“Now as to our enemies—­apostates and Gentiles—­the tree that brings not forth good fruit shall be hewn down.  ‘What,’ you ask, ’do you believe that people would do right to put these traitors to death?’ Yes!  What does the United States government do with traitors?  Examine the doings of earthly governments on this point and you will find but one practise universal.  A word to the wise is enough; just remember that there are sins that the blood of a lamb, of a calf, or of a turtle-dove, cannot remit.”

Under this discourse Joel Rae sat terrified, with a bloodless face, cowering as he had made others to cower six weeks before.  The words seemed to carry his own preaching to its rightful conclusion; but now how changed was his world!—­a whirling, sickening chaos of sin and remorse.

As he listened to Brigham’s words, picturing the blood of the sinner smoking on the ground, his thoughts fled back to that night, that night of wondrous light and warmth, the last he could remember before the great blank came.

Now the voice of Brigham came to him again:  “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission!”

Then the service ended, and he saw Bishop Wright pushing toward him through the crowd.

“Well, well, Brother Rae you do look peaked, for sure!  But you’ll pick up fast enough, and just in time, too.  Lord! what won’t Brother Brigham do when the Holy Ghost gets a strangle-holt on him?  Now, then,” he added, in a lower tone, “if I ain’t mistaken, there’s going to be some work for the Sons of Dan!”

CHAPTER XV.

How the Souls of Apostates Were Saved

The Wild Ram of the Mountains had spoken truly; there was work at hand for the Sons of Dan.  When his Witness at last came to Joel Rae, he tried vainly to recall the working of his mind at this time; to remember where he had made the great turn—­where he had faced about.  For, once, he knew, he had been headed the way he wished to go, a long, plain road, reaching straight toward the point whither all the aspirations of his soul urged him.

And then, all in a day or in a night, though he had seen never a turn in the road, though he had gone a true and straight course, suddenly he had looked up to find he was headed the opposite way.  After facing his goal so long, he was now going from it—­and never a turn!  It was the wretched paradox of a dream.

The day after Brigham’s sermon on blood-atonement, there had been a meeting in the Historian’s office, presided over by Brigham.  And here for the first time Joel Rae found he was no longer looked upon as one too radical.  Somewhat dazedly, too, he realised at this close range the severely practical aspects of much that he had taught in theory.  It was strange, almost unnerving, to behold his own teachings naked of their pulpit rhetoric; to find his long-cherished ideals materialised by literal-minded, practiced men.