In the rear car, Miss Travenion, anxious to throw from her mind a subject that is distressing, wanders to the organ,—for this Pullman was supplied with one, as were many Western sleepers in those days,—and seating herself at the instrument, runs her hands over the keys and begins to sing. Softly at first, but afterwards made enthusiastic by melody, this young lady, who has been very well taught and has a brilliant mezzo voice, forgets all else, and warbles the beauties of Balfe, Bellini, and Donizetti in a way that draws the attention of her fellow-passengers.

Among them is the Western Lot, who, getting near to her, watches the lithe movements and graceful poses of the girl's charming figure, and seeing her soul beaming from her glorious eyes, mutters to himself, "What an addition to our tabernacle choir after I have made her one of the elect." For this young lady's loveliness has, of late, been putting some very wild ideas into the head of this friend of her father.

She leaves the organ, and noting that Miss Travenion is somewhat alone, for the interview of the afternoon seems to have produced a slight coolness between Mr. Livingston and Erma, and perchance also Mrs. Livingston, this Western product thinks he will devote himself to the young lady's edification during the remainder of the evening, opening his remarks by, "You're comin' to a great country, Miss Ermie."

"Ah, what is that?" asks the girl nonchalantly but politely.

"Utah," replies the enthusiastic Lot, "whar the people of Zion have made the wilderness to blossom as a rose of Sharon."

"Oh yes, where my father is!" cries Miss Travenion, her eyes growing bright. "To-morrow we will be there."

"Yes, in the evening," assents Kruger, an indefinite something coming in his eyes that makes the young lady restless.

A moment after she suddenly asks: "Where is my father now?"

"How can I tell? I ain't seen your dad for nigh onto a month," returns Lot, apparently somewhat discomposed by this point-blank question.

"But you can surely make a guess," suggests Erma, "where a telegram will most probably reach him? I have concluded to wire him. Then he will meet me at the station. I wish I had done so before."

"Wall, Salt Lake is the most likely p'int, I reckon," mutters Kruger, who does not seem over pleased at the girl's idea. A second after he suddenly says: "You write the message and I'll make inquiries along the line. I reckon I'll find where he is and send it for you."

"Thank you," says Erma warmly. "I'll go and prepare it at once."

Then leaving Lot still pondering, she steps lightly away, and in a few minutes returns with the following:

"U. P. Train, Oct. 3, 1871.

"Arrive at Ogden, to-morrow, at five P.M. Will come through to Salt Lake same night. Meet me at depot.

"Your loving daughter,
"Erma Travenion."

"You'll add the right address to this when you find it, Mr. Kruger," says the girl, handing him the message.

"Yes, I'll make inquiries at Medicine Bow," returns Lot, taking the message, "and your dad'll get it to-morrow morning."

"Oh, you are going to stay up to send it? We don't get to Medicine Bow till late, I know by my time table. How kind you are! Papa shall thank you for this, also, dear Mr. Kruger," and Erma holds out a soft patrician hand, that is greedily seized in strong fingers made hard and red by exposure and toil.

Retreating from the grip, however, this New York young lady says earnestly, "Thank you once more, and au revoir until to-morrow."

"Oh, thank me all you want, Sissy; gratitude becomes young maidens," mutters Lot, trying to get the beautiful white fingers once more in his.

"Indeed I am grateful," cries the girl, and giving him a look that makes his eyes grow misty and watery, Miss Travenion closes the door of her stateroom, and goes to bed thinking no more of Mr. Kruger's peculiar expression and glances, for he is a friend of her father, and at the least has fifty odd years to his credit on the book of time.

She would be perhaps more concerned about her father's friend did she see Mr. Kruger, whose knowledge of French is very limited, after pondering to himself, "What did that gal mean by O-ver?" finally answer his query by "Guess ag'in, Lot," and betake himself to the smoking car, where, after perusing the girl's telegram several times, he slyly chuckles to himself, "What!—and spile my hopes for myself and my work for the Church?" and with this curious but ambiguous remark places the document coolly in his ample but well-worn pocketbook, between a list of Welsh emigrants en route for Salt Lake City and a despatch from Brigham Young; and shortly after that turn in and sleep the sleep of the just, making no attempt either to find her father's address nor to wire her message, either at Medicine Bow or any other point on the line.

