Summary

In Part 2, Chapter 4, John feared his mysterious and hidden enemy. Each day, a number was found in his room to count the days until the end of the one month that he had before the Mormon leaders would kill him for allowing his daughter to be engaged to a non-Mormon and his refusal to have his daughter marry Enoch Drebber or Joseph Stangerson. What scared John so much was that he never saw anyone place the numbers in their locations. Even when John kept watch with his gun all night, he still found a number painted on his door the next morning.

However, John “never wavered in his resolution to part with life itself before he consented to what he regarded as his daughter’s dishonour” (68). On the evening of the second-to-final day, John heard a scratching sound before spotting a man...