The King of Beaver, and Beaver Lights | Page 9

Their faces were indistinct to each other.
"For the first time in my life I have deceived my husband!"
"Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do?" cried the girl.
A steamer whistle at St. James dock sent its bellow rebounding from
tree to tree in the woods. Emeline seized Mary French and kissed her
violently on both cheeks. She snatched the bag and flew towards St.
James.

"Stop!" commanded the Prophet's wife.
She ran in pursuit, catching Emeline by the shoulders.
"You sha'n't go! What am I doing? Maybe robbing him of what is
necessary to his highest success! I am a fool--to think he might turn
back to me for consolation when you are gone--God forgive me such
silly fondness! I can't have a secret between him and myself--I will tell
him! You shall not go--and cause him a mortal hurt! Wait!--stop!--the
boat is gone! It's too late!"
"Let me loose!" struggled Emeline, wrenching herself away.
[Illustration: Let me loose! 148]
She ran on through the woods, and Mary French, snatching at garments
which eluded her, stumbled and fell on the damp path, gathering dead
leaves under her palms. The steamer's prolonged bellow covered her
voice.
Candles were lighted in St. James. The Tabernacle spread itself like a
great circular web dark with moisture. Emeline was conscious of
running across the gang-plank as a sailor stooped to draw it in. The bell
was ringing and the boat was already in motion. It sidled and backed
away from its moorings.
Emeline knelt panting at the rail on the forward deck. A flambeau
fastened to the wharf bowed its light to the wind as the boat swung
about, showing the King of Beaver smiling and waving his hand in
farewell. He did not see Emeline. His farewell was for the man whom
he had sent away without her. His golden hair and beard and blue eyes
floated into Emeline's past as the steamer receded, the powerful face
and lithe figure first losing their identity, and then merging into night.
What if it was true that she was robbing both him and herself of the
best life, as Mary French was smitten to believe at the last moment?
Her Gentile gorge rose against him, and the traditions of a thousand
years warred in her with nature; yet she stretched her hands towards
him in the darkness.

Then she heard a familiar voice, and knew that the old order of things
was returning, while Beaver Island, like a dream, went silently down
upon the waters.
Some years later, in the '50's, Emeline, sitting opposite her husband at
the breakfast-table, heard him announce from the morning paper:
"Murder of King Strang, the Mormon Prophet of Beaver Island." All
the details of the affair, even the track of the bullets which crashed into
that golden head, were mercilessly printed. The reader, surprised by a
sob, dropped his paper.
"What! Are you crying, Mrs. Arnold?"
"It was so cruel!" sobbed Emeline. "And Billy Wentworth, like a
savage, helped to do it!"
"He had provocation, no doubt, though it is a horrid deed. Perhaps I
owe the King of Beaver the tribute of a tear. He befogged me
considerably the only time I ever met him."
"You see only his evil. But I see what he was to Mary French and the
others." "His bereaved widows?" "The ones who believed in his best."
*****

BEAVER LIGHTS
A magnificent fountain of flame, visible far out on the starlit lake,
spurted from the north end of Beaver Island. It was the temple, in
which the Mormon people had worshipped for the last time, sending
sparks and illumined vapor to the zenith. The village of St. James was
partly in ashes, and a blue pallor of smoke hung dimly over nearly
every hill and hollow, for Gentile fishermen crazed with drink and
power and long arrears of grievances had carried torch and axe from
farm to farm. Until noon of that day all householding families had been
driven to huddle with their cattle around the harbor dock and forced to

make pens for the cattle of lumber which had been piled there for
transportation. Unresisting as sheep they let themselves be shipped on
four small armed steamers sent by their enemies to carry them into
exile. Not one of the twelve elders who had received the last
instructions of their murdered king rose up to organize any defence.
Scarcely a month had passed since his wounding unto death, and his
withdrawal, like Arthur, in the arms of weeping women to that spot in
Wisconsin where he had found his sacred Voree plates or tables of the
law. Scarcely two weeks had passed since news came back of his burial
there. And already the Mormon settlement was swept off Beaver
Island.
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