"She said she came down as far as the mill with Brother Sheets. She stayed with me here about an hour, and then, seeing a dust outside coming down the main road, she walked over there, carrying her bundle of clothes, and waited for the teams. I was busy getting up the cows and feeding the stock, and did not think any more about it for about an hour, and when I looked out to the main road for her, she was gone. I went right out, and happened to meet a team going south, and I asked the driver if the Meachams or the Harpers had gone on that way a little while before, and he said he thought the Harpers were just ahead of him, as they drove out of the city about half an hour before he did. So, of course, she has gone down to Prove. If you want to stay over night, I will rig up some straw ticks, and make you as comfortable as I can."
Aunt Clara could never feel satisfied to go back to the city without learning something definite and sure about their missing girl; and so it was decided to wait over night at the farm house, and to start very early in the morning for Provo, and bring back their loved wanderer with them on their return next day.
XXXV.
ON TO PROVO
What conflicting emotions swayed that little party of three as they rode rapidly along the next day towards the town of Provo!
Diantha had chosen to sit by John on the front seat, both to accommodate Aunt Clara, who was stout, and to comfort her own miserable heart, by resting on his great, fortress-like personality. She was too weak just now to stand alone, as she had done all her life. She was discovering that she was a true woman, and she needed someone to lean on in her hour of woe.
"John," she said, "do you remember when we came home last year from Provo, how we met those soldiers, almost here it was?" and then that brought up the thought all were trying to put away, and Aunt Clara interrupted:
"I wonder where the folks stayed all night! They couldn't drive clear through to Provo after meeting was out yesterday afternoon. We didn't think to inquire at Dr. Dunyon's at the point of the mountain, if they stayed there over night."
"I will ask at the Bishop's as we pass through Lehi, if he saw the Harpers on the road today."
Accordingly, they drove to the Bishop's, in Lehi, and he told them he had seen the Harpers driving along early that morning, but they did not stop over in the settlement.