“Well, that was because you were such an ornery lot, always setting yourself up against the government wherever you went, and acting scandalous—” “We did as the Lord directed us—” “Oh, shucks!” “And then we thought the time had come to stand up for our rights; that the Lord meant us to be free and independent.” “Secesh, eh?” Follett was amused. “You handful of Mormons—Uncle Sam could have licked you with both hands tied behind him. Why, you crazy fool, he’d have spit on you and drowned every last one of you, old Brigham Young and all. Fighting the United States! A few dozen women-butchers going to do what the whole South couldn’t! Well, I _am_ danged.” He mused over it, and for awhile neither spoke. “And the nearest you ever got to it was cutting up a lot of women and children after you’d cheated the men into giving up their guns!” The other groaned. “There now, that’s right—don’t you see that hurts worse than killing?” “But I certainly wish I could have got those other two that took us off into the sage-brush that night. I didn’t guess what for, but the first thing I knew the other boy was scratching, and kicking, and hollering, and like to have wriggled away, so the cuss that was with me ran up to help. Then I heard little John making kind of a squeally noise in his throat like he was being choked, and that was all I wanted. I legged it into the sage-brush. I heard them swearing and coming after me, and ran harder, and, what saved me, I tripped and fell down and hurt myself, so I lay still and they lost track of me. I was scared, I promise you that; but after they got off a ways I worked in the other direction by spells till I got to a little wady, and by sunup they weren’t in sight any longer. When I saw the Indians coming along I wasn’t a bit scared. I knew _they_ weren’t Mormons.” “I used to pray that you might come back and kill me.” “I used to wish I would grow faster so I could. I was always laying out to do it.” “But see how I’ve been punished. Look at me—I’m fifty. I ought to be in my prime. See how I’ve been burnt out.” “But look here, Mister, what about this girl? Do you think you’ve been doing right by keeping her here?” “No, no! it was a wrong as great as the other.” “Why, they’re even passing remarks about her mother, those that don’t know where you got her,—saying it was some one you never married, because the book shows your first wife was this one-handed woman here.” “I know, I know it. I meant to let her go back at first, but she took hold of me, and her father and mother were both dead.” “She’s got a grandfather and grandmother, alive and hearty, back at Springfield.” “She is all that has kept me alive these last years.” “She’s got to go back to her people now. She’ll want to bad enough when she knows about this.” “About this? Surely you won’t tell her—” “Look here now, why not? What do you expect?”