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times. He therefore accosted him when he got up to him, with
the object of finding out what Lucy Ferrier's fate had been.

"I am Jefferson Hope," he said. "You remember me."

The Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment --
indeed, it was difficult to recognize in this tattered,
unkempt wanderer, with ghastly white face and fierce,
wild eyes, the spruce young hunter of former days.
Having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his identity,
the man's surprise changed to consternation.

"You are mad to come here," he cried. "It is as much as my
own life is worth to be seen talking with you. There is a
warrant against you from the Holy Four for assisting the
Ferriers away."

"I don't fear them, or their warrant," Hope said, earnestly.
"You must know something of this matter, Cowper. I conjure
you by everything you hold dear to answer a few questions.
We have always been friends. For God's sake, don't refuse
to answer me."

"What is it?" the Mormon asked uneasily. "Be quick.
The very rocks have ears and the trees eyes."

"What has become of Lucy Ferrier?"

"She was married yesterday to young Drebber. Hold up, man,
hold up, you have no life left in you."

"Don't mind me," said Hope faintly. He was white to the very
lips, and had sunk down on the stone against which he had
been leaning. "Married, you say?"

"Married yesterday -- that's what those flags are for on the
Endowment House. There was some words between young Drebber
and young Stangerson as to which was to have her. They'd
both been in the party that followed them, and Stangerson had
shot her father, which seemed to give him the best claim; but
when they argued it out in council, Drebber's party was the
stronger, so the Prophet gave her over to him. No one won't
have her very long though, for I saw death in her face yesterday.
She is more like a ghost than a woman. Are you off, then?"

"Yes, I am off," said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his
seat. His face might have been chiselled out of marble,
so hard and set was its expression, while its eyes glowed with
a baleful light.

"Where are you going?"

"Never mind," he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his
shoulder, strode off down the gorge and so away into the
heart of the mountains to the haunts of the wild beasts.
Amongst them all there was none so fierce and so dangerous as
himself.

The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled.
Whether it was the terrible death of her father or the
effects of the hateful marriage into which she had been
forced, poor Lucy never held up her head again, but pined
away and died within a month. Her sottish husband, who had
married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier's
property, did not affect any great grief at his bereavement;
but his other wives mourned over her, and sat up with her the
night before the burial, as is the Mormon custom.

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