pon a low wall at the side of
the crowd.

"Look on this picture and on this," cried Elvira in a voice audible to
many too illiterate to comprehend.

The two men, each standing erect above the heads of the crowd, could not
have showed sharper contrast. Penniston was coarse of limb and feature;
a low grade of moral disorder stamped his face as clearly as inferior
articles are ever stamped; no inspector of goods so relentless as God's
servant Time! Halsey had bared his head to the open sky, as though
invoking the presence of God in his temple. Upon features too thin and
haggard for beauty, patience and love and truth were written by every
line.

Halsey's voice, accustomed to preaching, fell with clear modulations
upon the summer air.

"'Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake and the gospel's.'
Friends, this evil that is spoken against us whom ye call Mormons is
falsely spoken, and I stand here before you, and before the great Father
of Truth, who is calling his children everywhere to repent, to say that
every Mormon who has a vote has a right to exercise it, for we have
committed none of the crimes of which you accuse us, but you yourselves,
as you well know, are many of you here to try to put into office men who
are undoubted criminals."

In surprise Penniston and his hearers had listened, but now a man,
half-drunk perhaps, sprang upon the low wall upon which Halsey stood,
and struck him savagely.

"He is all alone," cried Susannah, "all alone among so many." She tried
to struggle forward toward her husband through the crowd.

Halsey believed himself to be alone, and it was not in accordance with
his principles to make any attempt to return the violence by which he
had been assailed; but to his astonishment now a stout man leaped to
his assistance, suddenly belabouring his assailant with blows, and from
far and near in the crowd there were shouts of encouragement from burly
Mormon farmers who had only needed the voice of a leader to declare
themselves. Halsey had thrown a spark, unconscious that a mass of powder
lay near. When the men of Penniston's party turned with savage fury upon
the Mormon who was beating their companion, and the Mormons, no less
fierce, rallied round Halsey and his defender, the fight became general.

Elvira set her quick wits to work to weave a cord that would be strong
enough to draw Susannah back to their in