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Title: The Girl from Montana

Author: Grace Livingston Hill

Release Date: March 7, 2005  [eBook #15274]

Language: English

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THE GIRL FROM MONTANA

by

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

1922







       *       *       *       *       *

Books By

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL


April Gold
Happiness Hill
The Beloved Stranger
The Honor Girl
Bright Arrows
Kerry
Christmas Bride
Marigold
Crimson Roses
Miranda
Duskin
The Mystery of Mary
Found Treasure
Partners
A Girl to Come Home To
Rainbow Cottage
The Red Signal
White Orchids
Silver Wings
The Tryst
The Strange Proposal
Through These Fires
The Street of the City
All Through the Night
The Gold Shoe
Astra
Homing
Blue Ruin
Job's Niece
Challengers
The Man of the Desert
Coming Through the Rye
More Than Conqueror
Daphne Deane
A New Name
The Enchanted Barn
The Patch of Blue
Girl from Montana
The Ransom
Rose Galbraith
The Witness
Sound of the Trumpet
Sunrise
Tomorrow About This Time
Amorelle
Head of the House
Ariel Custer
In Tune with Wedding Bells
Chance of a Lifetime
Maris
Crimson Mountain
Out of the Storm
Exit Betty
Mystery Flowers
The Prodigal Girl
Girl of the Woods
Re-Creations
The White Flower
Matched Pearls
Time of the Singing of Birds
Ladybird
The Substitute Guest
Beauty for Ashes
Stranger Within the Gate
The Best Man
Spice Box
By Way of the Silverthorns
The Seventh Hour
Dawn of the Morning
The Search
Brentwood
Cloudy Jewel
The Voice in the Wilderness

Books By

RUTH LIVINGSTON HILL

Mary Arden
(_with Grace Livingston Hill_)
Morning Is for Joy
John Nielson Had a Daughter
Bright Conquest




Dedicated to

MISS VIRGINIA COWAN

OF COWAN, MONTANA, WHOSE BRIGHT, BREEZY
LETTERS AIDED ME IN WRITING OF
ELIZABETH'S EXPERIENCES
IN THE WEST




CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

   I. THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL

  II. THE FLIGHT

 III. THE PURSUIT

  IV. THE TWO FUGITIVES

   V. A NIGHT RIDE

  VI. A CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS

 VII. BAD NEWS

VIII. THE PARTING

  IX. IN A TRAP

   X. PHILADELPHIA AT LAST

  XI. IN FLIGHT AGAIN

 XII. ELIZABETH'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

XIII. ANOTHER GRANDMOTHER

 XIV. IN A NEW WORLD

  XV. AN EVENTFUL PICNIC

 XVI. ALONE AGAIN

XVII. A FINAL FLIGHT AND PURSUIT




CHAPTER I

THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL


The late afternoon sun was streaming in across the cabin floor as the girl
stole around the corner and looked cautiously in at the door.

There was a kind of tremulous courage in her face. She had a duty to
perform, and she was resolved to do it without delay. She shaded her eyes
with her hand from the glare of the sun, set a firm foot upon the
threshold, and, with one wild glance around to see whether all was as she
had left it, entered her home and stood for a moment shuddering in the
middle of the floor.

A long procession of funerals seemed to come out of the past and meet her
eye as she looked about upon the signs of the primitive, unhallowed one
which had just gone out from there a little while before.

The girl closed her eyes, and pressed their hot, dry lids hard with her
cold fingers; but the vision was clearer even than with her eyes open.

She could see the tiny baby sister lying there in the middle of the room,
so little and white and pitiful; and her handsome, careless father sitting
at the head of the rude home-made coffin, sober for the moment; and her
tired, disheartened mother, faded before her time, dry-eyed and haggard,
beside him. But that was long ago, almost at the beginning of things for
the girl.

There had been other funerals, the little brother who had been drowned
while playing in a forbidden stream, and the older brother who had gone
off in search of gold or his own way, and had crawled back parched with
fever to die in his mother's arms. But those, too, seemed long ago to the
girl as she stood in the empty cabin and looked fearfully about her. They
seemed almost blotted out by the last three that had crowded so close
within the year. The father, who even at his worst had a kind word for her
and her mother, had been brought home mortally hurt--an encounter with
wild cattle, a fall from his horse in a treacherous place--and had never
roused to consciousness again.

