start so soon as I had intended. I
shall stay in the settlements till I have performed a duty that, for a
long time, I have left undone."

"What duty is't you mean?"

"One I owe to society; and which I have perhaps sinfully
neglected--_bring a murderer to justice_!"

"Hush! Josh Stebbins--for Heaven's sake, speak low! _You know it isn't
true_--but, hush! the gurls are 'thout. Don't let them hear sech talk!"

"Perhaps," continued Stebbins, without heeding the interruption,
"perhaps that murderer fancies he might escape. He is mistaken if he
do. One word from me in Swampville, and the hounds of the law would be
upon him; ay, and if he could even get clear of _them_, he could not
escape out of my power. I have told you I am an Apostle of the great
Mormon Church; and that man would be cunning indeed who could shun the
vengeance of our Destroying Angels. Now, Hickman Holt, which is it to
be? _yes or no_?" The pause was ominous for poor Marian.

The answer decided her doom. It was delivered in a hoarse husky voice:
"_Yes--yes--she may go_!"

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A SPLENDID PENSION.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalogo was followed by an extensive
_debandement_, which sent many thousands of sabres ringing back into
their scabbards--some of them soon after to spring forth in the cause of
freedom, calumniously called "filibustering;" others perhaps destined
never to be drawn again. Using a figurative expression, not a few were
converted into spades; and in this _pacific_ fashion, carried to the far
shores of the Pacific Ocean--there to delve for Californian gold--while
still others were suspended in the counting-house or the studio, to rust
in inglorious idleness. A three years' campaign under the sultry skies
of Mexico--drawing out the war-fever that had long burned in the bosoms
of the American youth--had satisfied the ambition of most. It was only
those who arrived late upon the field--too late to pluck a laurel--who
would have prolonged the strife.

The narrator of this tale, Edward Warfield--_ci-devant_ captain of a
corps of "rangers"--was not one of the last mentioned. With myself, as
with many others, the great Mexican campaign was but the continuation of
the little war--_la petite guerre_--that had long held an intermittent
existence upon the borders of Texas, and in which we had borne part; and
the provincial laurels there reaped, when interwoven with the fresher
and greener bays gathered upon the b