EPHRIAM RAYMOND, standing in the doorway of his ranch house, well within the shadow of the foothills, was watching two horsemen as they crept along the trail.

To the west, where the land dropped from bench to bench until it finally found the level of the flat valley with its farms and irrigating ditches, lay Great Salt Lake; a gleam of sunlight was reflected on the water, and a few misty clouds low in the sapphire light betokened its nearness.

A year before, and the trail had been illy marked through the mountains; and scarcely more than a trace, as it crossed the desert beyond, where it wound its course from failing streams which fought the dry, thirsty sands, on to brackish water holes that were evil to smell, and yet more evil to drink from. But that single season had altered without lessening its terrors. It was heavy now with alkali du$t, dry with the season's rainless suns, and fine with the grinding wheels of freight and emigrant wagons; it was further marked by the bones of cattle and horses. No one could mistake it now.

As the two men came nearer, Ephriam saw that they were mounted on mules, and that one of the men, a gaunt, red-whiskered fellow, shared his saddle with a child.

“Is this heah Raymond's settlement?” the latter demanded, reining in his mule before the ranch house door.

“Yes,” answered Ephriam. “Won't you light down?” he added. He was a kindly, venerable man, with a patriarchal beard and long, grey hair; there was more than a touch of the ministerial in the decent black broadcloth suit he wore; the fact that he was collarless, and that his trousers were tucked in at the tops of his heavy boots, did not detract in the least from his palpable pulpit dignity.

“We will, elder, if it's agreeable to you, and we'd admire to fill up on kitchen victuals.” And the red-whiskered man drew the back of his hand across his bearded lips.

“You're just in time,” said Ephriam smiling.

“I told you, Jim! Elder, I smelt 'em from the moment we broke out of the hills.” He lifted the boy down as he spoke, and making a common movement with Jim, swung himself stiffly from the saddle; a half-grown boy had appeared from the direction of the corrals, and at a sign from Ephriam led away the mules.

“Are there no more of your party coming?” said the old man.

“What's left of us is right heah, elder,” answered the Missourian; then he saw that Ephriam was regarding Benny curiously. “Oh, him? You allow he don't belong to either Jim or me—and you're right, elder, for he don't.”

Ephriam turned on him with unexpected sternness at this.

“Perhaps that is your excuse for his condition!” and he pointed to the child, whose white, scared face wore a preternatural look of age and suffering; and whose tattered clothes scarcely covered his pinched little body; while his hands and bare feet were cruelly torn and bruised.

“Well, sir, I admit he ain't much to brag on, and his looks is a scandal to this outfit. We picked him up only four days back; he says he'd run off from the redskins. He'd most starved to death.”

His own gaunt frame and hollow cheeks, however, told plainly of the hardships all had endured, and lack of food had not been the least of these. Ephriam's face softened.

“Yes,” he said, in apology for his momentary suspicion, “I can see you have suffered.”

“But you have got a fine climate, elder,” broke in the Missourian, bent on being conciliatory. “Jim and me noticed that right along. This is the place to come for climate; there's nothing else heah to take your mind off it; it's heah thick.”

But Ephriam's glance had gone back to the child.

“Poor little fellow! Some emigrant's boy, probably.”

Benny looked up quickly into his face and stole to his side. Whatever those first suspicions of his concerning Jim and the Missourian they had in no wise abated; all their kindness had not altered his doubt of them. The questions they had asked him, but more than all their strange and to him utterly incomprehensible knowledge of so much that had taken place on that hill, had bred conviction in his brain. He hated and feared them.

“Seems to fancy you, elder,” said the Missourian. “We certainly done what we could for him, which ain't saying much, for we'd liked to do a heap more.”

A young girl appeared in the doorway; the Missourian turned quickly, hearing her light step, and swept off his battered hat with an elaborate flourish.

“Ma'am,” he said.

Jim, by a casual gesture, brushed the flapping brim that shaded his eyes; he was speechless.