Notwithstanding this, the next morning at Green River, where the train stops for breakfast, Mr. Kruger is on hand to help her from the car and say with paternal voice, "Sissy, Dad's happy now. Dad's happy now!"

"Ah, you've sent the message," exclaims Erma with grateful eyes.

"Yes, it flewed away during the early morning," mutters Lot, which happens to be the exact truth, as, thinking the thing over, he had concluded it was best not to have the message on his person, and had torn it and tossed it out of the car window to the winds of Heaven, as the train had run down those alkaline, non-drinkable waters, cursed by early emigrants and pioneers under the name of Bitter Creek.

But Erma Travenion hardly heeds him; her eyes are towards the West and she is murmuring, "Papa—perhaps this afternoon,—certainly to-night!—if not Ogden—surely Salt Lake!" and her face is so happy, and she goes to thanking Mr. Kruger so heartily for his kindness in sending the telegram, that he might have pangs of conscience as to what he intends for this Eastern butterfly, who comes with brightness on her wings into the West, had he not been used to dealing with all people sternly, even himself, when acting for the glories of Zion, and the smiting down of unbelievers.

Then being joined by the Livingstons and Mr. Chauncey, who have been looking at the surprising scenery of this river, the first water they have as yet met which flows into the blue Pacific, she goes in to breakfast; Mr. Kruger, who seems to feel more at his ease as he nears his native heath, walking alongside of Miss Beauty. Pointing to the great elk heads with their branching antlers on the hotel walls, he remarks, "Thar's any quantity of them critters up thar in the Wind River Mountains, in which this 'ere stream heads."

"You've been up there?" asks Ferdie, always excited when big game is mentioned.

"Wall rather," returns Lot. "I was up all about thar and the Rattlesnake Hills and the Sweetwater Mountains and South Pass and Independence Springs in 1857, when Johnston and the U.S. troops were comin' through, and we rounded up and burnt—" But here he stops very suddenly.

"What did you burn?" queries Mr. Chauncey, anxiously.

"Oh, nothin' to speak of—brushwood and such truck," returns the uncommunicative Lot. "But here's the dining-table, Sonny!"

Then the party being seated, notwithstanding Mr. Kruger's efforts at conversation and the delights of gastronomy, Miss Travenion's eyes will wander about, seeking an athletic figure that she sees not; for somehow she misses the man of yesterday, and despises herself for it.

Towards the close of their meal there is a slight commotion outside, and the man taking the money at the door as the wayfarers pass out, deserts his post. Ferdie, who is so seated that he can look through the open windows, suddenly says, "It's some accident;" next cries, "It's Buck Powers!" and rushes from the room.

A moment after Erma finds herself outside among an excited crowd, gazing at Captain Lawrence striding along the platform, bearing in his arms the form of Buck, the news-agent.

"The boy was coupling the cars, and forgot till too late they had Miller platforms that come together," says the captain, mentioning a kind of accident very common on the first introduction of this life-saving invention, which until railroad men got accustomed to it, was a source of danger instead of safety, as it now is. Then he goes on quite tenderly, "But I got there in time, didn't I, Buck?"

And the news-boy opens his red eyes and gasps, "You bet you did, pard," and there is a little cheer from the crowd, over which Lawrence's voice is heard: "Get a doctor, quick!"

Then a looker-on says, "Take him to the hotel."

But Buck groans, "Keep me on the train, or they will steal all my stock of goods and I'll be busted," and some one suggests the baggage car.

To this Lawrence quietly says, "No, I'll put him in my section," but on arriving there with the boy in his arms, he finds Erma standing beside him, and whispering, "My stateroom, please. It's quieter in there."

On hearing her voice, the young man looks at her a moment as if in thought; then shortly says, "Yes, it is best as you say. Thank you, Miss Travenion," and carries the boy in.

She can see him very tenderly brush the matted hair from off the sufferer's face, and hears about her, from excited passengers, that Captain Lawrence had risked his life to save that of a waif of the railroad.

A moment after the doctor comes, and making a short examination, the man of science says that the boy is only generally bruised and shaken up, and will come around all right if he is made quiet and sent to sleep, and would give him an opiate, did not Buck cry out piteously, "Don't make me insensible, Doc. My box is open, and the train hands will eat all my candies and peanuts and Californey fruit, and bust me up in business."

