They turned silently and trotted back over the ridge.
"Come, sit here close by the fire, dear--no, around this side. It"s all over now."
"Oh! Oh! My poor, sorry little father--he was so good to me!" She threw herself on the ground, sobbing.
Follett spread a saddle-blanket over the huddled figure at the foot of the cross. Then he went back to take her in his arms and give her such comfort as he could.
CHAPTER XLIII.
_The Gentile Carries off his Spoil_
Half an hour later they heard the sound of voices and wheels. Follett looked up and saw a light wagon with four men in it driving into the Meadows from the south. The driver was Seth Wright; the man beside him he knew to be Bishop Snow, the one they called the Entablature of Truth.
The two others he had seen in Amalon, but he did not know their names.
He got up and went forward when the wagon stopped, leaning casually on the wheel.
"He"s already dead, but you can help me bury him as soon as I get my wife out of the way around that oak-brush--I see you"ve brought along a spade."
The men in the wagon looked at each other, and then climbed slowly out.
"Now who could "a" left that there spade in the wagon?" began the Wild Ram of the Mountains, a look of perplexity clouding his ingenuous face.
The Entablature of Truth was less disposed for idle talk.
"Who did you say you"d get out of the way, young man?"
"My wife, Mrs. Ruel Follett."
"Meaning Prudence Rae?"
"Meaning her that was Prudence Rae."
"Oh!"
The ruddy-faced Bishop scanned the horizon with a dreamy, speculative eye, turning at length to his companions.
"We better get to this burying," he said.
"Wait a minute," said Follett.
They saw him go to Prudence, raise her from the ground, put a saddle-blanket over his arm, and lead her slowly up the road around a turn that took them beyond a clump of the oak-brush.
"It won"t do!" said Wright, with a meaning glance at the Entablature of Truth, quite as if he had divined his thought.
"I"d like to know why not?" retorted this good man, aggressively.
"Because times has changed; this ain"t "57."
"It"ll almost do itself," insisted Snow. "What say, Glines?" and he turned to one of the others.
"Looks all right," answered the man addressed. "By heck! but that"s a purty saddle he carries!"
"What say, Taggart?"
"For G.o.d"s sake, no, Bishop! No--I got enough dead faces looking at me now from this place. I"m ha"nted into h.e.l.l a"ready, like he said he was yisterday. By G.o.d! I sometimes a"most think I"ll have my ears busted and my eyes put out to git away from the b.l.o.o.d.y things!"
"Ho! Scared, are you? Well, I"ll do it myself. _You_ don"t need to help."
"Better let well enough alone, Brother Warren!" interposed Wright.
"But it _ain"t_ well enough! Think of that girl going to a low cuss of a Gentile when Brigham wants her. Why, think of letting such a critter get away, even if Brigham didn"t want her!"
"You know they got Brother Brigham under indictment for murder now, account of that Aiken party."
"What of it? He"ll get off."
"That he will, but it"s because he"s Brigham. _You_ ain"t. You"re just a south country Bishop. Don"t you know he"d throw you to the Gentile courts as a sop quicker"n a wink if he got a chance,--just like he"ll do with old John D. Lee the minute George A. peters out so the chain will be broke between Lee and Brigham?"
"And maybe this cuss has got friends," suggested Glines.
"Who"d know but the girl?" Snow insisted. "And Brother Brigham would fix _her_ all right. Is the household of faith to be spoiled?"
"Well, they got a railroad running through it now," said Wright, "and a telegraph, and a lot of soldiers. So don"t you count on _me_, Brother Snow, at any stage of it now or afterwards. I got a pretty sizable family that would hate to lose me. Look out! Here he comes."
Follett now came up, speaking in a cheerful manner that nevertheless chilled even the enthusiasm of the good Bishop Snow.
"Now, gentlemen, just by way of friendly advice to you,--like as not I"ll be stepping in front of some of you in the next hour. But it isn"t going to worry me any, and I"ll tell you why. I"d feel awful sad for you all if anything was to happen to me,--if the Injuns got me, or I was took bad with a chill, or a jack-rabbit crept up and bit me to death, or anything. You see, there"s a train of twenty-five big J. Murphy wagons will be along here over the San Bernardino trail. They are coming out of their way, almost any time now, on purpose to pick me up. Fact is, my ears have been p.r.i.c.king up all morning to hear the old bull-whips crack.
There were thirty-one men in the train when they went down, and there may be more coming back. It"s a train of Ezra Calkins, my adopted father. You see, they know I"ve been here on special business, and I sent word the other day I was about due to finish it, and they wasn"t to go through coming back without me. Well, that bull outfit will stop for me--and they"ll _get_ me or get pay for me. That"s their orders. And it isn"t a train of women and babies, either. They"re such an outrageous rough lot, quick-tempered and all like that, that they wouldn"t believe the truth that I had an accident--not if you swore it on a stack of Mormon Bibles topped off by the life of Joe Smith. They"d go right out and make Amalon look like a whole cavayard of razor-hoofed buffaloes had raced back and forth over it. And the rest of the two thousand men on Ezra Calkins"s pay-roll would come hanging around pestering you all with Winchesters. They"d make you scratch gravel, sure!
"Now let"s get to work. I see you"ll be awful careful and tender with me. I"ll bet I don"t get even a sprained ankle. You folks get him, and I"ll show you where he said the place was."
Two hours later Follett came running back to where Prudence lay on the saddle-blanket in the warm morning sun.
"The wagon-train is coming--hear the whips? Now, look here, why don"t we go right on with it, in one of the big wagons? They"re coming back light, and we can have a J. Murphy that is bigger than a whole lot of houses in this country. You don"t want to go back there, do you?"
She shook her head.
"No, it would hurt me to see it now. I should be expecting to see him at every turn. Oh, I couldn"t stand that--poor sorry little father!"
"Well, then, leave it all; leave the place to the women, and good riddance, and come off with me. I"ll send one of the boys back with a pack-mule for any plunder you want to bring away, and you needn"t ever see the place again."
She nestled in his arms, feeling in her grief the comfort of his tenderness.
"Yes, take me away now."