“If you will come in, dinner is on the table, father,” said the girl. She had outgrown all curiosity concerning these wayfarers from the States; yet she gave the Missourian a smile, and to him that smile was an event.

Seated at the table the old man contented himself with seeing that his guests wanted for nothing, while his glance constantly shifted first from one to the other of the men and then on to the child.

Jim ate in stony silence, but his more social companion, once the first rigours of his hunger were appeased, was disposed to talk.

“Our finding him, elder,” indicating the child by a flourish of his knife, “was certainly mighty curious.”

“Yes?” inquiringly.

“It was four days back. Jim and me had come to a sandy valley, it was like a good many other valleys we'd seen, except that it had a little more sand and a little less of grass than some of the others, but, perhaps, the most singular thing about it was a flat-topped hill that stood right out on the plain; a wagon trail led up to the top of that hill, but just where the trail struck up the slope, we noticed that it was crossed and crossed again by another trail—not a wagon trail—which led in a circle about the hill.”

“Indians,” said Ephriam; he was deeply interested.

“But a many of them hosses was shod, elder, and Jim and me made it our business to go to the top of that hill; we found there had been some sort of a scuffle there; there was five dead men in a wash on one of the slopes, and we could see where three wagons had been emptied of their loads and burnt; but the uncommonest thing about it was those dead men; for, when we come to examine them, we found their pockets had been looked through and pretty well emptied, and no letters nor no nothing left to show who they was or where they come from. The next day we found this boy; he remembered about the hill and about the fight, said his pa had been killed there, and said it was the Indians done it.”

“What of that? It was all quite likely,” said Ephriam.

“But was it so blame likely?” remonstrated the Missourian. “Recollect a many of the hosses was shod.”

“But the dead men?” asked Ephriam.

“Well, what had been done to them was a plenty; but I made up my mind that in some sort it was a white man's job,” responded the Missourian, staring fixedly at him. The lids of Raymond's eyes drooped for an instant.

“A white man's job?” he cried. “White men?” he repeated dully; he seemed stunned by the idea.

“Which it might have been redskins,” said Jim, with his mouth full. “Elder, this cooking hits me hard.”

“Does the boy know who he is, and where he comes from?” asked Ephriam.

“He knows little that's going to help in finding his folks; but I don't allow he's got any. He's a pretty complete orphan.”

“Who are you, and where do you come from, child?” asked the old man gently, and he placed his hand on Benny's head, his long fingers straying among his sunburned curls.

“My name's Benny Rogers.” He spoke with a shrill little voice. “And where do you come from, Benny?”

“From Benson,” answered the child.

Ephriam seemed to consider, then he looked at the Missourian, who shook his head.

“Never heard of it,” said he shortly.

“Benson—and where is Benson?” and Ephriam turned again to Benny.

The boy's glance instantly became troubled.

“I don't know, but he told me I was to remember,” he said at last.

“Who told you to remember, Benny?”

“Mr. Landray.”

“Where is he?”

“The Indians killed him.”

“Where?”

“On the hill.”

“When? How long ago, I mean?”

“I don't know.”

“You are sure they killed him?”

“I seen them,” in a frightened whisper.

“And they were Indians?” he watched the child's face narrowly.

“Yes—”

“You are sure, Benny?”

Benny looked up into the old man's face doubtfully; he appeared to hesitate before answering.

“Yes, I am sure they was Indians.”

The three men glanced at each other.

“And your father, Benny, what became of him?”

“The Indians killed him; but that was after they killed Mr. Landray.”

“That's every blessed thing we could get out of him, elder,” said the Missourian.

But here a quite unexpected interruption occurred. There was the sound of wheels on the trail, and an open carriage to which was attached four spirited horses, drew up at the door. Ephriam rose hastily from his chair.

“Finish your meal,” he said, and with that he quitted the room.

