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Oh, father, father,
what shall we do?"
"Don't you scare yourself," he answered, drawing her to him,
and passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her
chestnut hair. "We'll fix it up somehow or another.
You don't find your fancy kind o' lessening for this chap,
do you?"
A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.
"No; of course not. I shouldn't care to hear you say you
did. He's a likely lad, and he's a Christian, which is more
than these folk here, in spite o' all their praying and
preaching. There's a party starting for Nevada to-morrow,
and I'll manage to send him a message letting him know the
hole we are in. If I know anything o' that young man, he'll
be back here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs."
Lucy laughed through her tears at her father's description.
"When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is
for you that I am frightened, dear. One hears -- one hears
such dreadful stories about those who oppose the Prophet:
something terrible always happens to them."
"But we haven't opposed him yet," her father answered.
"It will be time to look out for squalls when we do.
We have a clear month before us; at the end of that,
I guess we had best shin out of Utah."
"Leave Utah!"
"That's about the size of it."
"But the farm?"
"We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go.
To tell the truth, Lucy, it isn't the first time I have
thought of doing it. I don't care about knuckling under to
any man, as these folk do to their darned prophet. I'm a
free-born American, and it's all new to me. Guess I'm too
old to learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he might
chance to run up against a charge of buckshot travelling in
the opposite direction."
"But they won't let us leave," his daughter objected.
"Wait till Jefferson comes, and we'll soon manage that.
In the meantime, don't you fret yourself, my dearie,
and don't get your eyes swelled up, else he'll be walking into
me when he sees you. There's nothing to be afeared about,
and there's no danger at all."
John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very
confident tone, but she could not help observing that he paid
unusual care to the fastening of the doors that night, and
that he carefully cleaned and loaded the rusty old shotgun
which hung upon the wall of his bedroom.
CHAPTER IV.
A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.
ON the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon
Prophet, John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having
found his acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada
Mountains, he entrusted him with his message to Jefferson
Hope. In it he told the young man of the imminent danger
which threatened them, and how necessary it was that he
should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his mind,
and returned home with a lighter heart.
As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse
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