I'd have
asked you and the child to git into Emmar's waggon; but there's just
this to say, there ain't a tribulation that can come to you that won't
hurt me, living or dead, more than it can hurt you." Then after a pause
he added, "Emmar sent her dear love and good-bye to ye."

He stood still a moment before her in humble attitude, the words of
Emma's tender farewell lingering, as it were, in the air between them.

"Have a care what you do." (He resumed a more dignified manner of
speech.) "It's borne in upon my mind that great dangers will lie round
you. Tell brother Halsey from me that it is the will of the Lord that he
should seek first the safety of his wife and child, and to abide in a
place of safety till the child be grown."

He climbed through the window. His last act was to close the casement
behind him to save her trembling hands the exertion. His movements must
have been very stealthy, for she did not hear the sound of his steps or
the steps of his horse in the silent night.

CHAPTER IX.

After Smith left Kirtland there was a great exodus Missouri-ward of his
more devout followers. The army which had gone out from Kirtland in '34
to the rescue of the fugitives from the city of Zion in Missouri had
failed, through disease and exhaustion, to make warlike demonstration;
but the principle then accepted by the children of Zion of opposing
force to force in self-defence, had been bearing fruit ever since in a
bloody warfare between the hunted Saints of Missouri and their more
powerful neighbours.

Before the Saints took up arms the Missourians had, it would seem, no
real ground of offence against them except the religious faith which led
them to proclaim that the land was to be given to them by the Lord for
an everlasting possession. Now this provocation was still in force,
added to the greater one that the worm had turned.

So futile had been the mad persecutions, so fruitful the blood of the
martyrs, that by this time there were some ten thousand Saints in
Missouri, all heads of families, for although Zion in Jackson County
still lay waste, and the colonies of Clay County had been swept away,
the cities of Far West and Diahman, and numerous villages near them, had
risen like magic, built by the thrift, the organisation, and the
temperance of the Saints.

As for Kirtland, the hope of making it a prosperous city had died with
the failure of the bank. Of the few who remained two distinct parties
wer