“He's a right friendly old party,” was the Missourian's comment. “I reckon, Jim, it wouldn't take much to plant me heah. I might even get a revelation to take the young wife of some old Mormon saint.”

On leaving the house, Ephriam found himself in the midst of a score or more of armed and mounted men who were riding in from the trail; but without giving heed to these he hurried to the side of the carriage, which held a solitary occupant; a florid-faced, good-looking man of perhaps fifty, who, in spite of a certain physical coarseness, was a not unimpressive figure. He was carefully, even fastidiously dressed, while his whole air was that of one who placed a high opinion upon himself.

To him Ephriam presented himself, but for the moment he was entirely ignored. The florid-faced man looked on beyond him, and through the open door of the ranch house, where the two men and the child could be seen, and inspected them narrowly. One of the horsemen seemed equally interested in Raymond's guests; for he had ridden up close to the single window that lighted the room and peered in. Now he turned, making a slight gesture which the occupant of the carriage acknowledged by an almost imperceptible movement of the head; then he said to Raymond:

“Friends of yours, brother Ephriam?” and his short under lip and heavy chin quivered with some secret emotion.

“They are emigrants, Brother Brigham,” answered Ephriam quickly.

“Still they might be friends of yours, Brother Ephriam,” returned the other significantly, but he held out his hand frankly and cordially.

This matter of the emigrants was a sore point with Raymond. He had given such broken spirits as passed his way what comfort he could; and this, he knew, was a thing that lay heavy against him, since the thrifty Saints saw a special Providence in the coming of the gold-seekers who could be made to pay handsomely in a variety of ways.

Brother Brigham stepped from his carriage, and beckoning Ephriam to follow him, led the way out of hearing of the others.

“The Lord has greatly prospered you; not amongst our people have I seen such fields as yours,” and Young placed his hand on the older man's shoulder; there was real kindness and real regard in this involuntary gesture, and in the genial warmth of his companion's mood, Raymond seemed to expand and glow.

His memory harked back to their recent exodus, when the church had been removed over a thousand miles through an unmaped country full of dangers and difficulties. Like Moses of old, this man had led his people—men and women and children; destitute, poor, and illy prepared to meet the hardships of such a journey; yet, almost without a murmur, they had abandoned a land they knew, for a land they did not know, and had followed him. His unyielding determination had inspired them all; it alone had made that journey possible. Without him there could have been nothing but ruin and failure; they had seen the graves grow up by the trail, marking the course they had come; they had reached Salt Lake, their stores spent, their strength shattered by the sufferings they had undergone, to find their land of promise a desert; new and strange and terrible; death by starvation stared them in the face; but Young had been equal to that hour, and to their need. He silenced all their murmurs; he brought order out of impending discord; he plead, commanded, threatened, prophesied; while, with a restless and determined energy he set them to work. They had strengthened, and their desert had become a land of plenty. This was all so recent that Ephriam's wonder of it never failed him; surely this man had his gifts from God. Young spoke abruptly.

“Who is that child?” he demanded.

In a few words Ephriam told the little he knew of Benny's history. The other's cold, grey eyes never left his face. Once or twice he nodded slightly, as if Ephriam's words were confirming facts with which he was already acquainted.

“And he says it was the Indians! Brother Ephriam, they must be looked to.”

“But that seems to be a matter where there may be some doubt,” said Ephriam.

“Ah!” and Young turned on him quickly.

“The men who found him say that the horses of the murderers were, many of them shod.”

Young shrugged his shoulders.

“The boy should know better than they. I am surprised, Brother Ephriam, that you should give any credit to their crazy tales.” He spoke in a hard, rasping voice, and Raymond was aware, that for some reason which he did not understand, it was distasteful to Young that there should be any doubts entertained on this point.

“What are you going to do with him?” Young demanded, after a moment's silence. The old man looked blank.

“It rests with them, not me. I suppose they will try to find his kin.”

“Yes, but where, Brother Ephriam?”

