Then, as she describes her visit to the Twenty-fifth Ward meeting, and Oliver Livingston"s treatment of her after his discovery that she is the daughter of a polygamist, he mutters sadly: "To see you married to Livingston--a man of your own rank and place in New York society--has been the hope of my old age!"
Here the girl astonishes him. She answers: "Had you been the greatest saint this earth has ever seen, Oliver Livingston would never have had me for his wife. Besides"--and she laughs airily--"I could have Mr.
Ollie back at my side in a week. He loves my million well enough to take me for it."
"Then bring him back!"
"Never!"
"Never! Why not?" This last almost savagely.
"Because _I_ will not marry _him_!"
There is an enthusiasm and determination in the girl"s manner that makes this gentleman--who is well accustomed to reading men, and perhaps has had some experience, in his plural marriages, of women--suddenly cry out: "No, you will not wed Livingston because you love another!"
"Who is that?" says the girl, attempting a laugh, but her face becoming very red in the dim light of flickering tallow and kerosene oil.
"Harry Lawrence, who hates Bishop Tranyon of Salt Lake so much that I hardly think he will marry the daughter of Ralph Travenion of New York!"
returns her father easily.
But Erma does not answer this. She has turned away to the window, and is looking down the hill and over the alkaline plains, and her blushes are only seen by a jack-rabbit who peers at her from behind a sage bush.
Then she faces her father and cries: "No matter what comes, you shall do justice to Harry Lawrence! You shall withdraw your claim to his property!"
"Oh ho!" laughs the Mormon. "Give up what I am on the point of winning?
Bishop Tranyon of Salt Lake will never do that. That is not his style."
"No," cries the girl; "but my father, Ralph Travenion, of New York, who was once worthy the love of all who knew him, will do justice to a wronged man, because he still loves the daughter who has travelled over two thousand miles to meet him here, and who he says has brought peril upon herself, for love of him!" And looking on him, her eyes grow soft and tender as they used to gaze at him when she was proud of him at party and _fete_ in far-away New York, as she murmurs: "What will Ralph Travenion do for his daughter?"
"For his daughter"s sake, Ralph Travenion will do anything!" mutters the old man; then says pathetically, almost brokenly: "For G.o.d"s sake, give me one kiss of your own will! You have spoken to me an hour, and as yet no daughter"s kiss!"
With that the girl comes to him, puts her arms about him, and kisses him, as she used to when she was a child, and before she knew he was a Mormon and a polygamist.
"Do with me what you will!" he continues. "What do you want for this young man, who I can see is getting the first place in your heart?"
"Justice!" cries Erma. "I want you to telegraph your lawyer to stipulate that the injunction on his mine be removed."
"And what more?"
"Resign your claim to his property."
"But Kruger also owns stock in the Zion Co-operative Mining Inst.i.tution."
"Buy his stock!"
"Very well, though you are robbing yourself!" mutters the man. "I"ll do it!--if--if you"ll forgive me."
"I"ll forgive you, if you"ll let me lead you away from this awful place--away from sin!" cries Erma.
But here he astonishes and horrifies her, for he whispers to her: "_Yes, if we can get away alive!_"
"What is to stop us?" falters the young lady.
Before answering her, Ralph takes up the light, walks into the other room, examines it; goes up the ladder, into the loft overhead, and finally inspects the outside of the house; then he returns, saying: "No one is within hearing!" comes up to her, and whispers:
"The Mormon Church!"
"What authority has the Mormon Church over me?" asks the young lady, raising her voice a little.
"Hush! Not so loud!" he returns. "The Mormon Church claims authority over the children, by virtue of their authority over the parent. In ordinary cases they perhaps would not at this late date exercise it, but in my case it is different. I am so prominent. They know to lose me would be a blow to them. At present they have lost several rich members, and they are desperate! And I"--here his lips approach her ear, and form rather than say the words--his voice is so low, his lips so trembling--"and I have been making arrangements to _apostatize_!"
"G.o.d bless you for that!" cries Erma.
