“I am a Mormon, good and true,” she began again, rising to her feet and spreading her thin hands to the blaze; “but when my husband went into polygamy, which it was his Christian duty to do, according to the Scripture (and I’m not blaming him), the Devil got the upper hand of me, and I couldn’t stand it. You see, they made me go to the Endowment House and give my own husband away in marriage to another woman; and that, too, after we had stood together at the altar, in the little church in my father’s parish, ever so long before, and swore before God and a score of witnesses that we would forsake all others and keep ourselves only to each other as long as we both should live. Polygamy may be all right for people who haven’t made such vows; but I know it was not right for us. What do you think, Mr. Captain?” “I think that women have had their hearts cultivated at the expense of their heads quite long enough,” was his emphatic response. “I thought the Mormons didn’t compel any woman to give her husband away in marriage against her will,” said Jean. The woman uttered a sharp, rasping, staccato laugh that betokened incipient insanity. “There are other ways to kill a dog besides choking him to death on butter!” she cried, throwing her arms wildly about, and casting grotesque shadows upon those sitting behind her. “They told me that as a good Mormon I was bound to obey the mandates of the Church; that my eternal salvation, and my husband’s also, depended upon obedience. And they said it so often, and prayed over me so long and hard, that at last I said I’d do it. Then they held me to my promise. But my heart would beat, and the world would move; so in spite of what I did in the Endowment House, I would go about and tell my woes to everybody that would listen. And I was getting to be a scandal in Zion, so that by-and-by, when a lot of Gentiles got to making a fuss about it,—they made it hot for polygamy through my story,—the elders took it up. But they couldn’t tie my tongue, for the Devil had hold of it, and he just kept it wagging. The cases of Abraham and Jacob and David didn’t fit my case at all, for they hadn’t made any such vows.” The woman, as if suddenly recollecting herself, stopped speaking, and glared at her awe-stricken listeners with an insane gleam in her fiery eyes. “Oh, my head, my head!” she cried, clasping her hands tightly over her temples. “The Devil has caught me again!” “You’d better not talk any more to-night,” said the Little Doctor, soothingly. “And you cannot go on till morning. I’ll make a warm, snug bed for you in one of the wagons. After you’ve had a sound sleep and a good breakfast, you can go on your way refreshed.” “But I’ve got to talk it out. You’re like all the rest! You want me to be quiet, when the rocks and stones would cry out against me if I did!” “You’ll take a drink of our ‘Number Six,’ won’t you?” asked the Little Doctor. “Here it is. I’ve mixed and sweetened it for you.”