burned them with the house! They are dead--dead!"

"Who?" shouted Nathaniel.

Obadiah had stopped and was rubbing and twisting his hands in his old,
mad way.

"The old folks. Ho, ho, the old folks, of course! They are
dead--dead--dead--"

He fairly shrieked the words. Then, for a moment, he stood tightly
clutching his thin hands over his chest in a powerful effort to control
himself.

"They are dead!" he repeated.

He spoke more calmly, and yet there was something so terrible in his
eyes, something so harshly vibrant of elation in the quivering passion
of his voice that Nathaniel felt himself filled with a strange horror.
He caught him by the arm, shaking him as he would have shaken a child.

"Where is Marion?" he asked. "Tell me, Obadiah--where is Marion?"

The councilor seemed not to have heard him. A singular change came into
his face and his eyes traveled beyond Nathaniel. Following his glance
the young man saw that three men had appeared from the scorched
shrubbery about the burned house and were hurrying toward them. Without
shifting his eyes Obadiah spoke to him quickly.

"Those are king's sheriffs, Nat," he said. "They know me. In a moment
they will recognize you. The United States warship _Michigan_ has just
arrived in the harbor to arrest Strang. If you can reach the cabin and
hold it for an hour you will be saved. Quick--you must run--"

"Where is Marion?"

"At the cabin! She is at--"

Nathaniel waited to hear no more, but sped toward the breach in the
forest that marked the beginning of the path to Obadiah's. The shouts of
the king's men came to him unheeded. At the edge of the woods he glanced
back and saw that they had overtaken the councilor. As he ran he drew
his pistol and in his wild joy he flung back a shout of defiance to the
men who were pursuing him. Marion was at the cabin--and a government
ship had come to put an end to the reign of the Mormon king! He shouted
Marion's name as he came in sight of the cabin; he cried it aloud as he
bounded up the low steps.

"Marion--Marion--"

In front of the door that led to the tiny chamber in which he had taken
Obadiah's gold he saw a figure. For a moment he was blinded by his
sudden dash from the light of day into the gloom of the cabin, and he
saw only that a figure was standing there, as still as death. His
pistol dropped to the floor. He stretched out his arms, and his voice
sobbed in its entreaty as he whispered the girl's name. In resp