"I don't dare move until the surgeon comes," said the lieutenant. "He
wants to speak to you. I believe, if he has anything to say you had
better hear it now."
His last words were in a whisper so low that Nathaniel scarcely heard
them. As the lieutenant rose to his feet, he whispered again.
"He is dying!"
Obadiah's eyes opened as Nathaniel knelt beside him and from between his
thin lips there came faintly the old, gurgling chuckle.
"Nat!" he breathed. His thin hand sought his companion's and clung to it
tightly. "We have won. The vengeance of God--has come!"
In these last moments all madness had left the eyes of Obadiah Price.
"I want to tell you--" he whispered, and Nathaniel bent low. "I have
given him the package. It is evidence I have gathered--all these
years--to destroy the Mormon kingdom."
He tried to turn his head.
"Marion--" he whispered wistfully.
"She will come," said Nathaniel. "I will call her."
"No--not yet."
Obadiah's fingers tightened about Captain Plum's.
"I want to tell--you."
For a few moments he seemed struggling to command all his strength.
"A good many years ago," he said, as if speaking to himself, "I loved a
girl--like Marion, and she loved me--as Marion loves you. Her people
were Mormons, and they went to Kirtland--and I followed them. We planned
to escape and go east, for my Jean was good and beautiful, and hated the
Mormons as I hated them. But they caught us and--thought--they--killed--"
The old man's lips twitched and a convulsive shudder shook his body.
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