"I'll attend to that, Buck," answers the captain quietly. "I'll lock up your boxes," and getting the key from the boy, he bows slightly to Miss Travenion and goes out of the car on his errand, pursued by the grateful eyes of this Arab of the railroad. A moment after the doctor puts the boy to sleep, and Erma steps out of her stateroom, to find that, Harry having departed, the passengers on the car are discussing him very generally, though in low tones of voice, as if fearing to disturb the slumbering invalid.

Their conversation gives her a new idea of Captain Lawrence, for she learns the opinion of those who have lived near him and are acquainted with frontier habits and frontier methods; and they tell her that this young man is respected and honored for the very deeds which she has condemned in him and for which she has cut him off from the smiles of her face and the words from her lips.

She hears expressions of admiration on all sides, and one man, a miner from Colorado, and at present interested in the workings of a big coal property near Evanston, says: "That fellow who risked his life to save that foolish news-boy is 'clean-grit.' He and a few others like him, made some of the towns on this railroad habitable. A man's life wasn't safe in Cheyenne, but they wiped out every desperado, cut-throat and bunco-steerer in that town, and now it is comfortable to live in."

A moment after expressing this opinion, this gentleman is rather astonished to find the beautiful young lady from the East sitting beside him and saying in anxious voice: "You think Vigilance Committees right? You have had experience. Tell me all about them."

"They are right, if self-preservation is," he answers. Then, being a man of wide Western experience, and noting the anxious look on the girl's face, he tells her that the average frontier desperado is very careful of his own life, though very careless of that of others, and if he is certain of dying twenty-four hours afterwards, he will do no murder. And he gives her a little history of Vigilance Committees in general, and tells her how at White Pine, the first rush into that mining camp being composed of old California and Nevada miners, they had said, "This will be a red-hot place for cut-throats, bullies and blacklegs," and had organized a Vigilance Committee before they built the town of Hamilton; and there had never been a murder in it, until long after the Vigilance Committee and nearly all other inhabitants left it; and that Pioche, one hundred and thirty miles away, with a population similar to Hamilton, had averaged eighteen homicides a day, most of them wilful murders, simply because the men who committed them knew that they would not be avenged, there being no Vigilance Committee in that place; then, warming to his subject, he goes on with the history of early Montana, when it was impossible for any man to carry gold from Helena to Salt Lake City and live through the trip; and people wondered why none of the highwaymen who robbed, looted and murdered on that trail through Southern Idaho to Utah were never brought to justice, and that a Vigilance Committee was formed, and the first man they hung in the Territory was the sheriff, and that after that they continued their work with such success that for eight years thereafter no homicide was committed in all Montana.

Next getting excited, he winds up by saying, "The best citizens of these places were Vigilance men. There was no law, but they made peace; there was no justice, but they made the land free from blood," and is astonished at the end of this discourse to receive a grateful "Thank you," from the young lady, whose eyes seem to have grown happier during his lecture upon the morality of Lynch law.

Then, Miss Travenion, some load seeming to have been lifted from her mind, turns to her stateroom, to watch over the sleeping news-boy. As she sits gazing at the recumbent invalid, she wonders, "Why should I be happy to hear that Harry Lawrence is not regarded as a murderer by those who have seen him kill?" and while musing upon this, the boy opens his eyes, for the effect of the opiate has passed off, Erma's conversation with the Western man having been a long one.

A moment after, he says faintly, "If you please, Miss, I would like to go back to business. This trip ain't goin' to pay me nothing."

"You lay quiet, Buck," whispers the girl. "I'll attend to your business for you," for a sudden idea has come into Erma's head. She steps lightly out into the car, and taking off her straw hat, throws a greenback into it, and goes about among the passengers of the Pullmans, taking up a collection for the injured waif, which nets him a great deal more than the profits of his trip would have been, even were he in good health and pursuing his business with his usual keenness.

Coming in from this, she shakes the money joyfully before the boy's eyes and laughs, "What kind of a news-agent do you think I make? There are the profits of the trip, Buck. Take some of this lemonade and go to sleep again."

To which the boy murmurs, "You would make a corker. They'd buy two-year-old peaches from you—they would," drinks down the beverage her white hand places at his lips, and so goes to sleep again.