“In Benson, wherever that is,” and Raymond looked puzzled. He added: “It will not be difficult to learn. I think—”

But Young cut him short.

“Brother Ephriam, don't think. The boy's father is dead; his friends are dead; what more do you want to know?”

Ephriam hesitated; he seemed about to speak, but was silent. There was a long pause. Young looked at him with his uncertain grey eyes, narrowed to a slit. Here was a good man, a man of scruples and convictions, and evidently capable of a most unsaintly stubbornness, in whom it would be neither wise nor expedient to fully confide. At last he said:

“It is best for the child that he should remain here with you, Brother Ephriam. Those men can do nothing for him.”

“Yet they may not wish to give him up,” interposed Raymond quickly. Young smiled.

“They may have to. And you, Brother Ephriam, must round up your shoulders to bear this burden.”

“I am willing enough to take the child, if—”

“You can't make terms with me. There are no ifs to obedience. Either you do as I wish, or you don't,” said Young, coldly. “This is a matter that has more to it than you can know now. It is not safe for those men to leave here with the child, no good can come of it to them. Do you understand, Brother Ephriam? You will be placing them in great danger. Now are you willing to do that?” There was a sinister significance to what he said beyond the mere meaning of his words that was not lost on the old man. Young continued. “Try them; tell them you are willing that the child should remain with you until such time as he can be sent back to the States. Satisfy them in what manner you choose, but keep the child; and, Brother Ephriam, advise them to remain silent concerning these foolish suspicions of their's. No good can come from talking of them,” and Young turned abruptly from him.

Raymond followed Young to his carriage; he meditated rebellion; but, in spite of this transient feeling of hostility to the other's commands, he knew that he would accept the responsibility he was seeking to fasten upon him. It would end in his keeping the child, through fear that a greater wrong might come of it if he did not.

These thoughts occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else; and it was only later that he sought for an explanation for Young's interest in the matter, and this explanation was destined to come from a most unexpected source.

Moody and preoccupied, he watched Young and his bodyguard disappear down the trail. He was recalled by hearing the Missourian's drawling voice at his elbow.

“Well, elder, the boy was so tuckered out he plumb fell-asleep at table, and the lady she toted him off to bed; she allowed she knowed what he needed.”

“Were you going on to-day?” asked Ephriam quickly.

“Yes, but the lady's got the start of us; she's got the kid,” said the Missourian. It was plain he approved of the lady.

“What shall you do with him?” demanded Ephriam.

“Doggone if I know!” said the Missourian rather helplessly. “Send him back to the States, I reckon, as soon as we can.”

“Then you'd better leave him here with me.”

“We certainly are obliged to you,” cried the Missourian.

“But look here,” it was Jim who spoke. “What about them five men? If it was redskins, it was all right; but if it wasn't redskins, who the hell was it?” He glanced from one to the other.

“I reckon you got folks down in Salt Lake who'll make it their business to have a look at that trail?” said the Missourian.

“It is better that you say nothing of your suspicions,” said Ephriam.

The Missourian turned on Raymond swiftly, and pushing back the brim of his hat looked him squarely in the face.

“I'm a talking man, neighbour,” said he in his slow drawl. “I done a heap of talking in my time, and I allow to keep right on giving people the advantage of my opinions. I don't fancy being advised to keep my mouth shut about this.”

“You misunderstand me,” answered Ephriam quietly. “If it becomes known that there is reason to doubt the Indians were solely responsible for the killing of those men, it will make talk; and, supposing the guilty parties are in camp near the city—and many strangers are in camp there—we may have to look far for them when we want them.”

“That sounds a whole lot better,” said the Missourian. “Well, we'll tuck along into town, and we leave the boy with you to send back to the States.”

Ephriam led the way to the log stables. He wanted to see the last of these two men, before he repented of the part he was playing. They seemed simple, kindly fellows, who would have dealt fairly by the boy.

The Missourian wrung his hand with fervour at parting.

