en butchered, and another army was on the way."

"Well, that was because you were such an ornery lot, always setting
yourself up against the government wherever you went, and acting
scandalous--"

"We did as the Lord directed us--"

"Oh, shucks!"

"And then we thought the time had come to stand up for our rights; that
the Lord meant us to be free and independent."

"Secesh, eh?" Follett was amused. "You handful of Mormons--Uncle Sam
could have licked you with both hands tied behind him. Why, you crazy
fool, he'd have spit on you and drowned every last one of you, old
Brigham Young and all. Fighting the United States! A few dozen
women-butchers going to do what the whole South couldn't! Well, I _am_
danged."

He mused over it, and for awhile neither spoke.

"And the nearest you ever got to it was cutting up a lot of women and
children after you'd cheated the men into giving up their guns!"

The other groaned.

"There now, that's right--don't you see that hurts worse than killing?"

"But I certainly wish I could have got those other two that took us off
into the sage-brush that night. I didn't guess what for, but the first
thing I knew the other boy was scratching, and kicking, and hollering,
and like to have wriggled away, so the cuss that was with me ran up to
help. Then I heard little John making kind of a squeally noise in his
throat like he was being choked, and that was all I wanted. I legged it
into the sage-brush. I heard them swearing and coming after me, and ran
harder, and, what saved me, I tripped and fell down and hurt myself, so
I lay still and they lost track of me. I was scared, I promise you that;
but after they got off a ways I worked in the other direction by spells
till I got to a little wady, and by sunup they weren't in sight any
longer. When I saw the Indians coming along I wasn't a bit scared. I
knew _they_ weren't Mormons."

"I used to pray that you might come back and kill me."

"I used to wish I would grow faster so I could. I was always laying out
to do it."

"But see how I've been punished. Look at me--I'm fifty. I ought to be in
my prime. See how I've been burnt out."

"But look here, Mister, what about this girl? Do you think you've been
doing right by keeping her here?"

"No, no! it was a wrong as great as the other."

"Why, they're even passing remarks about her mother, those that don't
know where you got her,--saying it was some one you never married,
because the book