They stopped by the first corral, and Joel Rae talked.  He talked rapidly and with power, saying many things to make it plain that he was determined not to look upon the Wild Ram of the Mountains as an acceptable son-in-law.  His manner was excited and distraught, terrified and indignant,—­a manner hardly justified by the circumstances, about which there was nothing extraordinary, nothing not pleasing to God and in conformity to His revealed word.  Bishop Wright indeed was puzzled to account for the heat of his manner, and in recounting the interview later to Elder Wardle, he threw out an intimation about strong drink.  “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I suspicion he’d jest been putting a new faucet in the cider barrel.”

When Prudence came in from the blossoming peach-trees that night her father called her to him to sit on his lap in the dusk while the crickets sang, and grow sleepy as had been her baby habit.

“What did Bishop Wright want?” she asked, after her head was pillowed on his arm.  Relieved that it was over, now even a little amused, he told her: 

“He wanted to take my little girl away, to marry her.”

She was silent for a moment, and then: 

“Wouldn’t that be fine, and we could build each other up in the Kingdom.”

He held her tighter.

“Surely, child, you couldn’t marry him?”

“But of course I could!  Isn’t he tried in the Kingdom, so he is sure to have all those thrones and dominions and power?”

“But child, child!  That old man with all his wives—­”

“But they say old men are safer than young men.  Young men are not tried in the Kingdom.  I shouldn’t like a young husband anyway—­they always want to play rough games, and pull your hair, and take things away from you, and get in the way.”

“But, baby,—­don’t, don’t—­”

“Why, you silly father, your voice sounds as if you were almost crying—­please don’t hold me so tight—­and some one must save me before the Son of Man comes to judge the quick and the dead; you know a woman can’t be saved alone.  I think Bishop Wright would make a fine husband, and I should have Mattie Wright to play with every day.”

“And you would leave me?”

“Why, that’s so, Daddy!  I never thought—­of course I can’t leave my little sorry father—­not yet.  I forgot that.  I couldn’t leave you.  Now tell me about my mother again.”

He told her the story she already knew so well—­how beautiful her mother was, the look of her hair and eyes, her slenderness, the music of her voice, and the gladness of her laugh.

“And won’t she be glad to see us again.  And she will come before Christina and Lorena, because she was your first wife, wasn’t she?”

He was awake all night in a fever of doubt and rebellion.  By the light of the candle, he read in the book of Mormon passages that had often puzzled but never troubled him until now when they were brought home to him; such as, “And now it came to pass that the people Nephi under the reign of the second king began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulged themselves somewhat in wicked practises, like unto David of old, desiring many wives—­”