“You let us out easy, yet it ain't really fitting we should carry him on to California,” he said.

Ephriam stood by the corral as they rode away.

“They are honest fellows,” he muttered at last, and then he realized that he was staring at a stretch of empty road, they had passed from sight down the trail.

He went slowly back to the house. His daughter met him at the door.

“Why, have they gone?” she said in surprise.

“Yes—”

“But the boy, father?”

“He is to stay with us until I can send him to the States,” he told her. She saw nothing unusual in what he had done; since this kindness, for such it seemed to her, was wholly characteristic of him.

“That's just like you, father; you are always taking trouble for other people.”

“Am I? I didn't know.” He smiled at her. “Do you mind?” he added.

“No; poor little fellow. He fell asleep at the table, and I carried him up-stairs and put him to bed.”

Ephriam chuckled softly.

“I guess you're every bit as bad as I,” he said.

He seated himself on a bench by the ranch door, and fell to considering the child's story, seeking to fix some explanation to it, that would account for Young's interest in him.

Inside the house the girl came and went. Lost in thought the old man did not note the passing of time, and it was only when his daughter appeared in the doorway to tell him that supper was on the table, that he roused from his long revery, but with the problem as far as ever from solution.

“Bless me, it's almost candle-light,” he cried. “Where's the boy?”

“He's still asleep.”

“Then we'll let him be,” he said. But after they had eaten, he stole up-stairs where he found Benny still resting quietly.

“He's sleeping yet, but I'll go see him again before I go to bed,” he told his daughter when he rejoined her in the room below. But when, two hours later, he mounted to Benny's room, he found him wide awake and sitting up in bed. Seeing Ephriam he smiled in friendly recognition, and sank back on the pillow.

“You've had a long sleep, Benny,” said the old man. He seated himself on a low stool beside the bed, placing his candle on the floor at his feet. “Are you hungry?” he added.

“No, not a bit,” said Benny.

“Benny, you're sure it was the Indians that killed your father?”

Benny instantly sat erect again.

“Did they tell you to ask me that?” he demanded, with keen suspicion.

“They? Who do you mean, child?”

“The men.”

“No. They have gone; you are to stay here with me.”

Benny smiled, then his face fell.

“But they'll come back for me,” he said.

“No, you'll probably never see either of them again; they are going on to California.”

“And I'm to stay here with you?” he asked.

“Yes—”

“For always?” he demanded eagerly.

“Yes, as long as you like.”

“I shall like that—always,” he declared, with an air of settled conviction.

“Could you understand what the Indians said to you, Benny?” asked Ephriam.

“Oh, yes.”

“They spoke as I am speaking?”

Again the child nodded. Ephriam looked sorely puzzled.

“Hadn't you better tell me the truth, Benny?”

“But I am telling you the truth; and if I told you any different they would kill me.”

“Who, child? The Indians?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you afraid of those two men?”

“Because they know,” said the boy promptly.

“Know what?”

“Know all about it, where my pop was killed and Mr. Landray and his brother, they know all about it—”

A light broke on Ephriam.

“Oh, I see, and you think they were with the Indians?”

Benny nodded, and answered a whispered yes to this.

“Perhaps you had better not tell any one what you have told me, Benny; but some of them were Indians?”

“Some,” said Benny, still in a whisper.

Ephriam turned away.

“Wait!” cried the child. “I got something to give you.” And from about his neck he unfastened a string to which was attached a small buckskin bay. “He gave me that,” he said, extending the bag to Ephriam.

“Who, Benny? Your father?”

“No, Mr. Landray. He said I was to give it to some white man who'd know what to do with it. You must send it to Benson.”

“And do you know where Benson is, Benny?” asked Ephriam.

“No. I've forgotten. He told me, and he told me I mustn't forget, but I have. It was where my pop came from long ago when he was a little boy like me.”

Ephriam moved to the door, and the child stretched out his small limbs with a keen sense of physical comfort; an instant later he was fast asleep.

