"What do you want with Obadiah Price?"
"The president of the United States wants him. That"s all I know. Where is he?"
"Back there--dead or very badly wounded! We"ve just had a fight with the king"s men--"
The lieutenant broke in with a sharp command to his men.
"Quick, lead us to him. Captain Plum! If he"s not dead--"
He started off at a half run beside Nathaniel.
"Lord, it"s a pretty mess if he is!" he added breathlessly. Without pausing he called back over his shoulder, "Regan, fall out and return to the ship. Tell the captain that Obadiah Price is badly wounded and that we want the surgeon on the run!"
A turn in the path brought them to the opening where the fight had occurred. Marion was on her knees beside the old councilor.
Nathaniel hurried ahead of the lieutenant and his men. The girl glanced up at him and his heart filled with dread at the terror in her eyes.
"Is he dead?"
"No--but--" Her voice trembled with tears.
Nathaniel did not let her finish. Gently he raised her to her feet as the lieutenant came up.
"You must go to the cabin, sweetheart," he whispered.
Even in this moment of excitement and death his great love drove all else from his eyes, and the blood surged into Marion"s pale cheeks as she tremblingly gave him her hand. He led her to the door, and held her for a moment in his arms.
"Strang is dead," he said softly. In a few words he told her what had happened and turned back to the door, leaving her speechless.
"If he is dying--you will tell me--" she called after him.
"Yes, yes, I will tell you."
He ran back into the opening.
The lieutenant had doubled his coat under Obadiah"s head and his face was pale as he looked up at Nathaniel. The latter saw in his eyes what his lips kept silent. The officer held something in his hand. It was the mysterious package which Captain Plum had taken his oath to deliver to the president of the United States.
"I don"t dare move until the surgeon comes," said the lieutenant. "He wants to speak to you. I believe, if he has anything to say you had better hear it now."
His last words were in a whisper so low that Nathaniel scarcely heard them. As the lieutenant rose to his feet, he whispered again.
"He is dying!"
Obadiah"s eyes opened as Nathaniel knelt beside him and from between his thin lips there came faintly the old, gurgling chuckle.
"Nat!" he breathed. His thin hand sought his companion"s and clung to it tightly. "We have won. The vengeance of G.o.d--has come!"
In these last moments all madness had left the eyes of Obadiah Price.
"I want to tell you--" he whispered, and Nathaniel bent low. "I have given him the package. It is evidence I have gathered--all these years--to destroy the Mormon kingdom."
He tried to turn his head.
"Marion--" he whispered wistfully.
"She will come," said Nathaniel. "I will call her."
"No--not yet."
Obadiah"s fingers tightened about Captain Plum"s.
"I want to tell--you."
For a few moments he seemed struggling to command all his strength.
"A good many years ago," he said, as if speaking to himself, "I loved a girl--like Marion, and she loved me--as Marion loves you. Her people were Mormons, and they went to Kirtland--and I followed them. We planned to escape and go east, for my Jean was good and beautiful, and hated the Mormons as I hated them. But they caught us and--thought--they--killed--"
The old man"s lips twitched and a convulsive shudder shook his body.
"When everything came back to me I was older--much older," he went on.
"My hair was white. I was like an old man. My people had found me and they told me that I had been mad for three years, Nat--mad--mad--mad!
and that a great surgeon had operated on my head, where they struck me--and brought me back to reason. Nat--Nat--" He strained to raise himself, gasping excitedly. "G.o.d, I was like you then, Nat! I went back to fight for my Jean. She was gone. n.o.body knew me, for I was an old man. I hunted from settlement to settlement. In my madness I became a Mormon, for vengeance--in hope of finding her. I was rich, and I became powerful. I was made an elder because of my gold. Then I found--"
A moan trembled on the old man"s lips.
"--they had forced her to marry--the son of a Mormon--"
He stopped, and for a moment his eyes seemed filling with the glazed shadows of death. He roused himself almost fiercely.
"But he loved my Jean, Nat--he loved her as I loved her--and he was a good man!", he whispered shrilly. "Quick--quick--I must tell you--they had tried to escape from Missouri and the Danites killed him,--and Joseph Smith wanted Jean and at the last moment she killed herself to save her honor as Marion was going to do, and she left two children--"
He coughed and blood flecked his lips.
"She left--Marion and Neil!"
He sank back, ashen white and still, and with a cry Nathaniel turned to the lieutenant. The officer ran forward with a flask in his hand.
"Give him this!"
The touch of liquor to Obadiah"s lips revived him. He whispered weakly.
"The children, Nat--I tried to find them--and years after--I did--in Nauvoo. The man and woman who had killed the father in their own house had taken them and were raising them as their own. I went mad!
Vengeance--vengeance--I lived for it, year after year. I wanted the children--but if I took them all would be lost. I followed them, watched them, loved them--and they loved me. I would wait--wait--until my vengeance would fall like the hand of G.o.d, and then I would free them, and tell them how beautiful their mother was. When Joseph Smith was killed and the split came the old folks followed Strang--and I--I too--"
He rested a moment, breathing heavily.
"I brought my Jean with me and buried her up there on the hill--the middle grave, Nat, the middle grave--Marion"s mother."
Nathaniel pressed the liquor to the old man"s lips again.