valley hid them from
view. Shefford could not have said that he was glad to be left behind,
and yet neither was he sorry.

That Sabbath evening as he sat quietly with Nas Ta Bega, watching the
sunset gilding the peaks, he was visited by three of the young Mormon
women--Ruth, Joan, and Hester. They deliberately sought him and merrily
led him off to the village and to the evening service of singing and
prayer. Afterward he was surrounded and made much of. He had been
popular before, but this was different. When he thoughtfully wended his
way campward under the quiet stars he realized that the coming of Bishop
Kane had made a subtle change in the women. That change was at first
hard to define, but from every point by which he approached it he came
to the same conclusion--the bishop had not objected to his presence in
the village. The women became natural, free, and unrestrained. A dozen
or twenty young and attractive women thrown much into companionship with
one man. He might become a Mormon. The idea made him laugh. But upon
reflection it was not funny; it sobered him. What a situation! He felt
instinctively that he ought to fly from this hidden valley. But he could
not have done it, even had he not been in the trader's employ. The thing
was provokingly seductive. It was like an Arabian Nights' tale. What
could these strange, fatally bound women do? Would any one of them
become involved in sweet toils such as were possible to him? He was no
fool. Already eyes had flashed and lips had smiled.

A thousand like thoughts whirled through his mind. And when he had
calmed down somewhat two things were not lost upon him--an intricate and
fascinating situation, with no end to its possibilities, threatened and
attracted him--and the certainty that, whatever change the bishop had
inaugurated, it had made these poor women happier. The latter fact
weighed more with Shefford than fears for himself. His word was given to
Withers. He would have felt just the same without having bound himself.
Still, in the light of the trader's blunt philosophy, and of his own
assurance that he was no fool, Shefford felt it incumbent upon him to
accept a belief that there were situations no man could resist without
an anchor. The ingenuity of man could not have devised a stranger, a
more enticing, a more overpoweringly fatal situation. Fatal in that it
could not be left untried! Shefford gave in and clicked his teeth as he
let himself go. And suddenly