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On such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her bright, happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young heart was no longer her own.

Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms, but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her affections.

It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.

"I am off, Lucy," he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing tenderly down into her face; "I won't ask you to come with me now, but will you be ready to come when I am here again?"

"And when will that be?" she asked, blushing and laughing.

"A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my darling. There's no one who can stand between us."

"And how about father?" she asked.

"He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all right. I have no fear on that head."

"Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there's no more to be said," she whispered, with her cheek against his broad breast.

"Thank God!" he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. "It is settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are waiting for me at the canon. Good-bye, my own darling - good-bye. In two months you shall see me."

He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at what he was leaving.

She stood at the gate, gazing after him until he vanished from her sight.

Then she walked back into the house, the happiest girl in all Utah.

Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had departed from Salt Lake City.

John Ferrier's heart was sore within him when he thought of the young man's return, and of the impending loss of his adopted child.

Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to the arrangement more than any argument could have done.

He had always determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon.

Such a marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace.

Whatever he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was inflexible.

He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the Land of the Saints.

Yes, a dangerous matter - so dangerous that even the most saintly dared only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest something which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring down a swift retribution upon them.

The victims of persecution had now turned persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the most terrible description.

Not the Inquisition of Seville, nor the German Vehm-gericht, nor the Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able to put a more formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over the State of Utah.

Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this organization doubly terrible.

Chapter 3. John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet

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