A turn in the path brought them to the opening where the fight had occurred.  Marion was on her knees beside the old councilor.

Nathaniel hurried ahead of the lieutenant and his men.  The girl glanced up at him and his heart filled with dread at the terror in her eyes.

“Is he dead?”

“No—­but—­” Her voice trembled with tears.

Nathaniel did not let her finish.  Gently he raised her to her feet as the lieutenant came up.

“You must go to the cabin, sweetheart,” he whispered.

Even in this moment of excitement and death his great love drove all else from his eyes, and the blood surged into Marion’s pale cheeks as she tremblingly gave him her hand.  He led her to the door, and held her for a moment in his arms.

“Strang is dead,” he said softly.  In a few words he told her what had happened and turned back to the door, leaving her speechless.

“If he is dying—­you will tell me—­” she called after him.

“Yes, yes, I will tell you.”

He ran back into the opening.

The lieutenant had doubled his coat under Obadiah’s head and his face was pale as he looked up at Nathaniel.  The latter saw in his eyes what his lips kept silent.  The officer held something in his hand.  It was the mysterious package which Captain Plum had taken his oath to deliver to the president of the United States.

“I don’t dare move until the surgeon comes,” said the lieutenant.  “He wants to speak to you.  I believe, if he has anything to say you had better hear it now.”

His last words were in a whisper so low that Nathaniel scarcely heard them.  As the lieutenant rose to his feet, he whispered again.

“He is dying!”

Obadiah’s eyes opened as Nathaniel knelt beside him and from between his thin lips there came faintly the old, gurgling chuckle.

“Nat!” he breathed.  His thin hand sought his companion’s and clung to it tightly.  “We have won.  The vengeance of God—­has come!”

In these last moments all madness had left the eyes of Obadiah Price.

“I want to tell you—­” he whispered, and Nathaniel bent low.  “I have given him the package.  It is evidence I have gathered—­all these years—­to destroy the Mormon kingdom.”

He tried to turn his head.

“Marion—­” he whispered wistfully.

“She will come,” said Nathaniel.  “I will call her.”

“No—­not yet.”

Obadiah’s fingers tightened about Captain Plum’s.

“I want to tell—­you.”

For a few moments he seemed struggling to command all his strength.

“A good many years ago,” he said, as if speaking to himself, “I loved a girl—­like Marion, and she loved me—­as Marion loves you.  Her people were Mormons, and they went to Kirtland—­and I followed them.  We planned to escape and go east, for my Jean was good and beautiful, and hated the Mormons as I hated them.  But they caught us and—­thought—­they—­killed—­”