heard his own voice he stood quivering and
panic-stricken, the fire out and the pained little smile coming to make
his face gentle again. He turned weakly toward Brigham, but the Prophet
had risen from his seat and his broad back was rounded toward the
speaker. He appeared to be consulting a group of those who stood on the
platform, and they who were not of this group had also turned away.

The little bent man tried again to smile, hoping for a friendly glance,
perhaps a hand-clasp without words from some one of them. Seeing that he
was shunned, he stepped down off the platform at the side, twisting his
hat in his long, thin hands in embarrassment. A moment he stood so,
turning to look back at the group of priests and Elders around the
Prophet, seeking for any sign, even for a glance that should be not
unkind. The little pained smile still lighted his face, but no friendly
look came from the others. Seeing only the backs turned toward him, he
at length straightened out his crumpled hat, still smiling, and slowly
put it on his head; as he turned away he pulled the hat farther over his
eyes, and then he was off along the dusty street, looking to neither
side, still with the little smile that made his face gentle.

But when he had come to the end of the street and was on the road up the
hill, the smile died. He seemed all at once to shrink and stoop and
fade,--no longer a Lion of the Lord, but a poor, white-faced, horrified
little man who had meant in his heart to give a great revelation, and
who had succeeded only in uttering blasphemy to the very face of God's
prophet.

From below, the little groups of excited people along the street looked
up and saw his thin, bent figure alone in the fading sunlight, toiling
resolutely upward.

Other groups back in the square talked among themselves, not a few in
whispers. A listener among them might have heard such expressions as,
"He'll be blood-atoned sure!"--"They'll make a breach upon
him!"--"They'll accomplish his decease!"--"He'll be sent over the rim of
the basin right quick!" One indignant Saint, with a talent for
euphemism, was heard to say, "Brigham will have his spirit disembodied!"

To the priests and Elders on the platform Elder Wardle was saying, "The
trouble with him was he was crazy with fever. Why, I'll bet my best set
of harness his pulse ain't less than a hundred and twenty this minute."

The others looked at Brigham.

"He's a crazy man, sure enough," assente