that small pocket of the
intermountain commonwealth, in Sabbath meetings and around the hearths
at night. The Wild Ram of the Mountains thought all proselyting should
cease in view of the approaching end; that the Elders on mission should
withdraw from the vineyard, shake the dust from their feet, and seal up
the rebellious Gentiles to damnation. To this Elder Beil Wardle had
replied, somewhat testily:

"Well, now, since these valleys of Ephraim have got a little fattened a
whole lot of us have got the sweeny, and our skins are growing too tight
on our flesh." He had been unable to comprehend that the Gentiles were a
rejected lot, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. On this occasion it
had required all the tact of Elder Rae to soothe the two good men into
an amiable discussion of the time when Sidney Rigdon went to the third
heaven and talked face to face with God. They had agreed in the end,
however, that they were both of the royal seed of Abraham, and were on
the grand turnpike to exaltation.

To these discussions and sermons the child, Prudence, listened with
intense interest, looking forward to the last day as an occasion
productive of excitement even superior to that of her trips to Salt Lake
City, where her father went to attend the October conference, and where
she was taken to the theatre.

Of any world outside the valley she knew but little. Somewhere, far over
to the east, was a handful of lost souls for whom she sometimes indulged
in a sort of luxurious pity. But their loss, after all, was a part of
the divine plan, and they would have the privilege of serving the
glorified Saints, even though they were denied Godhood. She
half-believed that even this mission of service was almost more of glory
than they merited; for, in the phrasing of Bishop Wright, they "made a
hell all the time and raised devils to keep it going." They had slain
the Prophets of the Lord and hunted his people, and the best of them
were lucky, indeed, to escape the fire that burns unceasingly; a fire
hotter than any made by beech or hickory. Still she sometimes wondered
if there were girls among them like her; and she had visions of herself
as an angel of light, going down to them with the precious message of
the Book of Mormon, and bringing them into the fold.

One day in this spring when she was fourteen, the good Bishop Wright, on
his way down from Box Canon with a load of wood, saw her striding up the
road ahead of him. Somethi