omen stood in the inner doorway, but the coarse arm of a masked
man was already stretched across it, an impassable barrier. The prophet
lay on the child's bed, so heavy with sleep tardily sought that he did
not awake until four men had laid hold of him. All the light upon the
scene came from a smoking torch which one of the housebreakers held.
Some twenty men might have been there inside the room and out. The women
could barely see that Smith was borne out in the midst of the band. He
struggled fiercely when aroused, but was overpowered by numbers.

The owners of the house came down from above, huddling together and
holding Emma, who would have thrown herself in the midst of the mob.

Susannah had not undressed. She threw her cloak over her head and ran
out, determined to go to the village and demand help in the name of law
and a common humanity. She was in a mood to be reckless in aiding the
cause she had espoused.

By the glow of the torch which the felons held she saw the group close
about the one struggling man as they carried him away. She fled in a
different direction.

She had gone perhaps sixty rods in the darkness out of sight of Smith
and his tormentors when she was stopped by three men and her name and
purpose demanded. When she declared it in breathless voice they laughed
aloud. In the darkness she was deprived of that weapon, her beauty, by
which she habitually, although unconsciously, held men in awe.

"Now, see here, sister, you jest sit quietly on the fence here, and see
which of them's going to get the best of it. Your man's a prophet, you
know; let him call out his miracles now, and give us a good show of them
for once. He's jest got a few ordinary men to deal with; if he and his
miracles can't git the best of them he ain't no prophet. Here's a
flattish log now on top. Git up and sit on the fence, sister."

While she struggled in custody another group of dark figures came
suddenly at a swinging trot round the dark outline of one of the nearer
houses. They brought with them the same kind of lurid torch and a
smoking kettle or cauldron carried between two. The foremost among them
were also carrying the body of a man, whether dead or alive she could
not see. When he was thrown upon the ground he moved and spoke. It was
Rigdon's voice. She perceived that he was helpless with terror. The
prophet had certainly struggled more lustily.

"Now you jest keep still, sister," said the loudest of her three
co