“Why, no; do you?”

“Well, Brother Brigham only let a word or two drop, but plain enough; he don’t have to use many.  He was a little mite afraid some one down here would cut in ahead of him.”

Joel Rae had torn open the big blue envelope in a sudden fear, and now he read in Brigham’s well-known script:—­

“DEAR BROT.  JOEL:—­

“I was ancus to see more of your daughter, and would of kept her hear at my house if you had not hurried off.  I will let you seal her to me when I come to Pine valle next, late this summer or after Oct. conference.  If anything happens and I am to bisy will have you bring her hear.  Tell her of this and what it will mean to her in the Lord’s kingdom and do not let her company with gentiles or with any of the young brethren around there that might put Notions into her head.  Try to due right and never faint in well duing, keep the faith of the gospel and I pray the Lord to bless you.  BRIGHAM YOUNG.”

The shrewd old face of the Bishop had wrinkled into a smile of quiet observation as the other read the letter.  In relating the incident to the Entablature of Truth subsequently, he said of Joel Rae at the moment he looked up from this letter:  “He’ll never be whiter when he’s dead!  I see in a minute that the old man had him on the bark.”

“You know what’s in this, Brother Seth—­you know that Brigham wants Prudence?” Joel Rae had asked, looking up from the letter, upon which both his hands had closed tightly.

“Well, I told you he dropped a word or two, jest by way of keeping off the Princes of Israel down here.”

“I must go to Salt Lake at once and talk to him.”

“Take her along; likely he’ll marry her right off.”

“But I can’t—­I couldn’t—­Brother Seth, I wish her not to marry him.”

The Bishop stared blankly at him, his amazement freezing upon his lips, almost, the words he uttered.

“Not—­want—­her—­to marry—­Brother Brigham Young, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in all the world!”

“I must go up and talk to him at once.”

“You won’t talk him out of it.  Brother Brigham has the habit of prevailing.  Of course, he’s closer than Dick’s hat-band, but she’ll have the best there is until he takes another.”

“He may listen to reason—­”

“Reason?—­why, man, what more reason could he want,—­with that splendid young critter before him, throwing back her head, and flashing her big, shiny eyes, and lifting her red lips over them little white teeth—­reason enough for Brother Brigham—­or for other people I could name!”

“But he wouldn’t be so hard—­taking her away from me—­”

Something in the tones of this appeal seemed to touch even the heart of the Wild Ram of the Mountains, though it told of a suffering he could not understand.

“Brigham is very sot in his ways,” he said, after a little, with a curious soft kindness in his voice,—­“in fact, a sotter man I never knew!”