“The cattle are safe enough,” he laughed. “The men that are doing this transporting will take the cattle. None of our Mormon friends will ever see a hoof from Beaver Island again.”
“But it seems robbery to drive them off and seize their property.”
“That's the way King Strang took Beaver from the Gentiles in the first place. Mormons and Gentiles can't live together.”
“We can.”
“I told you that you were a poor Mormon, Cecilia. And from first to last I opposed my family's entering the community. Tithes and meddling sent my father out of it a poor man. But I'm glad he went before this; and your people, too.”
She drew a deep breath. “Oh yes! They're safe in Green Bay. I couldn't endure to have them on those steamers going down the lake to-night. What will become of the community, Ludlow?”
“God knows. They'll be landed at Chicago and turned adrift on the world. I'm glad they're away from here. I've no cause to love them, but I was afraid they would be butchered like sheep. Your father and my father, if they had still been elders on the island, wouldn't have submitted, as these folks did, to abuse and exile and the loss of everything they had in the world. I can't understand it of some of them. There was Jim Baker, for instance; I'd have sworn he would fight.”
“I can understand why he didn't. He hasn't taken any interest since his second marriage.”