The Mormon Prophet, Lily Dougall [young adult books to read TXT] 📗

loved you best."

There had been a great silence in the air about them, but now there was again the sound of firing at the distance of about a mile. The Danite's pulses leaped, but he did not, because of that, allow himself to speak or move.

Susannah spoke again, resting her hand on Halsey's brow, "You know, dear, I don't know whether you and baby are anywhere--anywhere"; wildly, as if the appalling loneliness of its meaning had flashed upon her dulled brain, she repeated the word.

The Danite's sympathy rose within him; he staggered forward and bent over her. "Don't, ma'am," he said, "don't go on talking like that. I was with my own mother when she died, when I was a little chap, and I know how it is, and you'd much better try to shed tears, ma'am, indeed you had."

Susannah lifted to him a blank face, disturbed but uncomprehending.

He decided what to do; the thought of action restored him. He ran with all his might back to the houses, and, finding a pick and spade, came again. This time, more confident of himself, he had more control over Susannah.

"We must make the grave right here, ma'am, and do you go and gather some flowers to put on it, for we must just put them two away out of sight before the devils come back. It's what he would want, you know." He pointed to Halsey and repeated the words until she understood.

It even seemed a relief to her then to move about too, and find that there was something she could do, but she did not obey him blindly. While in a soft place close by he delved with might and main, displacing the earth with incredible speed, Susannah, sobbing all the time, but tearless, went into the waggon and brought out certain things which she chose with care--a locked box, the best garments belonging to herself, her husband, and child, and the baby's toys.

It was no neat gravedigger's work that the Danite accomplished; he had made a deep, large hole, but the cavity sloped at the sides so that they could step in and out. Susannah brought her little store and lined the earth first with the garments.

"You may want some of those things of your own, ma'am," said the Danite.

She paid no heed; when she had made the couch to her mind she signed to him to lay Halsey and the child in it, which he did. She herself stooped in the grave to clasp the dead man's hands more tightly over the little one's form, and her last touch was to stroke Halsey's hair from off the brow. She laid the baby playthings at Halsey's feet; she unlocked the box and took from it all the household treasures that so far she had sought to keep--some silver, a few small ornaments, a few books, and Halsey's Book of Mormon, in which was written their marriage and the baby's birth. She brought a silken shawl, the one bit of finery that remained from her girlish days. She covered her dead with it very carefully, tucking it in as though they slept; then she moved away, wringing her hands and heaving convulsive sighs. The Danite put back the earth.

All the grass was strewn pretty thickly with poplar leaves, gold, lined with white, and after leaning against a tree some minutes looking away from the grave, Susannah began gathering up these leaves hastily, so that when he levelled the earth she could strew the top, hiding the place from the curious eyes of strangers.

"I guess, ma'am, if there's anything you would like to take with you now, we'd better go into the bush."

"No, there is nothing, but," she cried, "I thank you very much, and if there is anything that would be of use to you--"

When the Danite had first laid Halsey under the tree he had taken a white cloth from the tent and wiped the blood from the coat, that Susannah might not be too much shocked at the sight. He took this cloth now and tore it till the stained fragment alone remained in his hand. He thrust it in his breast.

"This will stand for the blood of them both," he said. "I guess that's all I want." But when he had started towards the thicket he remembered Susannah's needs, and went back for a blanket.

The poplar saplings that bordered the creek were still holding a thin gold canopy overhead, and the dogwood was glinting with scarlet. The other members of the community had gone so far ahead that it was a long time before, making their toilsome way, they came upon their former neighbours.

The fugitives had called a halt where a brook which passed through the bush offered some relief to the pain and fever of those who were wounded. One of these, a little girl, had already died by the way, and her frantic mother began to reproach Susannah, wailing that if the child had not been saying her texts to the elder she would not have been a mark for the enemy.

The men were cutting down saplings to make place for a camp. It was their intention to remain, going back under the cover of night to get food and blankets from the houses, if they were not pillaged and burned, going back in any case to bury their dead at the first streak of dawn.

The Danite turned to Susannah. "I guess, ma'am, neither you nor I have got any business to take us back, and there's enough of the brothers here to do the work."

Susannah went on with the young man through hour after hour of the afternoon farther and farther into the unknown fastnesses of the wood. They left behind them the low thicket of second growth, and penetrated into an uncleared Missouri forest.


CHAPTER XII.

