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 shivering 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."

Therefore, they all sit down to a waiting game; for Tranyon believes himself safer in this mining camp than anywhere else in Utah, and dare not leave so long as Kruger is by his side.

This delay is not utterly unbearable to Miss Travenion, because every day she thinks the incoming stage, or some private buckboard, or light wagon, will bear into town the man she is looking for--Captain Harry Lawrence--who, at least, should come filled with grat.i.tude to Ralph Travenion, though he may despise Bishop Tranyon.

So she pa.s.ses her time, driving to Silver City, Diamond and Homansville with her father, who, under the pretence of settling various demands of business, lingers in Tintic Mining District; now and then reading a novel, for Ralph has thoughtfully sent to Salt Lake and provided her with some books. Altogether, she is not uncomfortable, as she has brought a sufficiency of clothing with her, though most of her trunks have been left at the Townsend House. Her father, who has never forgotten his old sybaritic life, sees that their table is supplied with every luxury which can be obtained in the place, sending Mormon boys to Utah Lake for trout, and to Payson for late fruits, and securing from Salt Lake City wines of the best vintages of France.

The air is fresh, and growing colder, and the young lady's cheeks are very rosy, though they have been browned by the sun. There is some little excitement in the place, also. The litigation between the Big Eureka and the King David has come to trial by battle, and these companies have each imported armed fighters from Pioche, Nevada, the most ferocious mining camp in the West.

Thus time runs into November, but the girl's heart is getting heavier and heavier, for the man she is looking for, and who has occupied most of her thoughts for the last six weeks, has not yet arrived.

Then one day, quite late in the month, she gets a shock, for she hears he has left the Territory, having sold his mine to an English company for a large sum of money, and that they have even now come to take possession of it.

Travenion, having also got the same news, says to her, shortly: "Generosity did not do much good with young Mr. Harry Ingrate--did it?"

And she, being stung with misery, jeers her father, and herself also, for that matter, "Yes, the daughter of Tranyon, the Mormon bishop, has no longer a hold upon the Gentile's heart! Perchance he thinks I should wed in my own faith?"

Then she falters out of the house, and, alone by herself, among some pinon-pines that grow on the hillside, tears come into her lovely eyes, for she feels herself cut off forever from the bright world in which she once lived, and mutters: "Is this rough mining camp a dream; or were Newport yachting parties and Delmonico b.a.l.l.s hallucinations?"

But this brings the matter first to climax and then to catastrophe. The girl treats with great _hauteur_ and angry scorn Kruger, who would be devoted to her, if she would but let him, for, curiously enough, this old polygamist, for the first time in his life, is in love, as much as a Mormon can be, with this elusive b.u.t.terfly who dodges his net and mocks his pursuit. Under the plea of business he suddenly goes away.

Then Ralph, coming to Erma, says: "Now is our time. We leave in a day or two!"

But before they have completed their preparations, Kruger, who has driven rapidly to Salt Lake City, and as rapidly returned, comes suddenly into Travenion's mining office, where he and his daughter have been discussing their preparations for departure.

Perhaps some evidences of their intentions are about the room, for Lot jovially remarks: "Packing up, Ralph! That's right; they will be wanting ye in Salt Lake soon. I've brought a communication from the head of the Church."

"Oh!" says Travenion, feigning a lightness that he does not feel. "What does the Lord say, through Brigham Young, his prophet? Erma, just wait for me outside. I'll go down with you to the hotel in a moment."

Acting on the hint, Miss Travenion leaves the house, and stands waiting for her father; and waits, and waits until darkness comes upon the scene, and voices in excitement come out of the thinly boarded building.

Actuated by an anxious curiosity she cannot control, the young lady draws nearer to the house, and through its thin walls come to her these words: "It's no good discussin' the matter further, Bishop Tranyon. The Church orders you two things. One is to pay the one hundred thousand dollars t.i.thing you owe to it----"

"Haven't I told you that I have no ready money?" cries Ralph. "Isn't this lawsuit taking every cent I can spare?"

"Yer duty to yer Church is fust, my friend!" answers Lot. "Besides, what yer tellin' me ain't true. Up at the city they know you've discontinued the lawsuit, and have given that d--mned Captain Lawrence"--he grinds the words out between his clenched teeth--"a quit-claim deed to his mine. Perhaps you thought you'd give him yer darter also; but he's gone away to Europe, I reckon, and busted that plan."

Ralph does not answer him, and he goes on: "The Church says it will take yer one hundred thousand dollars t.i.thing in stock of the Utah Central at fifty."

"At fifty!" screams Travenion, forgetting himself in rage. "Why, it's worth one hundred and fifty. I've been offered that for it by the--" But he remembers, and says no more.

"By the Union Pacific Railway!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es Kruger sternly. "Ye've been d.i.c.kering with them for that stock! Ye want to sell the Church out of control of that road!"

"As G.o.d is above me, that is not true!"

"Swear it, R. H. Tranyon! Swear it by Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Lord!" cries Kruger, in his fanaticism prescribing an oath that is very easy for Travenion to take.

"I do," he answers, "by Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Lord!"