Edge of the Wilderness by Stephanie Grace Whitson

They seemed to be able to ignore Brady Jensen.
    Daniel mounted his horse and trotted away from the mission. Following a line of trees along a ridge and down into a valley, he dismounted at the lowest part of a dry creek bed. Taking the sash from around his waist, he wound it around the journal. In a few moments he had found a crevice deep enough to hide the bundle. He piled several rocks across the hiding place, climbed back up the bank, and prepared to ride away. But then he stopped and looked behind him. If rain swelled the creek as it had in the past, the book would be swept away and ruined. Daniel sat for a moment arguing with himself. It put him in a dark mood to linger over the past. What did it matter if the book was ruined? Both it and the sash were part of a life that no longer existed.
    His horse was growing restless, dancing nervously and pawing the earth. Finally, Daniel let him lower his head and graze. While the bay snatched up huge mouthfuls of the rich prairie grass, Daniel scrambled down the creek bank and retrieved the bundle.

Seven
    He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
    —Psalm 147:3
    Simon had lit the gas lamp in the kitchen just long enough to make coffee, then turned it back off. He sat alone in the darkened room, sipping from his cup and thinking back over the previous day’s events. His closed Bible lay before him. As soon as he finished his coffee he would walk up to the church. By then it would be light enough for him to be able to reread the first chapter of Philippians. The idea that Paul had written the letter from prison had struck him a few days before, and now he was reading it over and over again, with a new appreciation for Paul’s ability to look upon his imprisonment as a kind of blessing. Simon especially liked the passage that read, “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” Simon hoped to use Philippians to encourage the prisoners at Davenport.
    A commentator had mentioned the Roman guards who heard the gospel because of being assigned to the apostle Paul. Simon hadn’t thought of it before, but now he wondered how many U.S. soldiers had heard the gospel because of their assignment in Mankato, where the prisoners held prayer meetings twice daily and heard preaching at least once a day. It was interesting food for thought, and it resulted in Simon’s looking forward to his ministry in the prison camp at Davenport. Perhaps God would do something through him down there, after all.
    For the moment, though, Simon was content to sit alone in the dark thinking back over the previous day’s events. He had done his best to “walk in a manner worthy to his calling,” and he felt strangely content with whatever reaction Genevieve LaCroix displayed when she learned what he had done. He had already cross-examined himself innumerable times in that regard. As much as he could tell, he had taken action as much for himself as for her. No, he thought with a new sense of joy, he wasn’t trying to manipulate her feelings at all. He had simply done what he thought best for everyone concerned. He certainly had no doubt that he had accomplished what was best for Hope.
    Footsteps sounded on the narrow staircase that connected the kitchen with the back upstairs hall. Snatching up his Bible, Simon made for the back porch, but before he could get there Gen called his name. He turned back into the room just as she lit the gaslight over the table. She apparently had dressed in haste, for her hair hung in one thick braid across her shoulder. She pulled the note he had slid under her door the night before out of her pocket. Looking down at it she stuttered, “I— How—” She sat down at the table and pushed the note across the table toward him. “How can this be true?” She reached up trying to smooth a dozen tendrils of dark hair back from her face.
    Simon smiled. “It’s