When Ephriam returned to the room below, he placed the candle on the table, drew up a chair, seated himself and opened the bag. He found that it contained nothing but papers which concerned themselves wholly with dry business details. All he gathered from his perusal of them was that they had belonged to a certain Stephen Landray.

He saw that the papers were of no actual value, and feeling convinced of this fact he was conscious of an immense sense of relief; he could withhold them, and no one would suffer because of his act.

He wondered if this Landray had been in any way involved in what he, in common with all Mormons, was wont to style the persecution of the church; for he believed just as other Mormons believed, that those inveterate enemies of the Saints who had dipped their hands in the blood of that chosen people, were doomed to a swift and terrible punishment. Such a theory satisfactorily explained Young's interest in Benny; for might it not have its origin in a wise benevolence; a wish to lift from him the guilt that had come to him as a birthright?

This was so comforting a thought that he dwelt long upon it. Suddenly, however, he was startled by hearing a sound at the outer door; it was as if some one had struck it sharply, and then a heavy object seemed to fall against it.

He hid the papers in the pocket of his coat, and snatching up the candle, hurried into the adjoining room. Midway of it he paused to listen. It might have been his fancy, but coming from beyond the closed and barred door he thought he could distinguish the sound of whispering voices.

He unfastened the door and threw it open, and in the circle of light cast by his candle he saw a tall figure swaying loosely just beyond the threshold, while off in the distance he caught the clatter of hoofs growing less and less audible as if several mounted men were riding rapidly away.

The swaying figure moaned.

“Who is it?” demanded Ephriam.

The man attempted to answer him, but the words he would have spoken failed him; he staggered toward the door and half fell into the room. The light shone full in his face.

“My God, Tom!” cried the old man.

Tom Raymond groaned again, and collapsed into a chair.

“Licker,” he gasped. “Bring me licker—”

When this was brought him and he had drunk of it, it seemed to give him strength.

“How are you, father?” he said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile.

“What has happened to you, Tom?” asked his father.

“I been shot. Oh, I got bored pretty,” he groaned. “But I'm a heap better than I was—-where you going?”

“To call your sister.”

“You needn't. Plenty of time to see her in the morning. Give me another pull at that,” nodding toward the bottle which Ephriam still held in his hand.

“How did it happen, Tom?”

“Indians,” said Tom, speaking with difficulty. “I been in the army back at Fort Laramie, but I'm on the mend now.”

“But how did you get here in this condition?” demanded Ephriam.

“Friends brought me—was almost well, but coming in I got a fall from my horse, and my wound opened; had to lay by in camp on the Weber for a week,” he explained between gasps.

His father got him into his own room, where he propped him up on the edge of the bed and silently rendered him what aid he could in removing his clothes. Almost the first thing the wounded man did was to take from about his waist a heavy belt that gave out a metallic sound as it slipped from his weak fingers and fell to the floor.

“Pick it up, father, and shove it under my pillow. It's my savings,” he said, with a sickly nervous grin.

Once in bed, fatigue and great bodily weakness together with the generous stimulant he had taken, caused him to fall at once into a troubled doze.

Ephriam drew up a chair and seated himself at his son's bedside. Tom had been gone for over a year, and their parting had not been a friendly one; but his present anxiety made him forget all this. Tom seemed very ill to him, as he lay there pale and haggard in the light of the single candle, and though he slept he was neither silent nor motionless; he moved restlessly, with strange mutterings and chokings.

Ephriam could see the bloody, dirty bandages that swathed his right shoulder, where the collar of his shirt had been cut away, and he wondered how serious the wound was.

Suddenly he started. The name of Landray was on Tom's lips. Then the wounded man woke with a start, and seeing a look on his father's face which he did not understand, demanded:

“What am I saying, father?”

“Nothing, Tom, nothing,” said the old man brokenly. “Humph!” said Tom, and turning his face to the wall, slept again.