“It is impossible.  I am speaking of Winnsome.  Arbor Croche’s house is in the heart of the town and guarded by dogs.  I doubt if she would go, anyway.  She has always been like a little sister to Marion and me and she has come to believe—­something—­as we do.  I hate to leave her.”

“Obadiah told me about her mother,” ventured Nathaniel.  “He said that some day Winnsome will be a queen.”

“I knew her mother,” replied Neil, as though he had not heard Nathaniel’s last words.  He looked frankly into the other’s face.  “I worshipped her!”

“Oh-h-h!”

“From a distance,” he hastened.  “She was as pure as Winnsome is now.  Little Winn looks like her.  Some day she will be as beautiful.”

“She is beautiful now.”

“But she is a mere child.  Why, it seems only a year ago that I was toting her about on my shoulders!  And—­by George, that was a year before her mother died!  She is sixteen now.”

Nathaniel laughed softly.

“To-morrow she will be making love, Neil, and before you know it she will be married and have a family of her own.  I tell you she is a woman—­and if you are not a fool you will take her away with Marion.”

With a powerful stroke of his paddle Neil brought the canoe in to the shore.

“There!” he whispered.  “You have only to cross this point to reach your boat.”  He stretched out his long arm and in the silence the two shook hands.  “If you should happen to think of a way—­that we might get Winnsome—­” he added, coloring.

The sudden grip of his companion’s fingers made him flinch.

“We must!” said Nathaniel.

He climbed ashore and watched Neil until he had disappeared in the wild rice.  Then he turned into the woods.  He looked at his watch and saw that it was only two o’clock.  He was conscious of no fatigue; he was not conscious of hunger.  To him the whole world had suddenly opened with glorious promise and in the still depths of the forest he felt like singing out his rejoicing.  He had never stopped to ask himself what might be the end of this passion that had overwhelmed him; he lived only in the present, in the knowledge that Marion was not a wife, and that it was he whom fate had chosen for her deliverance.  He reasoned nothing beyond the sweet eyes that had called upon him, that had burned their gratitude, their hope and their despair upon his soul; nothing beyond the thought that she would soon be free from the mysterious influence of the Mormon king and that for days and nights after that she would be on the same ship with him.  He had emptied the pockets of the coat he had given Neil and now he brought forth the old letter which Obadiah had rescued from the sands.  He read it over again as he sat for a few moments in the cool of the forest and there was no trouble in his face now.  It was from a girl.  He had known that girl, years ago, as Neil knew Winnsome; in years of wandering he had almost forgotten her—­until