Все приключения Шерлока Холмса / All adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Some people will go to Nevada tomorrow, and I’ll send him a message. If I know anything of that young man, he’ll be back here soon.”

Lucy laughed through her tears.

“When he comes, he will give us some advise. But it is for you that I am frightened, dear. One hears such dreadful stories about those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to them.”

“But we don’t oppose him,” her father answered. “We have time. We have a clear month before us; at the end of that, I guess we will leave Utah.

”

“Leave Utah!”

“Yes.”

“But the farm?”

“We will sell as much as we can. I don’t want to knuckle under to any man, under to this darned prophet. I’m a free-born American.”

“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.

“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. There’s no danger at all.”

John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone, but she observed that he fastened the doors that night, and carefully cleaned and loaded the old shotgun.

Chapter IV

A Flight For Life

Next morning John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City and found his acquaintance, who was going to the Nevada Mountains. He entrusted him with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the imminent danger which threatened them. After that he returned home.

As he approached his farm, he saw two horses. When he entered his house, he found two young men in his sitting-room.

One, with a long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair[53 - rocking-chair – кресло-качалка], with his feet upon the stove. The other was standing in front of the window with his hands in his pocket. He was whistling a popular hymn. Both of them nodded to Ferrier as he entered, and the one in the rocking-chair commenced the conversation.

“Maybe you don’t know us,” he said. “This here is the son of Elder Drebber, and I’m Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the desert.

”

John Ferrier bowed coldly. He guessed who his visitors were.

“We are here,” continued Stangerson, “to solicit the hand of your daughter. Let her choose. I have only four wives and Brother Drebber here has seven, so my claim is the stronger one.”

“No, no, Brother Stangerson,” cried the other; “the question is not how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father gave me his mills, and I am the richer man.