back to Stonebridge those iron-jawed old Mormons will
make law enough to--to... Shefford, the thing is--get her away. Once out
of the country, she's safe. Mormons keep their secrets."

"I'll take her. Joe, will you help me?"

Shefford, even in his agitation, felt the Mormon's silence to be a
consent that need not have been asked. And Shefford had a passionate
gratefulness toward his comrade. That stultifying and blinding prejudice
which had always seemed to remove a Mormon outside the pale of certain
virtue suffered final eclipse; and Joe Lake stood out a man, strange and
crude, but with a heart and a soul.

"Joe, tell me what to do," said Shefford, with a simplicity that meant
he needed only to be directed.

"Pull yourself together. Get your nerve back," replied Joe. "Reckon
you'd better show yourself over there. No one saw you come in this
morning--your absence from camp isn't known. It's better you seem
curious and shocked like the rest of us. Come on. We'll go over. And
afterward we'll get the Indian, and plan."

They left camp and, crossing the brook, took the shaded path toward the
village. Hope of saving Fay, the need of all his strength and nerve
and cunning to effect that end, gave Shefford the supreme courage to
overcome his horror and fear. On that short walk under the pinyons to
Fay's cabin he had suffered many changes of emotion, but never anything
like this change which made him fierce and strong to fight, deep and
crafty to plan, hard as iron to endure.

The village appeared very quiet, though groups of women stood at the
doors of cabins. If they talked, it was very low. Henninger and Smith,
two of the three Mormon men living in the village, were standing
before the closed door of the school-house. A tigerish feeling thrilled
Shefford when he saw them on guard there. Shefford purposely avoided
looking at Fay's cabin as long as he could keep from it. When he had to
look he saw several hooded, whispering women in the yard, and Beal, the
other Mormon man, standing in the cabin door. Upon the porch lay the
long shape of a man, covered with blankets.

Shefford experienced a horrible curiosity.

"Say, Beal, I've fetched Shefford over," said Lake. "He's pretty much
cut up."

Beal wagged a solemn head, but said nothing. His mind seemed absent or
steeped in gloom, and he looked up as one silently praying.

Joe Lake strode upon the little porch and, reaching down, he stripped
the blanket from the shrou