Page:Curwood--The Courage of Captain Plum.djvu/149

 faith?—a message revealed through Strang from—"

Neil stopped him almost fiercely.

"Marion is not a Mormon!" he said. "She hates Mormonism as she hates Strang. I have tried to get her to leave the island with me but she insists on staying because of the old folk. They are very old, Captain Plum, and they believe in the prophet and his Heaven as you and I believe in that blue sky up there. The day before I was arrested I begged my sister to flee to the mainland with me but she refused with the words that she had said to me a hundred times before—'Neil, I must marry the prophet!' Don't you see there is nothing to do—but to kill Strang?"

Nathaniel thrust his hand into a pocket of the coat he had loaned to Neil and drew forth his pipe and tobacco pouch. As he loaded the pipe he looked squarely into the other's eyes and smiled.

"Neil," he said softly. "Do you know that