Winfield's life and his
daughter's because he offered a heavy ransom.

"You see, gentlemen," he said, "my little girl had been with me for five
years, and I had forgotten, God forgive me! that she was growing up into
a fine young woman. I had been at my work for ten years, and between
gold and diamonds I had done so well that I'm afraid I thought of little
else. I imagined I could buy these rascals off. My daughter, I now
see, they kept for their own vile ends, and, unfortunately for me, they
soon found out that I was the very man they were short of in their
community, for, let me tell you, this secret territory of theirs is
literally bursting with mineral wealth of all kinds, which they have no
idea how to work. Over and over again they have pressed me to join
their abominable brotherhood and become one of them, offering me instant
death as an alternative; but I knew I was much too useful to be killed
out of hand, and I laughed in their faces. That blackguard Levert was
positively the first man who ever really tried to injure me, and he took
me by surprise when we were out on a prospecting trip--he had been
importuning me to give him my daughter in `marriage'! and I had
determined to shoot her dead before I would accede either to his or any
Mormon's wishes in that respect.

"Fortunately every woman is safe here for a full year, unless she
chooses to marry of her own accord, and after that time the consent of
her nearest relative is sufficient, whether the poor creature wills or
no. Now we have been here just ten months, so have still some little
time before us--that is, if you gentlemen are, as I understand, willing
to assist me in liberating my little girl from the Novices' Convent in
the Mormon town which lies about a dozen miles from here." And the poor
fellow looked at Grenville and Leigh with a half-inquiring and wholly
imploring expression on his face.

The cousins were deeply touched by Winfield's evident anxiety about his
daughter; neither, however, spoke--but both reached forward and warmly
shook hands with him, and as they did so Grenville saw the tears spring
to his eyes. Rightly interpreting their silent sympathy, he went on--

"And now, gentlemen--"

"One moment, old fellow!" interjected Leigh; "this is Dick Grenville,
who `bosses our show,' as, I suppose, our unwelcome neighbours would
call it, and I am his lazy cousin Alfred Leigh; so do, for goodness'
sake, call us Leigh and Grenville, and