The Man with the Dead Soul turned his head aside and there was silence for a moment. Then, bending down and having assured himself that Eyelids was asleep. "I've known all that," he said; "but, unlike you, I did more 'an intend—I killed my man. I guess you an' I are o' one family now, so there's no harm in tellin'. I don't just remember who you are, nor how we happen to be here this night; but you placed that gold in my hand, so I reckon you're all right. You ain't a Mormon, are you?" he asked abruptly.
Granger, taken aback by the question, smiled slowly and shook his head.
"Well, then, I'd have you to know," Beorn continued, "that I was brought up in the Mormon faith. One o' the earliest memories I have is o' the massacre o' the Latter-Day Saints at Gallatin, when Governor Boggs issued his order that we should be exterminated an' driven out. I can still see the soldiery ridin' up an' down, pillagin' our city, insultin' our womenfolk, an' cuttin' down our men. I can just remember the misery o' the winter through which we fled, an' the tightness o' my mother's arms about me as we crossed the Mississippi, goin' into Illinois for safety. From my earliest childhood my mind has bin made accustomed to travellin's, an' privations, an' deeds o' blood. That's the sort o' man I am.
"It was six years after the Gallatin affair, when our city o' Nauvoo had been founded, that the mob once more rose agin us an' murdered our prophets, an' placed our lives in danger. Again we fled, crossin' the Mississippi on the ice, till we gained a breathin' space at Council Bluffs. A year after that, under Brigham Young, we passed through the Rockies to the Great Salt Lake an' came to rest. All this persecootion caused our people to become a hard an' bitter race; but I'd have been true to 'em if it hadn't bin for my mother, an' the manner o' her death. How did she die? Don't ask me, for I can't tell you. She was a Swede, a kind o' white slave, who was kept with several other women by my father. She went out one day, an' never came back. I believe she'd got heartsick, an' was plannin' t' escape with a feller o' her own nationality, a newcomer. Anyhow, when I asked my father about her, he threatened me into silence. He was a priest o' the order o' Melchizedek, a powerful man among the prophets. From that hour I hated Mormonism, an' determined t' escape whenever my chance occurred. It came sooner 'an I expected.
"The Californian gold-rush had robbed the Saints o' the seaboard to which they was hopin' to lay claim. They began to get nervous lest the southern territories, from Salt Lake to the Mexican frontier, might also be lost to 'em if they didn't do something so they organised the State of Deseret, an' sent out expeditions to take it up before it could fall into the Gentiles' hands. My father, I believe, had grown 'fraid o' me, lest I should take his life; so he had me included in the first expedition, which consisted o' eighty men, an' was sent to garrison a Mormon station in Carson Valley, Nevada.
"I've allaws had a nose for gold, an' we hadn't bin there a month before I'd discovered an' washed out a little dust from a neighbourin' gulch. I kept my secret to myself, an' when I'd gathered enough, bought provisions, stole a horse, an' ran away, escapin' over the Sierras into California, where I hoped that the Mormons, an' especially my father, would lose all trace o' me an' give me up for dead. For eight years I drifted along the coast from camp to camp, but didn't have much luck. I even went so far south as Mexico, where I laboured in the silver mines an' learned the Mexican method o' crushin' quartz with arrastras.
"All this time I was haunted by the memory o' the gold which I'd washed out in Carson Valley; the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that untold riches lay buried there. However, I was fearful to return, lest I should fall into the clutches o' the priesthood o' Melchizedek or o' the spies o' Brigham Young. I was an apostate, an' my father was my enemy; I knew that, should I once be recovered by the Mormons, no mercy would be shown me. At last the news came that the struggle o' the Saints for possession o' Nevada had been given up, an' that messengers had bin sent out from Salt Lake biddin' all emigrants return. For eight years I'd bin unmolested; I thought that I'd bin forgotten, an' that it was safe to turn my steps eastward.
"I travelled day an' night to get back to my first discovery; I was tortured wi' the thought that before I got there someone might have rediscovered it, an' have staked it out. I'd crossed the Sierras, an' was within a two-days' journey o' my destination, when I came to a lonely valley as the sun was settin', an' there I camped. The place looked God-forsaken; there was nothin' in sight but rocks, an' sand, an' sage-brush. I lit my fire, an' tethered my horse, an', being dog-tired, was soon asleep. Suddenly I woke up, an' was conscious o' footsteps goin' stealthily, away from me into the darkness. I jumped to my feet an' seized my gun; but my eyes were dazed with sleep an' firelight so that I could see nothin'. I ran out into the shadows, followin' the footsteps, but, before I could come up with 'em, their sound had changed to that o' a horse, gallopin' northward, growin' fainter and fainter.
"I returned to my camp an' examined my baggage; nothin' was missin', not even the gold which I'd carried—all seemed safe. I sat up an' watched till daybreak, an', havin' snatched a hasty breakfast, commenced t' pack my animal. Then it was that I discovered, slipped beneath a strap o' my saddle, a sheet o' paper. Unfoldin' it, I saw that it was scrawled over in a rude an' almost unreadable hand. This was what it said, 'This demand of ours shall remain uncancelled, an' shall be to you as was the Ark o' God among the Philistines. Unless you return to your father's house an' to the people o' your father's faith, you shall be visited by the Lord o' Hosts wi' thunder an' wi' earthquakes, wi' floods, wi' pestilence, wi' famine, an' wi' bloodshed, until the day of your death, when your name shall not be known among men.'
"I was seized with panic, for then I knew that the spies o' Mormon had traced me. But I wouldn't turn back, for I knew that the treasure for which I had waited, as Jacob waited for Rachel, lay straight ahead. So I rode forward, tremblin' as I went, carryin' my gun in my hand. At the end o' the second day I came t' Johntown, an' found that many things had changed since I had left. There were a dozen shanties in the town; these were occupied wi' gamblers, storekeepers, an' liquor-sellers, includin' two white women an' Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute princess. But the placer-miners had been at work, an' the gulches were dotted with the tents an' dugouts o' men who had discovered my secret for themselves. Thomas Paige Comstock was in the gang, the man who gave his name to the first great strike. They called 'im Old Pancake, 'cause he was too busy searchin' for gold to bake bread. Even at that time, as wi' spoon in hand he stirred the pancake batter, he kept his eyes on the crest o' some distant peak, an' was lost in dreams o' avarice.