“Waggoner had five wives and fifty-five children before the law went into effect,” whispered Withers.  “Nobody knows and nobody will ever know how many he’s got now.  That’s my private opinion.”

Somehow, after Withers told that, Shefford seemed to understand the strange power in Waggoner’s face.  Absolutely it was not the force, the strength given to a man from his years of control of men.  Shefford, long schooled now in his fair-mindedness, fought down the feelings of other years, and waited with patience.  Who was he to judge Waggoner or any other Mormon?  But whenever his glance strayed back to the quiet, slender form in white, when he realized again and again the appalling nature of this court, his heart beat heavy and labored within his breast.

Then a bustle among the men upon the platform appeared to indicate that proceedings were about to begin.  Some men left the platform; several sat down at a table upon which were books and papers, and others remained standing.  These last were all roughly garbed, in riding-boots and spurs, and Shefford’s keen eye detected the bulge of hidden weapons.  They looked like deputy-marshals upon duty.

Somebody whispered that the judge’s name was Stone.  The name fitted him.  He was not young, and looked a man suited to the prosecution of these secret Mormons.  He had a ponderous brow, a deep, cavernous eye that emitted gleams but betrayed no color or expression.  His mouth was the saving human feature of his stony face.

Shefford took the man upon the judge’s right hand to be a lawyer, and the one on his left an officer of court, perhaps a prosecuting attorney.  Presently this fellow pounded upon the table and stood up as if to address a court-room.  Certainly he silenced that hallful of people.  Then he perfunctorily and briefly stated that certain women had been arrested upon suspicion of being sealed wives of Mormon polygamists, and were to be herewith tried by a judge of the United States Court.  Shefford felt how the impressive words affected that silent hall of listeners, but he gathered from the brief preliminaries that the trial could not be otherwise than a crude, rapid investigation, and perhaps for that the more sinister.

The first woman on the foremost bench was led forward by a deputy to a vacant chair on the platform just in front of the judge’s table.  She was told to sit down, and showed no sign that she had heard.  Then the judge courteously asked her to take the chair.  She refused.  And Stone nodded his head as if he had experienced that sort of thing before.  He stroked his chin wearily, and Shefford conceived an idea that he was a kind man, if he was a relentless judge.

“Please remove your veil,” requested the prosecutor.