About midway down the west side of the lake, she and the driver of the carriage eat their lunch. Then proceeding onward till almost at the upper end of this quiet water, she leaves its banks, and, after two or three miles of sage brush, enters a little cañon, with a brawling stream running down it. Very shortly to her comes the odor of garlic and arsenic from the smelting works at Homansville, whose great furnaces she soon sees, giving out clouds of smoke.
Passing these, three miles further up the valley she comes to Eureka. Here, making inquiry at the store of Baxter & Butterfield, she is directed to the Zion's Co-operative Mining Institution, whose works stand a mile or more beyond, towards Silver City.
So, in another half an hour Miss Travenion, turning from the main road and driving up a little spur of the mountain, past one or two dug-outs and miner's cabins, gets out of the wagon at the door of a house built of rough lumber, and says nervously to a man in high, muddy boots and blue shirt, greasy with candle drippings: "Is Bishop Tranyon in?"
"Yes, he is in the back room," and, pointing to the door, the miner goes off to his work.
She enters, and seated upon a wooden chair, looking over some accounts at a deal table, is the man they call Bishop Tranyon, and she says to him:—"Father!"
At her word, Ralph Travenion, once New York exquisite, now Mormon bishop, staggers up, trembles, and, gazing on her, cries: "Erma! my God! You here?"
Then, forcing back some awful emotion, his voice grows tender as he says: "Why, this is a surprise, darling! You have travelled all the way from New York to see your father. God bless you, child of my heart!" and there are tears in his deep eyes, and he would approach her and put his arms about her, giving her a father's kiss.
But she starts from him, shudders, and gasps: "Don't dare to kiss me!"
"Why not?"
"Because I know what you are."