Part 28 (1/2)

Her refined mind resents her father's laughing allusions to polygamy, which make her shudder. Anxious to avoid the subject entirely, she walks on so rapidly that her escorts do not overtake her till she has reached the hotel.

As she walks, two ideas force themselves upon her. Her father wishes her to know that Kruger is a married man. Kruger does not care that she should learn the fact. Why is he confused and diffident over her knowledge of what he has boasted to a dozen Mormon girls at a time?

She can't think of any answer to this for a little while, but just as she reaches the door of the hotel, a great wave of color flies over her face, followed by an unnatural pallor, and s.h.i.+vering as if struck by the ague, she sinks on to an empty box that stands near the door.

A moment after her father is by her side, whispering: ”You are faint!”

And Kruger coming up cries: ”This high air up here is too much for ye!”

”I'll be better in a moment!” whispers the girl. ”Could not you get me a drink of water?”

Her father going on this errand, Lot laughingly suggests: ”I reckon it must have been the sight of the snake that weakened ye!”

”Yes--I think it was--the sight of the snake--” shudders Erma.

Then Ralph brings the water to her and she drinks it as if there were a fever in her veins, and her eyes seem to follow Kruger, the Mormon bishop, as if he were the rattlesnake--only they look on him with more loathing than they did on the reptile.

CHAPTER XIV.

A RARE CLUB STORY.

Then, under the plea of illness, Miss Travenion seeks her little room in the hotel, to get away from the sight of this man whom she has suddenly grown to loathe--she hardly fears him--the idea that has come to her about him seems so preposterous.

Some two hours afterwards, her father knocking on her door, asks if she is well enough to see him. Being told to enter, he does so, whispering to her: ”Speak low! Sound pa.s.ses easily from one room to another.”

Then he informs her he has received his deed from Kruger, and has forwarded the deed of Zion's Co-operative Mining Company to Captain Lawrence, remarking: ”This will bring your young springald down here very suddenly, I imagine,” playfully chuckling Erma under the chin with a father's pride.

”Do not deceive yourself!” answers the girl. ”Captain Lawrence is not engaged to me. He has never said one word of love to me. He will now probably never say one of love to me. YOU ARE MY FATHER!” This last with a sigh is a fearful reproach to this Mormon bishop, who in the misery of his child is repenting of his sins.

A moment after he whispers: ”Be careful of what you say before Kruger.

Though we have travelled together for many a day and many a night, I fear in case of apostasy that to Lot Kruger's hand is given my cutting off.”

With this caution he leaves her.

In this case, Travenion's subtle mind has guessed the truth. For the heads of the Mormon Church have thought it wise to place this matter entirely in Kruger's hands. They fear the apostasy of R. H. Tranyon.

They fear _more_, the loss of the vote of his stock in the Utah Central Railway--that will lose them the control in that road. They have determined to prevent it.

But with the Jesuitism that has always governed the policy of the Mormon theocracy, they have told Kruger--whom they have had on such business before, together with his old chum Danites, Porter Rockwell and Bill Hickman--to take the affair in his hands, and if he finds beyond peradventure and doubt that R. H. Tranyon, capitalist and bishop, is going to apostatize, to do ”_what the Lord tells him to do_,” which they know means Tranyon's destruction, because Kruger is an old-time Mormon fanatic, and will do the work of the Lord, by the old methods of the days of the so-called Reformation, when ”blood atonement” was preached openly from their pulpits, and death followed all who doubted or apostatized. They have also made up their minds, if trouble comes to them through what Kruger does, to sacrifice him to Gentile justice, and, if necessary, secure Mormon witnesses that will bear evidence against him, and a Mormon jury who will convict him, as they are making ready to do with Kruger's old friend and a.s.sociate, Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mountain Meadow ma.s.sacre.

This commission delights Lot very much. He doesn't think his friend Tranyon an apostate, but he does think Tranyon's daughter, this Eastern b.u.t.terfly, as beautiful as the angels of paradise, and he has accepted his mission gleefully.

All the way driving down to Tintic, he has been rubbing his hands and muttering to himself: ”It's lucky they didn't see her in the t.i.thing Office or the Endowment House, or there would have been a rush of apostles for this beauty, who shall become a lamb of Zion, and be sealed by the Lord in plural marriage unto Lot Kruger.”

It is with this idea that he has come to Tintic, and, still believing Tranyon to be Mormon zealot like himself, thinks Ralph will regard it as no more dishonor to give his daughter into polygamy to a brother bishop; than he, Lot Kruger, would think, of turning over any of his numerous progeny to make an additional help-mate to any of his co-apostles.

Being confident of this, Lot imagines he can wait patiently till ”Ermie sees the good that is in him.”