They were aroused at last by a squirrel that ran half-way down the trunk of a near-by spruce to bark indignantly at them, believing they menaced his winter's store of spruce cones piled at the foot of the tree. With rattle after rattle his alarm came, until he had the satisfaction of noting an effect.

The young man put the girl away from him to look upon her in the new light that enveloped them both, still holding her hands.

"There's one good thing about your marriages,--they marry you for eternity, don't they? That's for ever--only it isn't long enough, even so--not for me."

"I thought you were never coming."

"But you said"--he saw the futility of it, however, and kissed her instead.

"I was afraid of you all this summer," he said.

"I was afraid of you, too."

"You got over it yesterday all right."

"How?"

"You kissed me."

"Never--what an awful thing to say!"

"But you did--twice--don't you remember?"

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. If I did it wasn't at all like--like--"

"Like that--"

"No--I didn't think anything about it."

"And now you'll never leave me, and I'll never leave you."

They sat on the fallen tree.

"And to think of that old--"

"Oh, don't talk of it. That's why I ran off here--so I couldn't hear anything about it until he went away."

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

"I didn't think you were so stupid."

"How was I to know where you were coming?"

But now she was reminded of something.

"Tell me one thing--did you ever know a little short fat girl, a blonde that you liked very much?"

"Never!"

"Then what did you talk so much about her for yesterday if you didn't?

You'd speak of her every time."

"I didn't think you were so stupid."

"Well, I can't see--"

"You don't need to--we'll call it even."

And so the talk went until the sun had fallen for an hour and they knew it was time to go below.

"We will go to the meeting together," she said, "and then father shall tell Brigham,--tell him--"

"That you're going to marry me. Why don't you say it?"

"That I'm going to marry you, and be your only wife." She nestled under his arm again.

"For time and eternity--that's the way your Church puts it."

Then, not knowing it, they took their last walk down the pine-hung glade. Many times he picked her lightly up to carry her over rough places and was loth to put her down,--having, in truth, to be bribed thereto.

At their usual resting-place she put on her hat with the cherry ribbons, and he, taking off his own, kissed her under it.

And then they were out on the highroad to Amalon, where all was a glaring dusty gray under the high sun, and the ragged rim of the western hills quivered and ran in the heat.

He thought on the way down of how the news would be taken by the little bent man with the fiery eyes. She was thinking how glad she was that young Ammaron Wright had not kissed her that time he tried to at the dance--since kisses were like _that_.

CHAPTER XLI.

_The Rise and Fall of a Bent Little Prophet_

Down in the village the various dinners of ceremony to the visiting officials were over. An hour had followed of decent rest and informal chat between the visitors and their hosts, touching impartially on matters of general interest; on irrigation, the gift of tongues, the season's crop of peaches, the pouring out of the Spirit abroad, the best mixture of sheep-dip; on many matters not unpleasing to the practical-minded Deity reigning over them.

Then the entire populace of Amalon, in its Sunday best of "valley tan"

or store-goods, flocked to the little square and sat expectantly on the benches under the green roof of the bowery, ready to absorb the droppings of the sanctuary.

In due time came Brigham, strolling between Elder Wardle and Bishop Wright, bland, affable, and benignant. On the platform about him sat his Counsellors, the more distinguished of his suite, and the local dignitaries of the Church.

Among these came the little bent man with an unwonted colour in his face, coming in absorbed in thought, shaking hands even with Brigham with something of abstraction in his manner. Prudence and Follett came late, finding seats at the back next to a generous row of the Mrs. Seth Wright.

The hymn to Joseph Smith was given out, and the congregation rose to sing:--

"Unchanged in death, with a Saviour's love, He pleads their cause in the courts above.

"His home's in the sky, he dwells with the G.o.ds, Far from the rage of furious mobs.