At all these funerals there had been a solemn service, conducted by a
travelling preacher when one happened to be within reach, and, when there
was none, by the trembling, determined, untaught lips of the white-faced
mother. The mother had always insisted upon it, especially upon a prayer.
It had seemed like a charm to help the departed one into some kind of a
pitiful heaven.

And when, a few months after the father, the mother had drooped and grown
whiter and whiter, till one day she clutched at her heart and lay down
gasping, and said: "Good-by, Bess! Mother's good girl! Don't forget!" and
was gone from her life of burden and disappointment forever, the girl had
prepared the funeral with the assistance of the one brother left. The
girl's voice had uttered the prayer, "Our Father," just as her mother had
taught her, because there was no one else to do it; and she was afraid to
send the wild young brother off after a preacher, lest he should not
return in time.

It was six months now since the sad funeral train had wound its way among
sage-brush and greasewood, and the body of the mother had been laid to
rest beside her husband. For six months the girl had kept the cabin in
order, and held as far as possible the wayward brother to his work and
home. But within the last few weeks he had more and more left her alone,
for a day, and sometimes more, and had come home in a sad condition and
with bold, merry companions who made her life a constant terror. And now,
but two short days ago, they had brought home his body lying across his
own faithful horse, with two shots through his heart. It was a drunken
quarrel, they told her; and all were sorry, but no one seemed responsible.

They had been kind in their rough way, those companions of her brother.
They had stayed and done all that was necessary, had dug the grave, and
stood about their comrade in good-natured grimness, marching in order
about him to give the last look; but, when the sister tried to utter the
prayer she knew her mother would have spoken, her throat refused to make a
sound, and her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. She had taken
sudden refuge in the little shed that was her own room, and there had
stayed till the rough companions had taken away the still form of the only
one left in the family circle.

In silence the funeral train wound its way to the spot where the others
were buried. They respected her tearless grief, these great, passionate,
uncontrolled young men. They held in the rude jokes with which they would
have taken the awesomeness from the occasion for themselves, and for the
most part kept the way silently and gravely, now and then looking back
with admiration to the slim girl with the stony face and unblinking eyes
who followed them mechanically. They had felt that some one ought to do
something; but no one knew exactly what, and so they walked silently.

Only one, the hardest and boldest, the ringleader of the company, ventured
back to ask whether there was anything he could do for her, anything she
would like to have done; but she answered him coldly with a "No!" that cut
him to the quick. It had been a good deal for him to do, this touch of
gentleness he had forced himself into. He turned from her with a wicked
gleam of intent in his eyes, but she did not see it.

When the rude ceremony was over, the last clod was heaped upon the pitiful
mound, and the relentless words, "dust to dust," had been murmured by one
more daring than the rest, they turned and looked at the girl, who had all
the time stood upon a mound of earth and watched them, as a statue of
Misery might look down upon the world. They could not make her out, this
silent, marble girl. They hoped now she would change. It was over. They
felt an untold relief themselves from the fact that their reckless, gay
comrade was no longer lying cold and still among them. They were done with
him. They had paid their last tribute, and wished to forget. He must
settle his own account with the hereafter now; they had enough in their
own lives without the burden of his.

Then there had swept up into the girl's face one gleam of life that made
her beautiful for the instant, and she had bowed to them with a slow,
almost haughty, inclination of her head, and spread out her hands like one
who would like to bless but dared not, and said clearly, "I thank
you--all!" There had been just a slight hesitation before that last word
"all," as if she were not quite sure, as her eyes rested upon the
ringleader with doubt and dislike; then her lips had hardened as if
justice must be done, and she had spoken it, "all!" and, turning, sped
away to her cabin alone.

They were taken by surprise, those men who feared nothing in the wild and
primitive West, and for a moment they watched her go in silence. Then the
words that broke upon the air were not all pleasant to hear; and, if the
girl could have known, she would have sped far faster, and her cheeks
would have burned a brighter red than they did.

