Miss Dividends Part 29

"Then I believe ye. No one could take that affidavit and lie!" says Lot, devoutly.

A second after, he goes on suddenly and suspiciously: "But it is reported, among the Saints in the city, you're getting lukewarm in the faith, R. H."

"And you, Lot--what did you say?" asks Travenion anxiously.

"I said it was a confounded lie! That there wa'n't a truer Mormon than R. H. Tranyon on the 'arth! Tell me so yerself;" and the voice of the man becomes pleading as he continues: "We have been pards so long I wouldn't like to cut ye off."

"I swear it!" gasps Ralph. "I'm a true Mormon!" For now he is sure that the man appointed to be his destroying angel stands before him.

"You can prove it!"

"How?"

"You've a little lamb down here----"

"My G.o.d!"

"Make a sacrifice of her to the Lord! Let Ermie take her endowments, and the Church and I will believe ye're true to the faith of Joseph Smith, the prophet, and Hyrum, his brother."

To this Tranyon makes no reply for one second. Then he mutters suddenly and brokenly: "Tell them I'll pay my t.i.thing with the Utah Central stock."

"At fifty?"

"Yes, at any figure they like; only, for G.o.d's sake, leave my daughter out of this business. I'll bring it with me!"

"Ah, that 'ere stock's down here!" says Kruger suddenly. "Now you're coming round, bishop, to the demands of the Church, I'll tell you some good news I have for you. They're goin' to make you a missionary to England!"

"Aha! before the election in the Utah Central?"

"Yes; the Church will vote the rest of yer stock for ye."

"But my daughter!" falters Travenion. "I can't leave her!"

"Don't have no fear for her, bishop! I'll look after her as if she was my own." And Kruger's...o...b.. light with sudden pa.s.sion. "I've been keepin'

my eyes on her. She's a----"

But he says no more, for Erma Travenion sweeps in between the men, with such a look in her blazing eyes that they both fall back from her.

She cries, "Father, you pay _no_ t.i.thing to the Mormon Church. Your daughter takes _none_ of its vile mysteries of endowment!"

"Quit yer blasphemy of the Church of Zion!" yells Kruger to the girl.

Then he turns on Travenion and rebukes him sternly, "Bishop, your darter's been brought up wrong! She's too high-spir'ted and wayward! I never 'low no woman in my household--wife or darter--to lift up her voice ag'in me and my doin's. If Miss Upity were my gal I'd take the blaspheming out of her with a heavy hand."

But here astonishment comes on Erma. Her father says: "Kruger, you're right! My daughter has been brought up wrong! I now see my error in not bringing her into the true faith. She shall take her endowments!"

"First kill me!" cries the girl, who cannot believe what she hears.

"Kill ye!" answers Lot. "Why, it will be the making of ye. Saving yer soul from perdition, is yer daddy's duty, my child."

"Saving my soul?" screams Erma. "Saving my soul?--by making me one of your horrible sect that degrades both women and men also by its b.e.s.t.i.a.l creed!" And indignation makes her beauty greater than it was before--so great that fanatic Lot's eyes grow as bright as hers, though with a different gleam.

But her father stops more, by saying hastily: "Kruger, go up to Salt Lake. Tell them I'll pay my t.i.thing in the Central stock at their figure. Tell them I'll vote the balance as they please, and my daughter _shall_ take her endowments!"

"Swear 't as you hope for Heaven!" cries Lot.

"As I hope for the Mormon paradise!" answers Travenion.

At this the girl gives two awful gasps; one--"Deserted by the man I once thought loved me!"--the other--"Betrayed by my father."

And the two men leaving her, she sinks down, dumb with despair. After a moment their footsteps pa.s.s down the trail.

In a few minutes, thought and movement coming to their victim, she rises, and staggering to the door to make some wild effort to fly, is met by her father, who whispers to her: "Forgive me!"

"Promising me to the degradation of the Mormon Church. How can I forgive that?" Then she sighs, "How could my father do this?"

"For both our lives!" he whispers. "Kruger has gone to Salt Lake. I have a certain plan for our escape;" and would put his arms about her and soothe her.

