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Show r6 and the Gentiles of the surrounding counties. My father said little to me, but I reahzed from his manner and actions that he feared p~rsmt. . " We had started from Nauvoo m the mornmg. At sunset we stopped beside a flower-crowned hill and m father dug a grave on the crest. We earned the co~n with our dead up the hill and he read from her Bible and prayed. Then, m the deepemng dusk, we lowered the coffin into the grave . .. and then he fell on the coffin, with a ball through Ius heart. Another ball struck me across the b~ck. of my shoulder. I dropped beside the grave, feigmn~ that I too was killed. The men who had shot us did not trouble to ride up the hill. Certam that we were both dead, they hastened to pillage the wagon and gallop aw"aAy.h" ! "sighed Miss Lucy. "The y murd ere d your father- and he not baptized into th~ Kin~dO!fi. But you can yet save him. You can_bn,?g him mto the Kingdom by being baJ?tlzed for him. "You can save h1m!" confirmed Dr. Neville. " But that dastardly crime! The slayers. were ,?f course discovered and pumshed. Murder Wlll out. " Will it? " I questwned. " Of course all crimes will be disclosed at the Last Judgment. But as for here on earth- At least I have never learned who murdered my father. There was no one to whom I could appeal for aid. I could not tell whether the murderers were Gentiles who had mistaken us for Mormons or Mormons sent out after us to avenge my fathe;'s refusal to permit the burial of my mother in Nauvoo." . "Oh, no, no, Mr. Ford!" protested Mrs. Ne"!lle. " Surely no S~nt would ever have taken so ternble a vengeance ! . " I am telling you what I thought at the tlme. I was• only a young boy. While I lay there on the hilltop I heard the murderers talking. There were three men in the party, and the vmces of two of them seemed familiar to me, though I could not tell to THE MORMON LION 17 whom they belonged. The voice of the third man was shnll and cracked. It was strangely like that of a chent who engaged me a few months ago to defend him from the charge of counterfeiting." "He was not a Saint," hastily stated Dr. Neville. "Not to my knowledge," I replied. "His name was Waller- Jake Waller, a little, dried-up rascal who always made me think of a ferret. " "Of course he could not be a Saint if he was a rascal," said Mrs. Neville. " Nor could those dreadful men who killed your father have been in the Kingdom. Saints never murder or harm anyone." "But what did you doafter- afterthat, Mr. Ford," breathlessly inquired Miss Lucy. "The ball had not disabled me, Miss Neville. I filled in the grave and fled from the place as fast as I could, fearing that the murderers m1ght return. The mules, which had been turned loose to graze, had not let the strangers come near them. They came at my call, and hauled me away in the half emptied wagon. The next day I fell in Wlth a party of western bound Gentile emigrants, to whom I told only that my father had been killed by robbers while we were returning from a visit to Illinois. These people brought me safe on across the Territory to my home, where old friends of my father took charge of me and my farm." " You were not educated on tllis rude wild frontier," observed Mrs. Neville. " No, madam. I was sent back east to Ohio, to go to school, and from there I went on to York State to study law. The death of my guardian finally brought me back to Western Iowa, to attend to my property." " And now you will go on to Zion-to God's chosen land! " exclaimed Miss Lucy. " To Zion! " I cried, fired by her ecstatic zeal. " I too shall become a soldier in the host of the Lord! I too shall turn my back on Babylon and march over plams and mountains to the Land of the Honeybeethe Promised Land of God's chosen people! " II |