To this he whispers: "You don't suppose that I ever swallowed the dogmas of Joe Smith, which I preached as Mormon bishop? I joined them to desert them the moment I had made what money I wanted out of these Latter-Day Saints!" And, forgetting himself, he gives out two or three jeering scoffs. But the next moment his face grows frightened, and he mutters: "I have been"--his voice is very low again--"making arrangements to withdraw all my property from this Territory. I have now in New York, besides the million settled on you, a very large sum of money; but I have also such a block of stock of the Utah Central Railway that, if I sell it to the right parties, the Mormon Church will lose control of the road; that I have not yet been able to remove. But they suspect me!" he goes on dolefully. "I have been asked to immediately pay my tithing, which they figure at one hundred thousand dollars for this year, claiming that I have made a million. I have hidden the stock and I was about to refuse, but your coming here has made that, I fear, impossible." Then he wrings his hands, and says: "When an apostate is cut off, he is destroyed--root and branch. The family suffer as well as the man, and you--and _you_, Erma--YOU!" "Your stock! Is it near here?" asks the girl eagerly. "Certainly." Here he whispers to her: "In case of anything happening to me, it is hidden in the level running from Shaft No. 2 in the mine, on this hillside. It is in a tin box under the fourth set of timbers to the right of the incline. Remember it!" "Why not take it? Leave to-night--fly on horseback." "Where?" "To the Pacific Railroad." He laughs grimly, and taking her to the window, cries: "This is a fine country to get out of!" Then he points over the sage brush and explains: "To the west is the Tintic Valley--thirty miles of alkali; but, beyond it, hills and one spring; then one hundred miles of desert, burning sand, and no water that man or beast can drink. Could we travel over that and live to reach the railroad? To the south,--Mormon settlements on the Servier River--Beaver, Parowan, the very hot-bed of Mormonism. Beyond them, Lee's Ferry on the Colorado!" And he shudders as he mentions the name of John D. Lee, not as yet sacrificed by the Mormon Church, for whom he murdered one hundred and thirty-three men, women, and children, at Mountain Meadows. "After Lee's Ferry, deserts and the Apache. To the east, Mormon settlements--Santaquin, Nephi, Juab, Manti--and, back of them, the impassable desert-plateaus and mountain ranges of the Rockies--mighty rivers that foam through gorges thousands of feet deep--and Ute Indians!" "But to the north, father--the way I came--hardly one hundred miles!" "That is our only path," mutters the man. Then he says, doubtingly: "But still all Mormon. We may never reach Salt Lake City." "Who'll stop us?"