convulsive shudder shook his body.

"When everything came back to me I was older--much older," he went on.
"My hair was white. I was like an old man. My people had found me and
they told me that I had been mad for three years, Nat--mad--mad--mad!
and that a great surgeon had operated on my head, where they struck
me--and brought me back to reason. Nat--Nat--" He strained to raise
himself, gasping excitedly. "God, I was like you then, Nat! I went back
to fight for my Jean. She was gone. Nobody knew me, for I was an old
man. I hunted from settlement to settlement. In my madness I became a
Mormon, for vengeance--in hope of finding her. I was rich, and I became
powerful. I was made an elder because of my gold. Then I found--"

A moan trembled on the old man's lips.

"--they had forced her to marry--the son of a Mormon--"

He stopped, and for a moment his eyes seemed filling with the glazed
shadows of death. He roused himself almost fiercely.

"But he loved my Jean, Nat--he loved her as I loved her--and he was a
good man!", he whispered shrilly. "Quick--quick--I must tell you--they
had tried to escape from Missouri and the Danites killed him,--and
Joseph Smith wanted Jean and at the last moment she killed herself to
save her honor as Marion was going to do, and she left two children--"

He coughed and blood flecked his lips.

"She left--Marion and Neil!"

He sank back, ashen white and still, and with a cry Nathaniel turned to
the lieutenant. The officer ran forward with a flask in his hand.

"Give him this!"

The touch of liquor to Obadiah's lips revived him. He whispered weakly.

"The children, Nat--I tried to find them--and years after--I did--in
Nauvoo. The man and woman who had killed the father in their own house
had taken them and were raising them as their own. I went mad!
Vengeance--vengeance--I lived for it, year after year. I wanted the
children--but if I took them all would be lost. I followed them,
watched them, loved them--and they loved me. I would wait--wait--until
my vengeance would fall like the hand of God, and then I would free
them, and tell them how beautiful their mother was. When Joseph Smith
was killed and the split came the old folks followed Strang--and I--I
too--"

He rested a moment, breathing heavily.

"I brought my Jean with me and buried her up there on the hill--the
middle grave, Nat, the middle grave--Marion's mother."

Nathaniel pressed the liquor to the old man's lips again.