"Hush!" says Erma. "Don't speak of it," and she shudders. Then she asks, "Where's my father now?"
"In town! But I ain't told him you was here yit. I thought he might be——"
"Ashamed!" cries the girl, but suddenly pauses. Kruger's looks alarm her.
"If I thought as how R. H. Travenion was ashamed of the holy Church of our Latter-Day Saints, I'd cut him off root and branch in this world and the next," he says, the wild gleam of fanaticism coming into his deep eyes. "I swear it, by the Book of Mormon!" Erma knows this man means his words, for Lot Kruger is a fanatic, and believes in his creed and in Joseph Smith, as truly as the Dervish believes in Allah and Mahomet. "Your daddy is in town," he goes on more calmly, "but I feared he might be flustered if he knew you had come upon him, as it were, in the night, and so I kept my mouth shut."
"Will you bring him to me now?"
"Yes, in an hour!"
So, Mr. Kruger departs on his errand, but shortly re-appears, and says, "We have missed him agin. Your daddy's left for Tintic on the stage this morning at eight o'clock."
"Very well," answers Miss Travenion shortly. "I'll go to Tintic also."
This suggestion pleases Bishop Kruger so much that he cries, "Right you are! Ye're true grit, Sissy! You'd better go down by private conveyance. It'll be much more pleasant for ladies."
"Oh, I am alone now; my maid has left me," answers Miss Travenion; and this remark delights her auditor more than he would like her to guess. He goes on happily, "It's only seventy-five or eighty or perhaps ninety miles from here. You can drive down in a day with a good, tough bronco-team, but still you had better take it slowly and stop over night at Milo Johnson's."