All this time the train, which seems to rattle along very merrily to the girl, has been leaving the valley of the Green River—that stream which flows between sandstones that, rising hundreds of feet above its banks, have the appearance of domes and mediÆval castles and cathedrals, making it as picturesque as the Rhine, only much more grand; for far below, on its course to the blue Gulf of California, its cliffs from hundreds of feet grow into thousands, and its cathedrals and domes and palaces and ruins are those of giants, not of men, for this river is really the Colorado, and its Grand CaÑon is the most sublime spectacle of the whole American continent, not even excepting the tremendous mountains and glaciers of the British Northwest.

So, after a few hours' running over plateaux nearly as barren as the Sahara Desert, though they would blossom like the garden of Gethsemane could irrigation ever be brought to them, they approach the high tablelands at Piedmont, and climbing through long snow sheds to Aspen Hill, run down the valley of the Bear River, by which stream the train winds its way to Evanston, the last town in Wyoming Territory.

As they progress westward, Miss Travenion leaves the sleeping boy, and coming to Mrs. Livingston's stateroom, finds that lady in conversation with Mr. Kruger, who seems to be very happy at getting back to his Utah home.

"You will soon find yourself in a beautiful land," he says. "You see them great mountains down thar?" He points to the Uintah Range, whose peaks go up into the blue sky at the south like a great snowy saw. "Down in thar is a valley, one of the purtiest pieces of grazing land and farming property in the whole Territory, Kammas Praharie, and I've got as pretty a ranch down there as in Utah, and lots of cattle and horses, and in my house four as nice-looking young—" He checks himself as suddenly at the last of this speech as if he were struck with a club.

Which Ferdie noticing, asks, "Why are you always snapping your jaws together before you finish your sentences? One would think you had something to conceal."

"Not much!" replies the accused, his face getting very red, however. "Any one can investigate the life of Lot Kruger, and find that he's as upright and above board as the Lot of the Scriptures, and what he has done has been did with the advice and sanction of his church, and that's more, I reckon, than you can say, young man, though you're not much over kid high yit!"

But any further discussion is stopped by the train running into Evanston, where are the great coal mines. Here they take dinner, and Miss Travenion has hopes of gaining conversation with Captain Lawrence, but she only succeeds in seeing him at a distance, and thinks he looks very stern, which is the truth, for he has just received some telegrams from Salt Lake about his mining property that by no means please him. He would doubtless brighten up, however, did he but know that the girl is very anxious to say a few words to him and even offer a generous apology to this Vigilante,—this "man of blood."

After a little, a couple of locomotives helping them over a slight grade, they come into Echo CaÑon, and begin to descend to the valley of the Great Salt Lake; then going on, the Weber River comes in from the south, where the melting streams of the Uintah Mountains give it birth. So skirting the willow and cottonwood banks of this beautiful stream, they run by the Thousand Mile Tree and the Devil's Slide and the old Mormon bridge; and many little hamlets and orchards, which seem very green and beautiful to the girl after the long, weary stretches of desert she has just left, till they come to the Narrows, where two great mountains of the Wahsatch appear to bar the passage. But the cliffs open, and the train bursts through to where the valley of Salt Lake is spread before them, and Erma sees the inland sea she has often read about, as the cars run down towards it 'mid green pastures and lowing cattle and thrifty orchards, for it is where the Mormons have set their home in the wilderness, and by the arts of peace have made a land of plenty, in order to uphold a form of government which, like that of the ancient Druids, is founded on blood atonement and the sacrifice of its unbelievers and its enemies.

But here the girl suddenly thinks of her invalid, and going back to her stateroom, finds Buck sitting up, and again ready to battle with the world.

"You and the Cap has done me a good turn," he says. "Some day I'll even up on you," and his gray eyes speak more strongly than his words, that some day the deeds of this Bedouin of the railroad will tell her more than he mutters.

"You're beautiful enough to be a Chicago gal," he mutters. "The Cap thinks so too!" This compliment drives her away from him, and she has red cheeks, though she is laughing.

But the train is now running into Ogden, and murmuring, "My father!" Miss Travenion darts to the platform of the car and searches with all her eyes for his loved form and dear face. After a little, disappointment comes upon the girl, and she mutters, "He is not here." Next she says to herself, "Only three hours more to Salt Lake. There he must be!"

