emed to fill his soul with the
love of her. It was her fate that had drawn him; and now it was her
agony, her innocence, her beauty, that bound him for all time. Patience
and cunning and toil, passion and blood, the unquenchable spirit of a
man to save--these were nothing to give--life itself were little, could
he but free her.

Patience and cunning! His sharpening mind cut these out as his greatest
assets for the present. And his thoughts flashed like light through his
brain.... Judge Stone and his court would fail to convict any Mormon
in Stonebridge, just the same as they had failed in the northern towns.
They would go away, and Stonebridge would fall to the slow, sleepy tenor
of its former way. The hidden village must become known to all men,
honest and outlawed, in that country, but this fact would hardly make
any quick change in the plans of the Mormons. They did not soon change.
They would send the sealed wives back to the canyon and, after the
excitement had died down, visit them as usual. Nothing, perhaps, would
ever change these old Mormons but death.

Shefford resolved to remain in Stonebridge and ingratiate himself deeper
into the regard of the Mormons. He would find work there, if the sealed
wives were not returned to the hidden village. In case the women went
back to the valley Shefford meant to resume his old duty of driving
Withers's pack-trains. Wanting that opportunity, he would find some
other work, some excuse to take him there. In due time he would reveal
to Fay Larkin that he knew her. How the thought thrilled him! She might
deny, might persist in her fear, might fight to keep her secret. But he
would learn it--hear her story--hear what had become of Jane Withersteen
and Lassiter--and if they were alive, which now he believed he would
find them--and he would take them and Fay out of the country.

The duty, the great task, held a grim fascination for him. He had a
foreboding of the cost; he had a dark realization of the force he meant
to oppose. There were duty here and pity and unselfish love, but these
alone did not actuate Shefford. Mystically fate seemed again to come
like a gleam and bid him follow.

When Shefford and Nas Ta Bega returned to the town hall the trial had
been ended, the hall was closed, and only a few Indians and cowboys
remained in the square, and they were about to depart. On the street,
however, and the paths and in the doorways of stores were knots of
people, talking earn