bitual order of her life.
She was a Mormon, and the Bishop regained ascendance.

"It's well I got you in time, Jane Withersteen. What would your father
have said to these goings-on of yours? He would have put you in a
stone cage on bread and water. He would have taught you something about
Mormonism. Remember, you're a born Mormon. There have been Mormons who
turned heretic--damn their souls!--but no born Mormon ever left us yet.
Ah, I see your shame. Your faith is not shaken. You are only a wild
girl." The Bishop's tone softened. "Well, it's enough that I got to you
in time.... Now tell me about this Lassiter. I hear strange things."

"What do you wish to know?" queried Jane.

"About this man. You hired him?"

"Yes, he's riding for me. When my riders left me I had to have any one I
could get."

"Is it true what I hear--that he's a gun-man, a Mormon-hater, steeped in
blood?"

"True--terribly true, I fear."

"But what's he doing here in Cottonwoods? This place isn't notorious
enough for such a man. Sterling and the villages north, where there's
universal gun-packing and fights every day--where there are more men
like him, it seems to me they would attract him most. We're only a wild,
lonely border settlement. It's only recently that the rustlers have made
killings here. Nor have there been saloons till lately, nor the drifting
in of outcasts. Has not this gun-man some special mission here?"

Jane maintained silence.

"Tell me," ordered Bishop Dyer, sharply.

"Yes," she replied.

"Do you know what it is?"

"Yes."

"Tell me that."

"Bishop Dyer, I don't want to tell."

He waved his hand in an imperative gesture of command. The red once more
leaped to his face, and in his steel-blue eyes glinted a pin-point of
curiosity.

"That first day," whispered Jane, "Lassiter said he came here to
find--Milly Erne's grave!"

With downcast eyes Jane watched the swift flow of the amber water. She
saw it and tried to think of it, of the stones, of the ferns; but, like
her body, her mind was in a leaden vise. Only the Bishop's voice could
release her. Seemingly there was silence of longer duration than all her
former life.

"For what--else?" When Bishop Dyer's voice did cleave the silence it was
high, curiously shrill, and on the point of breaking. It released Jane's
tongue, but she could not lift her eyes.

"To kill the man who persuaded Milly Erne to abandon her home and her
husband--and her God!"

With wonder