led her. Out of the world with its
myriad millions, only the few thousand in this valley of the mountains
had proved worthy of exaltation. And this young man was doubtless a fair
sample of them,--happy, unthinking, earning perdition by mere
carelessness. If only there were a way to save them--if only there were
a way to save even this one--but she hardly dared speak to him of her
religion.

When he left he told them he was making a little trip through the
settlements to the north, possibly as far as Cedar City. He did not know
how long he would be gone, but if nothing prevented he might be back
that way. He shook hands with them both at parting, and though he spoke
so vaguely about a return, his eyes seemed to tell Prudence that he
would like very much to come. He had talked freely about everything but
the precise nature of his errand in the valley.

In her walks to the canon she thought much of him when he had gone. She
could not put his face into the dream because he was too real and
immanent. He and the dream would not blend, even though she had decided
that his fresh-cheeked, clear-eyed face, with its clean smile and the
yellow hair above it was almost better to look at than the face of the
youth in the play. It was not so impalpable; it satisfied. So she mused
about them alternately, the dream and the Gentile,--taking perhaps a
warmer interest in the latter for his aliveness, for the grasp of his
hand at parting, which she, with astonishment, had felt her own hand
cordially returning.

Her father talked much of the young man. In his prophetic eye this
fearless, vigorous young stranger was the incarnate spirit of that
Gentile invasion to which the Lord had condemned them for their sins. He
had come, resourceful, determined, talking of mighty enterprises, of
cattle, and gold, and wheat, of wagon-trains, and railroad,--an eloquent
forerunner of the Gentile hordes that should come west upon the
shoulders of Israel, and surround, assimilate, and reduce them, until
they should lose all their powers and gifts and become a mere sect among
sects, their name, perhaps, a hissing and a scorn. He foresaw the
invasion of which this self-poised, vital youth of three or four and
twenty was a sapper; and he knew it was a just punishment from on high
for the innocent blood they had shed. Yet now he viewed it rather
impersonally, for he felt curiously disconnected from the affairs of the
Church and the world.

He no longer preac