All the powers of the young Danite were strung by excitement into the fiercest vitality, and he thought that physical fatigue was the best medicine for Susannah's mind. Why he had accepted the work of saving her as part of his mission of Mormon defence he did not ask himself. In him, as in many athletes, thought and action seemed one. He acted because he acted; he knew no other reason.

In the middle of the night Susannah woke up. The stars glimmered above the trees; she was lying on a heap of autumn leaves wrapped in the blanket. Sitting up, she remembered slowly the events of the preceding day.

Her movement had caused another movement at some distance. The Danite, sleeping on the alert like soldier or huntsman, was roused by the first sound she made, and when she continued to sit up he came near in the glimmering light. She saw his dark form where he tarried a few paces away.

"You're all safe, ma'am. Can't you go on sleeping?"

A watch of the night often brings to recollection some duty forgotten during the day. "Do you know where Elvira Halsey is?"

"The young lady with the brown eyes that I have sometimes seen you with, ma'am?"

"Yes." Then Susannah added with the weak detail of a wretched mind, "She isn't very young."

"Was she any relation to you, ma'am? Were you very affectionate with her?"

Susannah explained the relationship.

The Danite thought, "If I tell her she's there she'll think it her duty to trapse back all the way to find her; she's that sort." Therefore, judging that a minor grief could not make much difference, he gave it as his opinion that Elvira was dead. At this Susannah shed tears for the first time, which eased his anxiety not a little.

Susannah did not know the Danite's name; it never occurred to her to ask him any question about himself.

At dawn they started again upon their tramp. The man knew the country, and when the sun was up he brought Susannah out of the forest to a settler's farm. She was faint now for want of food, walking again, as she had walked last night, with vacant eyes and dull mechanical tread.

The Danite made her sit down upon a stone near the house, and brought a woman to her who carried bread and milk. Susannah ate and drank without speaking.

"My! but she's tired," said the farmer's wife. "It's a cruel shame to make her walk so far; you're not a good husband to her, I'm thinking."

Having satisfied her need, Susannah turned away dully without a word. The settler's wife offered the remainder of the bread and milk to the Danite, who regarded it with famished eyes.

"Where's your husband?" he asked.

"We've enough men about the place."

"Where is your husband?"

"He's away with the militia under Lucas."

"Then I'll not touch his food," said the Danite. With an oath he flung the cup and plate upon the ground. "Do you see that woman there?" He pointed to Susannah. "I took the food for her, for she had died without it. Yesterday devils like your husband shot her child in her arms and her husband before her eyes, and to Almighty God I pray that when I've got her to some safe place I may have strength yet to shoot your husband and your children, shoot them down like dogs, and laugh at you because you don't like it." The restrained passion of all the long preceding hours broke out. His face was ashen, his eyes burning; there was foam about his lips as, with thick utterance, he hurled the words at her.

The woman stepped back in dismay, but she, too, was enraged now, and courage was the habit of the free life she led. "You are a bloody Mormon," she cried, "and if I'd known it I'd have let your woman die before I'd have fed her." She walked backwards, her voice rising higher with passion. Unable to think connectedly, she shrieked the phrases she had in mind. "Coming here to spread idolatry in a Christian country! Teaching superstition in a free Christian land!" She was still shrieking some jargon about the United States being founded on the Word of God, and the divine right to exterminate all Mormons, when he, walking fast, joined Susannah.

They had not gone much further before a large dog which the settler's wife had evidently let loose, came after them with fierce intent. The Danite turned, and as the dog sprang, slew it with one stab of his knife, and, leaving it bleeding upon the road, hurried Susannah into the forest.

It was a tradition upon that farm for years afterwards that these two Mormons, after receiving charity, had made an open display of that wanton wickedness which was habitual to them.

Susannah and the Danite travelled on for many hours. The way was not easy. Sometimes where the trees were thin their legs were tangled knee-deep in a plant covered with minute white feathery blossoms, looking like white swan's-down shot through with green light, that carpeted miles of the ground; sometimes the trees had fallen so thickly that they had to clamber from log to log rather than walk; sometimes their way was a bog, and they were in danger of sinking deeper than was safe.

Susannah asked no questions. She had heard and understood all the words that had passed in the incident of the morning. She felt cowed now, afraid to think what might come next; it was enough that the Danite had evidently some point in view.

About four in the afternoon they left the forest and came