. She wore a fitted coat-like blouse, and knee skirts
which disclosed a pretty pair of legs and ankles. As Strang was
returning with the paper which she handed to him the girl turned her
face to Captain Plum. Her mouth was formed into a round red O and she
pointed anxiously to where she had thrown the note. The king's eyes were
on his paper and Nathaniel nodded to assure her that he understood.

"I am like a gardener who compels every passing neighbor to go into his
back yard and admire his first sprouts," laughed the prophet jovially.
"In other words, I do a little writing, and I take a kind of childish
joy in making other people read it. But I see this is not in proper
shape, so you have escaped. It is a brief history of Beaver Island
written at the request of the Smithsonian Institute, which has already
published an article of mine. If you happen to be on the island
to-morrow and should you return to this office I shall certainly have
you read it if I have to call all of my sheriffs into service!"

He laughed with such open good-humor that Nathaniel found himself
smiling despite the varied unpleasant sensations within him. "Do you
write much?" he asked.

"I get out a daily paper," said the king rather proudly, "and of course,
as prophet, I am the translator of what word may be handed down to us
from Heaven for the direction and commandment of my people. I hold the
secret of the Urim and Thummin, which was first delivered by angels into
the hands of Joseph, and with it have revealed the word of God as it
appears in a book which I have written. Ah--I had forgotten this!" From
among a mass of papers and books on the table he drew forth a
blue-covered pamphlet and passed it to his companion. "I have only a few
copies left but you may have this one, Captain Plum. It will surely
interest you. In it I have set forth the troubles existing between my
own people and the cyprian-rotted criminals that infest Mackinac and the
mainland and have described our struggle for chastity and honor against
these human vultures. It was published two years ago. But conditions are
different to-day. Now--now I am king, and the oppressors in the filth of
their crime have become the oppressed!"

The last words boomed from him in a slogan of triumph and as if in
echoing mockery there came from the open door the chuckling, mirthless
laugh of Obadiah Price.

"Yea--yea--even into the land of the Lamanites are you king!"

At the sound of his vo