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Show THROUGH OREAT TRIBULATION. 353 If Willie Manson had been astonished at his last visit to Briarly in 1862, how was he amazed by the latter's conduct in 1866! For Bri-arly had returned from a mission on the Rio Virgen, whither he had been sent in 1863 " to build up the waste places ;" and he not only sought Manson at the store where he had found employment, but talked with such, graceful fluency that the Gentile was quite con-founded. He showered invitations on him to visit them at home ; he never alluded to any thing disagreeable that had passed between them; he inquired with almost embarrassing interest of Hanson's suc-cess in the mines, and talked about the return of peace in the States and the glory of the American nation in a way that would have put the warmest Republican in the shade. Here was a change indeed. Why he did not at once accept these flattering invitations, Willie could not for his life have told. He was sure he retained no malice against Briarly, as indeed why should he ? He knew of no harm this Mormon had done him, and he did recall some good. And yet he did not at once accept. He saw that Briarly was now an elder of some rank; that he was in a fair way to become a bishop; that he was loud r in " bearing testimony" in all " experience meetings," and at times held forth eloquently in the Tabernacle on the " evidences." But he noticed, too, that Briarly never called on him when other Mor-mons were in the store, and that his effusive utterances were always in a corner, and when no third party was near. He pondered the matter until it became really tormenting, and then had recourse to his friend Hank Beatty, who had returned from Montana with a good- sized belt full of " dust," and now lingered in Zion. Beatty heard the account through carefully, cocked his head on one side, closed one eye in profound meditation for a moment, then everted his leathery lips, and, with a regular Missouri " thlurp," ejected a gill or so of ambeer into the water- seek. After it, flavored with nicotine, came this oracular response : " Keep your eye peeled somethin's up. This is a queer country." Manson was painfully aware of the truth conveyed in the last sen-tence ; but now the thought suddenly occurred to him, " What had come over Beatty lately?" The latter lingered unaccountably. He had said that he left home, in New York, in 1860, and wrent by sea to California ; he had, in 1862, and again in 1865, been in a fever to get home, and it ran into Manson's mind that Beatty had once told him. something about having a family, but he was not positive about this. And now the man seemed to have abandoned all idea of going home. He was enthusiastic in his praises of Utah and the Mormons ; he 23 |