while Nas Ta Bega
will ride off with a pack of grub and Nack-yal and several other
mustangs. He'll wait for you or you'll wait for him, as the case may be,
at some appointed place. When you're gone I'll jump my horse and hit the
trail for Kayenta and the San Juan."

"Very well; that's settled," said Shefford, soberly. "I'll go at once to
see Ruth. You and Nas Ta Bega decide on where I'm to meet him."

"Reckon you'd do just as well to walk round and come up to Ruth's from
the other side--instead of going through the village," suggested Joe.

Shefford approached Ruth's cabin in a roundabout way; nevertheless, she
saw him coming before he got there and, opening the door, stood pale,
composed, and quietly bade him enter. Briefly, in low and earnest voice,
Shefford acquainted her with the plan.

"You love her so much," she said, wistfully, wonderingly.

"Indeed I do. Is it too much to ask of you to do this thing?" he asked.

"Do it?" she queried, with a flash of spirit. "Of course I'll do it."

"Ruth, I can't thank you. I can't. I've only a faint idea what you're
risking. That distresses me. I'm afraid of what may happen to you."

She gave him another of the strange glances. "I don't risk so much as
you think," she said, significantly.

"Why?"

She came close to him, and her hands clasped his arms and she looked up
at him, her eyes darkening and her face growing paler. "Will you swear
to keep my secret?" she asked, very low.

"Yes, I swear."

"I was one of Waggoner's sealed wives!"

"God Almighty!" broke out Shefford, utterly overwhelmed.

"Yes. That's why I say I don't risk so much. I will make up a story to
tell the bishop and everybody. I'll tell that Waggoner was jealous, that
he was brutal to Mary, that I believed she was goaded to her mad deed,
that I thought she ought to be free. They'll be terrible. But what can
they do to me? My husband is dead... and if I have to go to hell to keep
from marrying another married Mormon, I'll go!"

In that low, passionate utterance Shefford read the death-blow to the
old Mormon polygamous creed. In the uplift of his spirit, in the joy at
this revelation, he almost forgot the stern matter at hand. Ruth and Joe
Lake belonged to a younger generation of Mormons. Their nobility in this
instance was in part a revolt at the conditions of their lives. Doubt
was knocking at Joe Lake's heart, and conviction had come to this young
sealed wife, bitter and hopeless while she had