It's eight years now."
The older man's sympathy moved Venters to tell his story. He had
left Quincy, run off to seek his fortune in the gold fields had
never gotten any farther than Salt Lake City, wandered here and
there as helper, teamster, shepherd, and drifted southward over
the divide and across the barrens and up the rugged plateau
through the passes to the last border settlements. Here he became
a rider of the sage, had stock of his own, and for a time
prospered, until chance threw him in the employ of Jane
Withersteen.
"Lassiter, I needn't tell you the rest."
"Well, it'd be no news to me. I know Mormons. I've seen their
women's strange love en' patience en' sacrifice an' silence en'
whet I call madness for their idea of God. An' over against that
I've seen the tricks of men. They work hand in hand, all
together, an' in the dark. No man can hold out against them,
unless he takes to packin' guns. For Mormons are slow to kill.
That's the only good I ever seen in their religion. Venters, take
this from me, these Mormons ain't just right in their minds. Else
could a Mormon marry one woman when he already has a wife, an'
call it duty?"
"Lassiter, you think as I think," returned Venters.
"How'd it come then that you never throwed a gun on Tull or some
of them?" inquired the rider, curiously.
"Jane pleaded with me, begged me to be patient, to overlook.
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