“I’ll teach you about the Book of Mormon first,” she ventured.

“I’d like to hear it,” said Follett, cheerfully.

“Of course you don’t know anything about it.”

“It isn’t my fault, though.  I’ve been unfortunate in my bringing up, that’s all.”  He turned on his side and leaned upon his elbow so he could look at her.

“You see, I’ve been brought up to believe that Mormons were about as bad as Mexicans.  And Mexicans are so mean that even coyotes won’t touch them.  Down at the big bend on the Santa Fe Trail they shot a Mexican, old Jesus Bavispee, for running off cattle.  He was pretty well dried out to begin with, but the coyotes wouldn’t have a thing to do with him, and so he just dried up into a mummy.  They propped him up by the ford there, and when the cowboys went by they would roll a cigarette and light it and fix it in his mouth.  Then they’d pat him on the head and tell him what a good old boy he was—­star bueno—­the only good Mexican above ground—­and his face would be grinning all the time, as if it tickled him.  When they find a Mexican rustling cattle they always leave him there, and they used to tell me that the Mormons were just as bad and ought to be fixed that way too.”

“I think that was horrible!”

“Of course it was.  They were bigoted.  But I’m not.  I know right well there must be good Mexicans alive, though I never saw one, and I suppose of course there must be—­”

“Oh, you’re worse than I thought!” she cried.  “Come now, do try.  I want you to be made better, for my sake.”  She looked at him with real pleading in her eyes.  He dropped back to the ground with a thrill of searching religious fervour.

“Go on,” he said, feelingly.  “I’m ready for anything.  I have kind of a good feeling running through me already.  I do believe you’ll be a powerful lot of benefit to me.”

“You must have faith,” she answered, intent on the book.  “Now I’ll tell you some things first.”

Had the Gentile been attentive he might have learned that the Book of Mormon is an inspired record of equal authority with the Jewish Scriptures, containing the revelations of Jehovah to his Israel of the western world as the Bible his revelations to Israel in the Orient,—­the veritable “stick of Joseph,” that was to be one with “the stick of Judah;” that the angel Moroni, a messenger from the presence of God, appeared to Joseph Smith, clad in robes of light, and told him where were hid the plates of gold on which were graven this fulness of the everlasting gospel; how that Joseph, after a few years of preparation, was let to take these sacred plates from the hill of Cumorah; also an instrument called the Urim and Thummim, consisting of two stones set in a silver bow and made fast to a breast-plate, this having been prepared by the hands of God for use in translating the record on the plates; how Joseph, seated behind a curtain and looking through the Urim and Thummim at the characters on the plates, had seen their English equivalents over them, and dictated these to his amanuensis on the other side of the curtain.