he two wives of him," argued Pat Corrigan.

"How many wives and children have you?"

"Is it 'how many wives,' says the hay then! Wan wife, by the powers; and
tin childer."

"Haven't you about as large a family as you can take care of?"

"Begobs, I have."

"Do you want to take in Jim Baker's Mormon wife and provide for her?
Somebody has to. If you won't let him do it, perhaps you'll do it
yourself."

"No, bedad!"

"Well, then, you'd better go about your business and let him alone. I
don't see that we have to meddle with these things. Do you?"

The crowd moved uneasily and laughed, good-naturedly owning to being
plucked of its cause and arrested in the very act of returning evil for
good.

"I tould you Ludlow was the foine man," said the torch-bearer to his
confederates.

"There's no harm in you boys," pursued the fine man. "You're not making
a war on women."

"We're not. Thrue for you."

"If you feel like having a wake over the Mormons, why don't you get more
torches and make a procession down the Galilee road? You've done about
all you can on Mount Pisgah."

As they began to trail away at this suggestion and to hail him with
parting shouts, Ludlow shut the window and laughed in the dark room.

"I'd like to start them chasing the fox around all the five lakes
on Beaver. But they may change their minds before they reach the
sand-hills. We'd better load the boat right off, Jim."

In the hurrying Rosanne came down-stairs and found Elizabeth waiting at
the foot. They could see each other only by starlight. They were alone,
for the others had gone out to the boat.

"Are you willing for me to go, Rosanne?" spoke Elizabeth. Her sweet
voice was of a low pitch, unhurried and steady. "James says he'll build
me a little house in your yard."

"Oh, Elizabeth!"

Rosanne did not cry, "I cannot hate you!" but she threw herself into
the arms of the larger, more patient woman whom she saw no longer as
a rival, and who would cherish her children. Elizabeth kissed her
husband's wife as a little sister.

The lights on Beaver, sinking to duller redness, shone behind Elizabeth
like the fires of the stake as she and Cecilia walked after the others
to the boat. Cecilia wondered if her spirit rose against the indignities
of her position as an undesired wife, whose legal rights were not even
recognized by the society into which she would be forced. The world was
not open to her as to a man. In that day it would have stone