Then Mrs. Livingston and Louise attempt consolation, and shortly after the party make their way some three hundred yards north of the Union and Central depots, to where at that time the station of the Utah Central was located, and prepare to board the train that is standing ready to run thirty odd miles to the south to the city over which the Mormon Hierarchy is still dominant, though their power is beginning to wane under the assaults of migrating Gentiles, who have come to this Territory, brought by the Pacific railroads, to search for the silver and gold in its mountains.

At this little station Captain Lawrence's cause gets another and most happy advancement in the girl's mind. Some five minutes before the train is ready, Mr. Ferdie wanders off from the party, and a few moments after Miss Travenion notices him in earnest conversation with a gentleman apparently of the cowboy order.

Exchanging a few words, the young man and his chance acquaintance walk down a sidewalk to a saloon, standing about a hundred yards from the railroad.

At this moment, Erma also notes Captain Lawrence walking rapidly over from the Union Depot, apparently having made up his mind to catch this train for Salt Lake also, and hopes to herself, "This will be my time for explanation."

But even while she does so, the gentleman upon whom she is gazing casts two quick, sharp glances at Ferdie and his companion, and instantly changing his direction and quickening his pace, makes straight for the saloon just as the two disappear behind its door.

"He will give me no opportunity for apology," says Erma to herself. "Very well, the next advance shall come from him!" and her pretty foot tapping the platform impatiently, she turns away and watches the baggage-men loading their trunks upon the Utah Central train.

A moment after, she is aroused from her reverie by the sound of the bell upon the station, which always heralds out-going trains, and Mrs. Livingston, coming to her, gasps, "Where is Ferdie? The conductor tells us we have only a minute more. He is not here. My Heaven, not here!"

"I know where he is, and I'll find him," answers Erma, and runs hastily down the sidewalk to where she has last seen the errant youth. As she approaches, however, she pauses a moment, for the thought suddenly strikes her, "If Captain Lawrence is there, perhaps he'll think I want to speak to him."

But remembering that haste is vital, she hastily opens the saloon door, and stands appalled; for a sight meets her such as seldom comes to a New York young lady. The signs of combat are about her—a table has been thrown over, a broken spittoon and scattered cards are lying on the floor—and Ferdie, his light suit in the sawdust of the barroom, is held down upon his back, while over him, one knee upon his chest, is a man with black sombrero and buckskin leggings and red shirt, and awful hand with uplifted bowie, ready to strike the young heart that is panting beneath his grasp, did not Harry Lawrence grasp it with his left, and with his right hand press the cold muzzle of a Colt's revolver against the desperado's forehead.

Then Lawrence's voice speaks clear as a bell: "Drop that knife! You know me, Texas Jack. I hung up your pard in Laramie. Drop that knife or I fire."

At his word the bowie-knife comes to the floor. Then Harry says coolly: "Throw up your hands and walk out in front of me," and keeping the man before his pistol, marches him out of the saloon. On the sidewalk he remarks:

"Don't look back until you have gone a hundred yards, or you are a dead man. March!" And Texas Jack, his spurs clinking in the dust, and a deck of monte cards slipping from his clothes as he walks, proceeds on his way, and does not turn back till he has got out of sight.

Then the bell of the locomotive is suddenly heard. Lawrence cries: "Hurry. You'll miss the cars!" and waves Erma, who is too much agitated, and Ferdie, who is too much out of breath, to speak, to follow him. And they all run to the station of the Utah Central, where Miss Travenion gives a gasp, for the train has already run out, and they can see it making its way to the bridge across the Weber bound for the city of the Saints.

"Anyway, God bless you!" cries Ferdie, who has gained his wind. "You saved my life."

"Yes," says Harry shortly, "this time; but perhaps the next there will be no one there to help you. And take my advice, young man: don't go hunting adventures out here, not even if they tell you there is a grizzly bear chained in the back-yard."

"Why!" says Mr. Chauncey with a little gasp, "that is just what he did tell me."

