Part 9 (2/2)

'What are your plans?' asked old Fog, abruptly, one morning when the gulls had flown out to sea, and the fog came stealing up from the south.

'For what?'

'For the marriage.'

'Aha!' thought Waring, with a smile of covert amus.e.m.e.nt, 'he is in a hurry to secure the prize, is he? The sharp old fellow!' Aloud he said, 'I thought we would all three sail over to Mackinac; and there we could be married, Silver and I, by the fort chaplain, and take the first Buffalo steamer; you could return here at your leisure.'

'Would it not be a better plan to bring a clergyman here, and then you two could sail without me? I am not as strong as I was; I feel that I cannot bear--I mean that you had better go without me.'

'As you please; I thought it would be a change for you, that was all.'

'It would only prolong--No, I think, if you are willing, we will have the marriage here, and then you can sail immediately.'

'Very well; but I did not suppose you would be in such haste to part with Silver,' said Waring, unable to resist showing his comprehension of what he considered the manoeuvres of the old man. Then, waiving further discussion,--'And where shall we find a clergyman?' he asked.

'There is one over on Beaver.'

'He must be a singular sort of a divine to be living there.'

'He is; a strayed spirit, as it were, but a genuine clergyman of the Presbyterian church, none the less. I never knew exactly what he represented there, but I think he came out originally a sort of missionary.'

'To the Mormons,' said Waring, laughing; for he had heard old Fog tell many a story of the Latter-Day Saints, who had on Beaver Island at that time their most Eastern settlement.

'No; to the Indians.--sent out by some of those New England societies, you know. When he reached the islands, he found the Indians mostly gone, and those who remained were all Roman Catholics. But he settled down, farmed a little, hunted a little, fished a little, and held a service all by himself occasionally in an old log-house, just often enough to draw his salary and to write up in his semiannual reports.

He isn't a bad sort of a man in his way.'

'And how does he get on with the Mormons?'

'Excellently. He lets them talk, and sells them fish, and shuts his eyes to everything else.'

'What is his name?'

'Well, over here they call him the Preacher, princ.i.p.ally because he does not preach, I suppose. It is a way they have over on Beaver to call people names; they call me Believer.'

'Believer?'

'Yes, because I believe nothing; at least so, they think.'

A few days later, out they sailed over the freed water, around the point, through the sedge-gate growing green again, across the channelled marsh, and out towards the Beavers,--Fog and Waring, armed as if for a foray.

'Why,' asked Waring.

'It's safer; the Mormons are a queer lot,' was the reply.

When they came in sight of the islands, the younger man scanned them curiously. Some years later an expedition composed of exasperated crews of lake schooners, exasperated fishermen, exasperated mainland settlers, sailed westward through the straits bound for these islands, armed to the teeth and determined upon vengence and slaughter. False lights, stolen nets, and stolen wives were their grievances; and no aid coming from the general government, then as now sorely perplexed over the Mormon problem, they took justice into their own hands and sailed bravely out, with the stars and stripes floating from the mast of their flag-s.h.i.+p,--an old scow impressed for military service. But this was later; and when Fog and Waring came scudding into the harbor, the wild little village existed in all its pristine outlawry, a city of refuge for the flotsam vagabondage of the lower lakes.

'Perhaps he will not come with us,' suggested Waring.

'I have thought of that, but it need not delay us long,' replied Fog, 'we can kidnap him.'

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