“The older I grew the more I was alone.  I was always running round the valley.  I would climb to a high place and sit there for hours, doing nothing.  I just watched and listened.  I used to stay in the cliff-dwellers’ caves and wonder about them.  I loved to be out in the wind.  And my happiest time was in the summer storms with the thunder echoes under the walls.  At evening it was such a quiet place—­after the night bird’s cry, no sound.  The quiet made me sad but I loved it.  I loved to watch the stars as I lay awake.

“So it was beautiful and happy for me there till—­till . . .

“Two years or more ago there was a bad storm, and one of the great walls caved.  The walls were always weathering, slipping.  Many and many a time have I heard the rumble of an avalanche, but most of them were in other canyon.  This slide in the valley made it possible, Uncle Jim said, for men to get down into the valley.  But we could not climb out unless helped from above.  Uncle Jim never rested well after that.  But it never worried me.

“One day, over a year ago, while I was across the valley, I heard strange shouts, and then screams.  I ran to our camp.  I came upon men with ropes and guns.  Uncle Jim was tied, and a rope was round his neck.  Mother Jane was lying on the ground.  I thought she was dead until I heard her moan.  I was not afraid.  I screamed and flew at Uncle Jim to tear the ropes off him.  The men held me back.  They called me a pretty cat.  Then they talked together, and some were for hanging Lassiter—­that was the first time I ever knew any name for him but Uncle Jim—­and some were for leaving him in the valley.  Finally they decided to hang him.  But Mother Jane pleaded so and I screamed and fought so that they left off.  Then they went away and we saw them climb out of the valley.

“Uncle Jim said they were Mormons, and some among them had been born in Cottonwoods.  I was not told why they had such a terrible hate for him.  He said they would come back and kill him.  Uncle Jim had no guns to fight with.

“We watched and watched.  In five days they did come back, with more men, and some of them wore black masks.  They came to our cave with ropes and guns.  One was tall.  He had a cruel voice.  The others ran to obey him.  I could see white hair and sharp eyes behind the mask.  The men caught me and brought me before him.

“He said Lassiter had killed many Mormons.  He said Lassiter had killed his father and should be hanged.  But Lassiter would be let live and Mother Jane could stay with him, both prisoners there in the valley, if I would marry the Mormon.  I must marry him, accept the Mormon faith, and bring up my children as Mormons.  If I refused they would hang Lassiter, leave the heretic Jane Withersteen alone in the valley, and take me and break me to their rule.