“And I want to speak to you special about something—­this young dandy Gentile you’re harbouring.  Course it’s none of my business, but I wouldn’t want one of my girls companying with a Gentile—­off up in that canon with him, at that—­fishing one day, reading a book the next, walking clost together,—­and specially not when Brigham had spoke for her.  Oh, I know what I’m talking about!  I had my mallet and frow up there two days now, just beyond the lower dry-fork, splitting out shakes for my new addition, and I seen ’em with my own eyes.  You know what young folks is, Elder.  That reminds me—­I’m going to seal up that sandy-haired daughter of Bishop Tanner’s next week some time; soon as we get the roof on the new part.  But I thought I’d speak to you about this—­a word to the wise!”

The Wild Ram of the Mountains passed on, whistling a lively air.  The little bent man went with slow, troubled steps to his own home.  He did know the way of young people, and he felt that he was beginning to know the way of God.  Each day one wall or another of his prison house moved a little in upon him.  In the end it would crush.  He had given up everything but Prudence; and now, for his wicked clinging to her, she was to be taken from him; if not by Brigham, then by this Gentile, who would of course love her, and who, if he could not make her love him, would be tempted to alienate her by exposing the crime of the man she believed to be her father.  The walls were closing about him.  When he reached the house, they were sitting on the bench outside.

“Sometimes,” Follett was saying, “you can’t tell at first whether a thing is right or wrong.  You have to take a long squint, like when you’re in the woods on a path that ain’t been used much lately and has got blind.  Put your face right close down to it and you can’t see a sign of a trail; it’s the same as the ground both sides, covered with leaves the same way and not a footprint or anything.  But you stand up and look along it for fifty feet, and there she is so plain you couldn’t miss it.  Isn’t that so, Mr. Rae?”

Prudence went in, and her father beckoned him a little way from the door.

“You’re sure you will never tell her anything about—­anything, until I’m gone?—­You promised me, you know.”

“Well, didn’t I promise you?”

“Not under any circumstances?”

“You don’t keep back anything about ‘circumstances’ when you make a promise,” retorted Mr. Follett.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

The Gentile Issues an Ultimatum