“You got me there!” said Raymond pleasantly. “So that's the millennium; it's a right pretty idea, ain't it? But tedious I should reckon.”
“Is your father satisfied with Mormonism?” asked Stephen.
“Yes, sir, and it's a pretty fair sort of a religion.”
“How about Brigham Young?” said Stephen.
“Oh, they're thick as thieves. Brigham's right smart of a schemer, too,” with gentle approval. “There's no foolishness about him—none whatever.”
“I suppose you are acquainted with Young, too?” said Stephen.
“Me? Oh, yes. I tell you, Mr. Landray, the valley's no healthy place unless you keep on the right side of him. I've heard father say that even after he'd been made elder, he kicked over the traces, and they had to baptise him all over a few times, to give him a fresh start. I reckon they didn't keep him in long enough 'airy time, if I'd been doing the job I'd left him in over night.”
While he talked his glance had been continually straying in the direction of the fur trader. The latter's apparently earnest conversation with his companions had come to an end, and the two halfbreeds had stretched themselves on the ground, but Basil still sat beside the camp-fire, his pipe between his teeth, moody and solitary.
The deserter hitched a little nearer Stephen, and dropped his voice to a low whisper.
“I'd like mighty well to tie up with you gentlemen, and give Basil yonder the slip. It was downright underhand of him to run me and the breeds in on you the way he done; I was real distressed, honest I was. It'd about serve him right if you helped me cut loose; we could wait until we got to the valley, and then if you'd just furnish me with a gun—” He looked wistfully at the row of rifles that leaned against the wagon-bed, each within easy reach of its owner's hand “and if there was any shooting to be done—him, I mean—I'd do it. Of course, his being kin to you, you wouldn't just want to do that yourselves. I'd want to feel though, that you'd take care of the half-breeds until I done for Basil. You never can trust a half-breed anyhow.”