"Ah, I guessed right," says Lawrence with a slight sneer, for Mr. Ferdinand had been made a victim of the notorious bear game, as were many others about that time in Ogden. Then he goes on: "Don't play three card monte, and if they rob you, don't knock the villain down, for he is sure to be armed, and your life is pleasant to you still, I guess, young man."

With this he turns away, but Erma is after him, and puts her hand on his arm, whispering, "How bravely you saved him! I have learned the truth about you. Forgive me!"

But the man she addresses is apparently not easy to conciliate, and he remarks curtly, "You did not give me the right even a Vigilance Committee would give!"

"What right?"

"The right to defend myself!" And he heeds not Erma's pleading eyes.

Then she whispers, "Give me the justice I denied you. Let me explain also. How was I, a girl brought up in a land of peace, to know that men could exist like that one from whom you saved Ferdie just now; that to protect the innocent it was necessary to slay the guilty, and right, too?" and then bursts forth impetuously, "Wretches like that murderer I saw out there I would kill also!"

But the young man does not seem to heed her; and muttering, "You don't forgive me any more than you did the murderers," she falters away and says piteously, "And I—alone here!" And there are tears in her beautiful eyes; for at this moment Ferdie seems very little of a protector.

This last affects Lawrence. He steps to her, ejaculating huskily, "Not as long as I am here!"

"Oh, thank you," cries the girl. "You will take care of me. How nice!" her smiles overcoming her tears.

"Certainly. That is my duty," answers Harry, still coldly, for he has been very deeply wounded.

"I don't want your duty!" answers Erma hotly.

"What do you want?"

"Forgiveness! Don't punish me with kindness, and still be implacable. Forgive me," pleads the young lady, her little hand held out towards her judge.

Then Miss Travenion gives a startled little "Ough!" for her fingers receive a grip that makes her wince, and as their hands meet, piquant gaiety comes over the young lady, and the gentleman begins to smile, and his eyes grow sunny.

A second after he says, "If I am responsible for you, I must look after you. You must have dinner, and so must Ferdie," and he calls cheerily to the youth, who has been brushing the sawdust of barroom floor and the dirt of combat from his light travelling suit. "You are up to a bite, young bantam, ain't you, after your scrimmage?"

"Yes, I'm dead hungry," answers Mr. Chauncey. "But Erma, your French maid is in the waiting-room, crying her eyes out. She says my aunt left her with your hand-baggage."

"Clothes!" screams Miss Travenion. "There's a new dress in my travelling bag! Oh! to get rid of the dust of travel," and growing very happy at this find—as what woman would not?—she and Lawrence walk across the tracks to the railroad hotel, followed by the maid and Ferdie, who brings up the rear, stopping at every other step to examine his summer suit for rent of combat, and to give it another brush from barroom dirt, and shortly arrive at the hostelry that lies between the tracks of the Union and Central Pacific Railways.

Here Lawrence suggests that Erma send a telegram to Mrs. Livingston, and dissipate any fears her chaperon may have for her safety. So, going into the telegraph office, she hastily writes the following:

"To Mrs. Livingston,

"On train bound for Salt Lake City:

"Detained by Ferdie. We are both well, and will follow on first train in the morning. Please tell papa,—who will meet you at the depot.

"Erma Travenion."

This being despatched, she comes out and stands by Lawrence, and watches the Central Pacific train, with its yellow silver palace sleeping cars, that is just about to run for the West and California, and laughs: "In two weeks I will be once more on my way to the Golden Land."

"So soon!" says the young man, a sigh in his voice.

"Oh," says the girl, airily; "by that time I shall have seen papa, and we have to do California and get back to New York for the first Patriarch's Ball." Then she babbles, "Oh, the delights of New York society. You must come on next winter and see how gay our city is, Captain Lawrence, to a young lady who—who isn't always a wall flower."

"That I will," answers Harry, heartily. A moment after, he goes on more considerately, "If I can arrange my mining business,"—this last by no means so confidently spoken.

As he says this, the train dashes off on its way to the Pacific, and Ferdie coming out of the hotel, where he has been generally put in order, the three, accompanied by the maid, go in to dinner. The mentor of the party registers their names, and tells the proprietor, who seems to know him very well, to give Miss Travenion the best rooms in the house.

