“I won’t, except when I’m close beside you,” he said, “at least, not for a long time to come. But I am going to teach you, because there may be times in a woman’s life when such knowledge and skill may be of great value to her.”
“Max will take part, too, won’t he?” she asked.
“Yes, certainly; it is even more important for him to know how to use fire-arms than for you. Mr. Short will join in the sport, too, and you may invite Marian to do so also, if you choose.”
“Oh, thank you, papa! I will,” she said, running back to the room they had just left, while her father went on to his.
Marian was clearing the table as Lulu came rushing in, half breathless with haste and excitement.
“O Marian,” she said, “papa is going to teach me to use a pistol; to shoot at a mark; and he told me I might ask you if you would like to learn too. Would you?”
“Thank you, yes; it’s just what I’ve been longing to learn, for if the United States Government can’t, or won’t, protect me from the Mormons, I want to know how to protect myself,” returned the girl, her eyes flashing: “helpless women are their victims, but I don’t mean to be a helpless one. I’ll learn, if your father will teach me; then I’ll get a pistol of my own and use it, too, if I have occasion.”
“Marian, what makes you so fierce at them?” asked Lulu in surprise. “Is it because they persuaded your father to be a Mormon and leave his own country?”
“Yes; and because they force women to marry against their will: they force them into sin, making them marry horrid creatures (calling themselves men, but not worthy of the name) that already have wives; sometimes a number of them.
“And if a woman dares resist they say she is weakening in the faith—supposing she is called a Mormon—and according to their wicked, fiendish, blood atonement doctrine she must be put to death; and so they murder her in the name of religion.