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"Venters, let's talk awhile before we go down there," said Lassiter, slipping his bridle "I ain't in no hurry Theot" With a rider's eye he took in the points of Venter's horse, but did not speak his thought "Well, did anythin' coht?"

Venters told hie," replied Lassiter, "an' didn't see or hear no one Oldrin's got a high hand here, I reckon It's no news up in Utah how he holes in canyons an' leaves no track"

Lassiter was silent a ers some years back when he drove cattle into Bostil's Ford, at the head of the Rio Virgin But he got harassed there an' now he drives some place else"

"Lassiter, you knew him? Tell me, is he Mormon or Gentile?"

"I can't say I've knowed Mormons who pretended to be Gentiles"

"No Mormon ever pretended that unless he was a rustler" declared Venters

"Mebbe so"

"It's a hard country for any one, but hardest for Gentiles Did you ever know or hear of a Gentile prospering in a Moret out of Utah I've a ht years now"

The older man's sympathy moved Venters to tell his story He had left Quincy, run off to seek his fortune in the gold fields had never gotten any farther than Salt Lake City, wandered here and there as helper, teamster, shepherd, and drifted southward over the divide and across the barrens and up the rugged plateau through the passes to the last border settlee, had stock of his own, and for a time prospered, until chance threw him in the employ of Jane Withersteen

"Lassiter, I needn't tell you the rest"

"Well, it'd be no news to e love en' patience en' sacrifice an' silence en' whet I call ainst that I've seen the tricks of ether, an' in the dark No uns For Morood I ever seen in their religion Venters, take this froht in their minds Else could a Mormon marry one woman when he already has a wife, an' call it duty?"

"Lassiter, you think as I think," returned Venters