At this, the young lady says, "Excuse me for a few minutes. I have clothes with me now." And despite Lawrence's laughing protestations that no change can be for the better, she runs up-stairs, and a few minutes after returns, having got the dust of travel from her in some marvellous way, and appearing in a new toilet—one of those half dress, half every day affairs, something with lace on it and ribbons, which makes her beauty fresh as that of a new-blown rosebud.

Their dinner is a merry meal; Miss Travenion coming out afterwards on the platform, and watching out-going freight trains and switching locomotives, as the two gentlemen smoke. Then the moon comes up over the giant mountains that wall in this Ogden Valley, save where it opens on the Great Salt Lake, and shadows fall on the distant gorges and caÑons. Illumined by the soft light, the girl looks radiantly lovely and piquantly happy, for somehow this evening seems to her a pleasant one.

After a little, Mr. Chauncey wanders away, perhaps in search of further frontier adventure, though Lawrence notes that he sticks very close to the main hotel, and does not investigate outlying barrooms. Then Erma and Harry being alone, the young man's talk grows confidential, and he tells the girl a good deal of his mining business, which seems to be upon his mind. How he had expected to sell his claim to an English company, but now fears that he shall not, on account of the accursed Mormons—this last under his breath, for nearly every one in the community they are now in are members of that church.

On being questioned, he goes on to explain that a claim has been made to a portion of his mine by a Mormon company, remarking that he has bad news from Salt Lake City that day. He has learned that a Mormon of great influence, called Tranyon, has purchased nearly all the other interests in Zion's Co-operative Mining Institution, which has brought suit for a portion of his property.

"How will that affect you?" queries Erma, who apparently has grown anxious for her mentor's speculation.

"Why, this Tranyon is a man of wonderful sagacity,—more, I think, than any other business Mormon in this country. He made nearly as much grading the Union Pacific Railway as Brigham Young himself. He has blocks of stock in the road upon which we will travel to-morrow morning to Salt Lake City. I have now money, brains and a Mormon jury against me!" says Lawrence, with a sigh.

He would perhaps continue this subject, did not Ferdie come excitedly to them, his eyes big with wonder, and whisper: "Kruger is in the hotel. Buck Powers and I have been investigating your father's friend, Erma, and have discovered that he is a full-fledged Mormon bishop."

"A Mormon! Impossible," says the young lady, with a start.

"Your father's friend?" exclaims Lawrence.

"Certainly," replies Miss Travenion. "I met him with my father several times in New York."

To this the Western man does not answer, but a shade passes over his brow and he grows thoughtful.

Then Ferdie, who is very full of his news, says: "There's no doubt of it. I talked with the man who keeps the bar, and he said Lot Kruger was as good a Mormon as any man in Salt Lake Valley, and I asked him if he didn't think we could arrest Kruger, and he cursed me and said he'll blow my infernal Gentile head off."

Here Harry interrupts the boy sternly: "Don't you know that the man in the hotel and nearly every one else about here are Mormons? If you make many more remarks of that kind, you'll never see New York again."

This advice puts Mr. Chauncey in a brown study, and he wanders away whistling, while Lawrence turns to Miss Travenion and asks her with a serious tone in his voice: "You are sure this man Kruger is interested with your father in business?"

"I am certain," falters the girl. "In some way. I don't know how much."

"I am very sorry for that!"

"Sorry for it? How can it affect my father?" returns Miss Travenion, growing haughty.

"That I can't see myself," rejoins her escort, and the two both go into contemplation.

A minute after the girl smiles and says, "Why, in another minute, perhaps you will think I am Miss Mormon myself." This seeming to her a great joke, she laughs very heartily.

But her laugh would be a yellow one, did she know that Lot Kruger, bishop in the Mormon Church, high up in the Seventies, Councilor of the Prophet, Brigham Young; and ex-Danite and Destroying Angel to boot, has stayed in Ogden on her account, and has just sent a telegram to one who holds the Latter-Day Saints in his hand, which reads:

"Ogden, October 4, 1871.

"She is here. I am watching her. She will arrive in Salt Lake on the morning train. See my letter from Chicago, due to-night."

Not knowing this, the girl's laughter is light and happy, and seems to be infectious, for Lawrence joins in it, and their conversation grows low, as if they would keep it to themselves, and perhaps slightly romantic, for there is a fire in the young man's dark eyes that seems to be reflected in the beautiful blue ones of Miss Travenion, as she tells him of life in New York society, and about Mrs. Livingston and her son. This discantation on the absent Oliver Lawrence enjoys so little, however, that he turns the conversation to his own prospects once more.

