e had
been reached that Mayor--himself a Gentile, and one renowned for his
dealings with the Mormons--told me that the great question of the
existence of the power within the power was being gradually solved by
the ballot and by education. "We have," quoth he, "hills round and about
here, stuffed full of silver and gold and lead, and all Hell atop of the
Mormon church can't keep the Gentile from flocking in when that's the
case. At Ogden, thirty miles from Salt Lake, this year the Gentile vote
swamped the Mormon at the Municipal elections, and next year we trust
that we shall be able to repeat our success in Salt Lake itself. In that
city the Gentiles are only one-third of the total population, but the
mass of 'em are grown men, capable of voting. Whereas the Mormons are
cluttered up with children. I guess as soon as we have purely Gentile
officers in the township, and the control of the policy of the city, the
Mormons will have to back down considerable. They're bound to go before
long. My own notion is that it's the older men who keep alive the
opposition to the Gentile and all his works. The younger ones, spite of
all the elders tell 'em, _will_ mix with the Gentile, and read Gentile
books, and you bet your sweet life there's a holy influence working
toward conversion in the kiss of an average Gentile--specially when the
girl knows that he won't think it necessary for her salvation to load
the house up with other woman-folk. I guess the younger generation are
giving sore trouble to the elders. What's that you say about polygamy?
It's a penal offence now under a Bill passed not long ago. The Mormon
has to elect one wife and keep to her. If he's caught visiting any of
the others--do you see that cool and restful brown stone building way
over there against the hillside? That's the penitentiary. He is sent
there to consider his sins, and he pays a fine, too. But most of the
police in Salt Lake are Mormons, and I don't suppose they are too hard
on their friends. I presoom there's a good deal of polygamy practised on
the sly. But the chief trouble is to get the Mormon to see that the
Gentile isn't the doubly-damned beast that the elders represent. Only
get the Gentiles well into the State, and the whole concern is bound to
go to pieces in a very little time."

And the wish being father to the thought, "Why, certainly," said I, and
began to take in the valley of Deseret, the home of the latter-day
saints, and the abode perh