Jane Withersteen loved this man.  From earliest childhood she had been taught to revere and love bishops of her church.  And for ten years Bishop Dyer had been the closest friend and counselor of her father, and for the greater part of that period her own friend and Scriptural teacher.  Her interpretation of her creed and her religious activity in fidelity to it, her acceptance of mysterious and holy Mormon truths, were all invested in this Bishop.  Bishop Dyer as an entity was next to God.  He was God’s mouthpiece to the little Mormon community at Cottonwoods.  God revealed himself in secret to this mortal.

And Jane Withersteen suddenly suffered a paralyzing affront to her consciousness of reverence by some strange, irresistible twist of thought wherein she saw this Bishop as a man.  And the train of thought hurdled the rising, crying protests of that other self whose poise she had lost.  It was not her Bishop who eyed her in curious measurement.  It was a man who tramped into her presence without removing his hat, who had no greeting for her, who had no semblance of courtesy.  In looks, as in action, he made her think of a bull stamping cross-grained into a corral.  She had heard of Bishop Dyer forgetting the minister in the fury of a common man, and now she was to feel it.  The glance by which she measured him in turn momentarily veiled the divine in the ordinary.  He looked a rancher; he was booted, spurred, and covered with dust; he carried a gun at his hip, and she remembered that he had been known to use it.  But during the long moment while he watched her there was nothing commonplace in the slow-gathering might of his wrath.

“Brother Tull has talked to me,” he began.  “It was your father’s wish that you marry Tull, and my order.  You refused him?”

“Yes.”

“You would not give up your friendship with that tramp Venters?”

“No.”

“But you’ll do as I order!” he thundered.  “Why, Jane Withersteen, you are in danger of becoming a heretic!  You can thank your Gentile friends for that.  You face the damning of your soul to perdition.”

In the flux and reflux of the whirling torture of Jane’s mind, that new, daring spirit of hers vanished in the old habitual order of her life.  She was a Mormon, and the Bishop regained ascendance.

“It’s well I got you in time, Jane Withersteen.  What would your father have said to these goings-on of yours?  He would have put you in a stone cage on bread and water.  He would have taught you something about Mormonism.  Remember, you’re a born Mormon.  There have been Mormons who turned heretic—­damn their souls!—­but no born Mormon ever left us yet.  Ah, I see your shame.  Your faith is not shaken.  You are only a wild girl.”  The Bishop’s tone softened.  “Well, it’s enough that I got to you in time....Now tell me about this Lassiter.  I hear strange things.”

“What do you wish to know?” queried Jane.