On which the girl asks him if his mine is so rich, why does he not work it himself.

"Because I am tired of barbarism!" he cries. "I want a home and a wife, and I wouldn't ask any woman to share a mining cabin with me."

"What matters," says Erma airily, "if she loved you?"

"Do you mean that?" remarks Harry, a peculiar ring coming into his voice.

"Yes," says the girl, rising; "if I loved a man I believe I could give up for him—even New York. But it is growing late. You tell me we have an early breakfast to-morrow morning, Captain Lawrence?"

"Yes, six o'clock," he says shortly, and escorts his charge to the door of the hotel, where her maid is waiting for her. Here she nonchalantly says, "Good-night. Thank you so much!" Then, a sudden impulse impelling her, she steps to the man who is just turning from her and whispers, her eyes glowing gratefully, "God bless you for saving Ferdie's life! God bless you for being kind to me!"

Next, seemingly frightened at herself, she runs lightly up the stairs to her bedroom, where she goes to sleep; but once she is awakened by the clanging of freight trains in the night, and this thought comes into her head: "What manner of man is this who two days ago was a stranger to me, but who has built railroads and slain desperadoes and Indians and whom I think about waking and sleeping?" Then she utters a little affrighted cry, "Why, he has even made me forget my father!"

The gentleman she has slighted has been under discussion on the railroad platform below.

Mr. Chauncey and Lawrence, strolling out before going to bed to take a preliminary smoke, the Captain suddenly asks, between puffs of his cigar: "Miss Travenion's father was quite a swell in New York?"

"Was?—IS!" cries Ferdie. "I only know him by sight, but I inspected him once or twice last year when he was in town, sitting in the Unity windows, chewing a cane, and following with his eyes any likely ankle up the Avenue. In fact, he's about as heavy a swell now as you'd want to see, though they say when he lived in New York permanently he used to be heavier."

"Ah," replies Harry, taking a long puff at his Havana, "a thorough club man?"

"I should think so!" returns Mr. Chauncey. "He is an out and outer. There are some curious stories extant that would make your hair stand on end about Ralph Travenion in the old days. They say——"

But Ferdie stops here in sudden surprise, for Lawrence's hand is on his arm, and he is whispering: "Don't tell me anything that would make me think less of her father!"

"Oh, of course not, if you don't wish it," replies the boy. Then he laughingly says: "You're not going to judge of Miss Beauty up there by her paternal, are you, old man? That would be rather a heavy handicap." A moment later he goes on, the other not replying: "But she'd stand it. She's a good girl; even a big fortune and the adoration of Newport's smart set couldn't give her airs. She's liable to marry some fellow just for love."

"You think so?" asks Lawrence with a hearty voice.

"Certainly. Did you notice her thanking you for saving my life?" returns the boy. "Could she have shown more gratitude if you'd been an English duke? And I thank you for it also. We Harvard men are not apt to gush, my boy; but we feel just the same. If I was in love with Erma Travenion, I'd sooner have what you did to-day to my credit than a million in bonds."

"Would you!" cries the captain. "Would you!" and his clasp is so cordial as he shakes Ferdie's hand on bidding him good-night that the boy goes away and mutters, "He's got a grip like a prize-fighter—but hang it, I sent him to bed happy for saving my life—and he did save it. Good Lord, if it hadn't been for him, where would yours truly have been now? Oh ginger!" And this idea making him serious, he goes to bed and sleeps, a thing that Harry finds more difficult.

The next morning there is a very happy smile on Miss Travenion's face as she trips down to her breakfast, where she is met by Captain Lawrence and Ferdie, and the three shortly after go to the Utah Central and take train there for Salt Lake, and after running through prosperous Mormon villages and outlying farms for about an hour and a half, Erma suddenly cries, "What is that great turtle rising out of the trees?"

To this Lawrence answers, "The Mormon Tabernacle!" and a few minutes after they run into the "City of the Saints," where certain things shall come to Erma Travenion such as this young lady of New York society wots not are in the heavens above the earth, nor in the waters that are beneath it.