for you. And it’s Lucy that brings me here.”
“What shall we do?”
“Tomorrow is your last day, we must act tonight. I have a mule and two horses, they are waiting in the Eagle Ravine[58]. How much money have you?”
“Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.”
“That will do. I have some money, too. We must go to Carson City through the mountains. Wake Lucy. It is well that the servants do not sleep in the house.”
While Ferrier was absent, Jefferson Hope packed all the food that he could find into a small parcel, and filled a jar with water. Soon the farmer returned with his daughter. She was dressed and ready for a start. The greeting between the lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes were precious.
“We must start at once,” said Jefferson Hope. He was speaking in a low but resolute voice. “They watch front and back entrances, but with caution we may get away through the side window and across the fields. We are only two miles from the Ravine where the horses are waiting.”
“And if they stop us?” asked Ferrier.
Hope showed his revolver.
“If they are too many for us, we shall take two or three of them with us,” he said with a sinister smile.
The old farmer turned off the lights inside the house. Ferrier peered over his fields, which he was going to abandon for ever. But the honour and happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes.
All looked peaceful and happy, but the white face and the expression of the young hunter showed that the danger was near.
Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had the scanty provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle. They opened the window very slowly and carefully. They waited a little, and then one by one passed through into the little garden. They stumbled across it, and gained the shelter of the hedge. Then they came to the gap which opened into the cornfields. They reached this point when the young man seized his two companions and dragged them down into the shadow, where they lay silent.
Jefferson Hope’s prairie training gave him the ears of a lynx. He and his friends crouched down and heard the melancholy hooting of a mountain owl within a few yards of them. Another hoot immediately answered it. At the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the gap. The first man uttered the plaintive signal cry again, and the second man appeared out of the obscurity.
“Tomorrow at midnight,” said the first man.
“When the Whip-poor-Will[59] calls three times.”
“It is well,” returned the other. “Shall I tell Brother Drebber?”
“Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!”
“Seven to five!” repeated the other, and the two figures flitted away in different directions.
Their footsteps died away in the distance. Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and helped his companions through the gap. He led the way across the fields, he was supporting and carrying the girl.
“Hurry on! hurry on!” he gasped from time to time. “Everything depends on speed. Hurry on!”
They made rapid progress. Only once they met someone, and then they managed to slip into a field. Then the hunter chose a rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. Two dark peaks loomed above them through the darkness. It was the Eagle Ravine in which the horses were awaiting them.
Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great boulders and along the watercourse. The girl sat upon the mule, and old Ferrier upon one of the horses, with his money-bag, while Jefferson Hope led the other along the precipitous and dangerous path.
In spite of all dangers and difficulties, the fugitives were happy, for every step increased the distance between them and the terrible people.
They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within the jurisdiction of the Saints. Suddenly the girl gave a cry and pointed upwards. On a rock, there stood a solitary sentinel. He saw them and asked:
“Who goes there?”
“Travellers for Nevada,” said Jefferson Hope, with his hand upon the rifle.
The lonely watcher was peering down at them.
“By whose permission?” he asked.
“The Holy Four,” answered Ferrier.
“Nine to seven,” cried the sentinel.
“Seven to five,” returned Jefferson Hope promptly. He remembered the countersign in the garden.