But the girl bursts from him, sobbing wildly. And he bends over her, trying to comfort her, and sobbing also: "It was for both our lives!

Erma, darling, could you not see it? Don't you know that I would die for you!" Then he mutters, "It would have been a pity if, for a few words, we had lost our opportunity to--defeat this Mormon rustic--we, whose intellects have been sharpened in the outside world. What is pride against success? Be a woman of sense as well as of emotions. Pardon me using diplomacy in my extremity. Aid me to carry out my plan!"

And she remembering that this man is her father and has, up to the present time, treated her as the daughter of his pride and love, queries, "How? What plan?" then mutters despairingly: "What matter; you have given him your oath."

"Pis.h.!.+ By my hope of the Mormon Heaven," he jeers; then whispers in a voice whose earnestness compels attention: "Kruger has gone to Salt Lake to tell them of my submission. To-morrow morning you leave, _without me_, for Salt Lake City; with you shall go my stock in the Utah Central Railroad. When there, express that stock to my order at San Francisco, by Wells, Fargo & Co., taking their receipt for the same by certificate numbers and valuing it at five hundred thousand dollars. I'll risk W.

F. & Co. standing the Mormon Church off for half a million, for I'll pay no more t.i.thing to Brigham Young." And he grinds his teeth, thinking of what he has already paid.

"But I may be cut off on the road!" falters Erma.

"No, there is no chance of that," he answers; next cries: "Good G.o.d! you don't think I would put peril on you! Listen how I have guarded you."

Then he hastily explains that she is to travel _via_ Tooele, which will prevent any chance of Kruger's meeting her as he returns from his errand--for Lot always comes to Tintic by the shorter Lake road; that two Gentile miners, whom Ralph can trust, will guard her to Salt Lake City; that Kruger, on his return to Eureka, will find them both gone, and will try to follow his, Travenion's, track, for he will, of course, imagine they have fled _together_; that he will be sure to follow him, for Bishop R. H. Tranyon can be easily tracked, being well known all over the Territory, having time and again preached at Conference to Mormons who have come to the Tabernacle from the south and the north, the east and the west. "In finding me he will think to find you--so you at least will be safe," chuckles Ralph. Then he says earnestly: "As soon as you are in Salt Lake, take the train to Ogden, and then the U. P.

Railroad, and get to New York as quickly as you can. There I will meet you!"

"But you--what of you? While I seek safety, you sacrifice yourself?"

dissents the young lady, noting her father's idea tends to her escape, not his.

"That is the craftiness of my plan!" grins Travenion. "When Lot returns to Tintic I shall have also disappeared!"

"Where?"

"Into the bottom of my deserted mine!" chuckles her father. "No one will think of looking for me there. I have already stored the place with all the luxuries and comforts of life. While Kruger is seeking for me all over the Territory, arousing his Mormon fanatics to inflict upon me 'the vengeance of the Lord,' I shall be having a very comfortable time of it," sneers Ralph. "After he has gone, perhaps to the far southern settlements, to cut me off there, I shall come out and drive very quietly to the railroad, and take train for California or Omaha, whichever seems most safe."

"But they may recognize you in Salt Lake City!" suggests Erma.

"Hardly. I shall travel at night the entire way to Ogden, not even entering Salt Lake. Besides, the Church has put this matter into Kruger's hands, and will not interfere in his business, and Kruger will be away. I know the peculiar methods my saintly a.s.sociates have in these affairs--they want to punish only at second hand. No suspicion must fall upon apostles' heads; that might mean punishment from the government of the United States. Now," he says shortly, "will you do what I have explained to you for my sake--for your own safety?"

And the girl cries eagerly: "Yes! Anything to escape from this accursed land."

That night Ralph makes his preparations, and before daylight next morning he says to his daughter, who has already breakfasted, "Come with me. The wagon is at the foot of the hill."

Getting into the street, which is dark and deserted at this early hour and has quite a little fall of snow on it, November having far advanced, and Thanksgiving day being already celebrated, they move along the road towards Silver City; the only noise coming to them being occasional firing from Eureka Hill, where the fighting men of that company are exchanging playful shots with the guards of the King David, just to remind their employers that a raise in their salaries will be agreeable.