ite about my riders please come to me at once."

When he had gone Jane resolutely applied her mind to a number of tasks
that of late had been neglected. Her father had trained her in the
management of a hundred employees and the working of gardens and fields;
and to keep record of the movements of cattle and riders. And beside the
many duties she had added to this work was one of extreme delicacy, such
as required all her tact and ingenuity. It was an unobtrusive, almost
secret aid which she rendered to the Gentile families of the village.
Though Jane Withersteen never admitted so to herself, it amounted to no
less than a system of charity. But for her invention of numberless kinds
of employment, for which there was no actual need, these families of
Gentiles, who had failed in a Mormon community, would have starved.

In aiding these poor people Jane thought she deceived her keen
churchmen, but it was a kind of deceit for which she did not pray to be
forgiven. Equally as difficult was the task of deceiving the Gentiles,
for they were as proud as they were poor. It had been a great grief to
her to discover how these people hated her people; and it had been a
source of great joy that through her they had come to soften in hatred.
At any time this work called for a clearness of mind that precluded
anxiety and worry; but under the present circumstances it required all
her vigor and obstinate tenacity to pin her attention upon her task.

Sunset came, bringing with the end of her labor a patient calmness and
power to wait that had not been hers earlier in the day. She expected
Judkins, but he did not appear. Her house was always quiet; to-night,
however, it seemed unusually so. At supper her women served her with a
silent assiduity; it spoke what their sealed lips could not utter--the
sympathy of Mormon women. Jerd came to her with the key of the great
door of the stone stable, and to make his daily report about the horses.
One of his daily duties was to give Black Star and Night and the other
racers a ten-mile run. This day it had been omitted, and the boy grew
confused in explanations that she had not asked for. She did inquire if
he would return on the morrow, and Jerd, in mingled surprise and relief,
assured her he would always work for her. Jane missed the rattle and
trot, canter and gallop of the incoming riders on the hard trails. Dusk
shaded the grove where she walked; the birds ceased singing; the wind
sighed through