Follett slowly put the revolver into its holster and sat down on the low stool.

“I don’t know anything about all this hell-talk, but I see I can’t kill you—­you’re such a poor, miserable cuss.  And I thought you were a big strong man, handy with a gun and all that, and like as not I’d have to make a quick draw on you when the time come.  And now look at you!  Why, Mister, I’m doggoned if I ain’t almost sorry for you!  You sure have been getting your deservance good and plenty.  Say, what in God’s name did you all do such a hellish thing for, anyway?”

“We had been persecuted, hunted, and driven, our Prophet murdered, our women and children butchered, and another army was on the way.”

“Well, that was because you were such an ornery lot, always setting yourself up against the government wherever you went, and acting scandalous—­”

“We did as the Lord directed us—­”

“Oh, shucks!”

“And then we thought the time had come to stand up for our rights; that the Lord meant us to be free and independent.”

“Secesh, eh?” Follett was amused.  “You handful of Mormons—­Uncle Sam could have licked you with both hands tied behind him.  Why, you crazy fool, he’d have spit on you and drowned every last one of you, old Brigham Young and all.  Fighting the United States!  A few dozen women-butchers going to do what the whole South couldn’t!  Well, I am danged.”

He mused over it, and for awhile neither spoke.

“And the nearest you ever got to it was cutting up a lot of women and children after you’d cheated the men into giving up their guns!”

The other groaned.

“There now, that’s right—­don’t you see that hurts worse than killing?”

“But I certainly wish I could have got those other two that took us off into the sage-brush that night.  I didn’t guess what for, but the first thing I knew the other boy was scratching, and kicking, and hollering, and like to have wriggled away, so the cuss that was with me ran up to help.  Then I heard little John making kind of a squeally noise in his throat like he was being choked, and that was all I wanted.  I legged it into the sage-brush.  I heard them swearing and coming after me, and ran harder, and, what saved me, I tripped and fell down and hurt myself, so I lay still and they lost track of me.  I was scared, I promise you that; but after they got off a ways I worked in the other direction by spells till I got to a little wady, and by sunup they weren’t in sight any longer.  When I saw the Indians coming along I wasn’t a bit scared.  I knew they weren’t Mormons.”

“I used to pray that you might come back and kill me.”

“I used to wish I would grow faster so I could.  I was always laying out to do it.”

“But see how I’ve been punished.  Look at me—­I’m fifty.  I ought to be in my prime.  See how I’ve been burnt out.”

“But look here, Mister, what about this girl?  Do you think you’ve been doing right by keeping her here?”