To this he whispers: "You don"t suppose that I ever swallowed the dogmas of Joe Smith, which I preached as Mormon bishop? I joined them to desert them the moment I had made what money I wanted out of these Latter-Day Saints!" And, forgetting himself, he gives out two or three jeering scoffs. But the next moment his face grows frightened, and he mutters: "I have been"--his voice is very low again--"making arrangements to withdraw all my property from this Territory. I have now in New York, besides the million settled on you, a very large sum of money; but I have also such a block of stock of the Utah Central Railway that, if I sell it to the right parties, the Mormon Church will lose control of the road; that I have not yet been able to remove. But they suspect me!" he goes on dolefully. "I have been asked to immediately pay my t.i.thing, which they figure at one hundred thousand dollars for this year, claiming that I have made a million. I have hidden the stock and I was about to refuse, but your coming here has made that, I fear, impossible."
Then he wrings his hands, and says: "When an apostate is cut off, he is destroyed--root and branch. The family suffer as well as the man, and you--and _you_, Erma--YOU!"
"Your stock! Is it near here?" asks the girl eagerly.
"Certainly." Here he whispers to her: "In case of anything happening to me, it is hidden in the level running from Shaft No. 2 in the mine, on this hillside. It is in a tin box under the fourth set of timbers to the right of the incline. Remember it!"
"Why not take it? Leave to-night--fly on horseback."
"Where?"
"To the Pacific Railroad."
He laughs grimly, and taking her to the window, cries: "This is a fine country to get out of!" Then he points over the sage brush and explains: "To the west is the Tintic Valley--thirty miles of alkali; but, beyond it, hills and one spring; then one hundred miles of desert, burning sand, and no water that man or beast can drink. Could we travel over that and live to reach the railroad? To the south,--Mormon settlements on the Servier River--Beaver, Parowan, the very hot-bed of Mormonism.
Beyond them, Lee"s Ferry on the Colorado!" And he shudders as he mentions the name of John D. Lee, not as yet sacrificed by the Mormon Church, for whom he murdered one hundred and thirty-three men, women, and children, at Mountain Meadows. "After Lee"s Ferry, deserts and the Apache. To the east, Mormon settlements--Santaquin, Nephi, Juab, Manti--and, back of them, the impa.s.sable desert-plateaus and mountain ranges of the Rockies--mighty rivers that foam through gorges thousands of feet deep--and Ute Indians!"
"But to the north, father--the way I came--hardly one hundred miles!"
"That is our only path," mutters the man. Then he says, doubtingly: "But still all Mormon. We may never reach Salt Lake City."
"Who"ll stop us?"
"That will never be known! But it is our one chance, and, once in Salt Lake, I think they dare not touch me. I"ll make arrangements to take you up to-morrow. Come with me now to the hotel."
"Why cannot I stay with you?"
"Humph!" he laughs. "The hotel is better than this. There is only one bed here. Besides, some one would say," he chuckles rather grimly, "Bishop Tranyon has taken another wife! And I do not wish it to be generally known you are my daughter. Then, too, I have a telegram to send."
"Oh, yes!" cries the girl, "for Captain Lawrence!" And she accompanies him down the trail that winds to the road coming from Silver City to Eureka.
So, in about half an hour, Miss Travenion finds herself seated at a comfortable supper in the hotel. And some time after--her father having gone off to send the promised telegram--being very tired, she goes up to her room, where she finds a clean cot bed, and goes to rest, thinking: "If my life is ruined, his life has been, perhaps, made more happy by this day"s work--he will be rich."
So, pondering of the absent man, who is not yet her lover, yet whom she now knows she loves, she murmurs: "He will come here to put men at work once more upon his mine; he will learn that I am the daughter of Tranyon, the Mormon bishop!" and shudders and writhes at the thought.
Next she says more hopefully: "Perhaps when he finds his property his own once more he will not hate the Mormon bishop so much as he did yesterday," and this seems to comfort her a little, for she goes to sleep.
Early next morning, Erma is awakened by her father"s sharp knock upon the door. He whispers to her: "Quick! You must be ready to start soon!"