But one, the boldest, the ringleader, said nothing. His brows darkened,
and the wicked gleam came and sat in his hard eyes with a green light. He
drew a little apart from the rest, and walked on more rapidly. When he
came to the place where they had left their horses, he took his and went
on toward the cabin with a look that did not invite the others to follow.
As their voices died away in the distance, and he drew nearer to the
cabin, his eyes gleamed with cunning.

The girl in the cabin worked rapidly. One by one she took the boxes on
which the rude coffin of her brother had rested, and threw them far out
the back door. She straightened the furniture around fiercely, as if by
erasing every sign she would force from memory the thought of the scenes
that had just passed. She took her brother's coat that hung against the
wall, and an old pipe from the mantle, and hid them in the room that was
hers. Then she looked about for something else to be done.

A shadow darkened the sunny doorway. Looking up, she saw the man she
believed to be her brother's murderer.

"I came back, Bess, to see if I could do anything for you."

The tone was kind; but the girl involuntarily put her hand to her throat,
and caught her breath. She would like to speak out and tell him what she
thought, but she dared not. She did not even dare let her thought appear
in her eyes. The dull, statue-like look came over her face that she had
worn at the grave. The man thought it was the stupefaction of grief.

"I told you I didn't want any help," she said, trying to speak in the same
tone she had used when she thanked the men.

"Yes, but you're all alone," said the man insinuatingly; she felt a menace
in the thought, "and I am sorry for you!"

He came nearer, but her face was cold. Instinctively she glanced to the
cupboard door behind which lay her brother's belt with two pistols.

"You're very kind," she forced herself to say; "but I'd rather be alone
now." It was hard to speak so when she would have liked to dash on him,
and call down curses for the death of her brother; but she looked into his
evil face, and a fear for herself worse than death stole into her heart.

He took encouragement from her gentle dignity. Where did she get that
manner so imperial, she, born in a mountain cabin and bred on the wilds?
How could she speak with an accent so different from those about her? The
brother was not so, not so much so; the mother had been plain and quiet.
He had not known her father, for he had lately come to this State in
hiding from another. He wondered, with his wide knowledge of the world,
over her wild, haughty beauty, and gloated over it. He liked to think just
what worth was within his easy grasp. A prize for the taking, and here
alone, unprotected.

"But it ain't good for you to be alone, you know, and I've come to protect
you. Besides, you need cheering up, little girl." He came closer. "I love
you, Bess, you know, and I'm going to take care of you now. You're all
alone. Poor little girl."

He was so near that she almost felt his breath against her cheek. She
faced him desperately, growing white to the lips. Was there nothing on
earth or in heaven to save her? Mother! Father! Brother! All gone! Ah!
Could she but have known that the quarrel which ended her wild young
brother's life had been about her, perhaps pride in him would have salved
her grief, and choked her horror.

While she watched the green lights play in the evil eyes above her, she
gathered all the strength of her young life into one effort, and schooled
herself to be calm. She controlled her involuntary shrinking from the man,
only drew herself back gently, as a woman with wider experience and
gentler breeding might have done.

"Remember," she said, "that my brother just lay there dead!" and she
pointed to the empty centre of the room. The dramatic attitude was almost
a condemnation to the guilty man before her. He drew back as if the
sheriff had entered the room, and looked instinctively to where the coffin
had been but a short time before, then laughed nervously and drew himself
together.

The girl caught her breath, and took courage. She had held him for a
minute; could she not hold him longer?

"Think!" said she. "He is but just buried. It is not right to talk of such
things as love in this room where he has just gone out. You must leave me
alone for a little while. I cannot talk and think now. We must respect the
dead, you know." She looked appealingly at him, acting her part
desperately, but well. It was as if she were trying to charm a lion or an
insane man.

He stood admiring her. She argued well. He was half minded to humor her,
for somehow when she spoke of the dead he could see the gleam in her
brother's eyes just before he shot him. Then there was promise in this
wooing. She was no girl to be lightly won, after all. She could hold her
own, and perhaps she would be the better for having her way for a little.
At any rate, there was more excitement in such game.

She saw that she was gaining, and her breath came freer.

"Go!" she said with a flickering smile. "Go! For--a little while," and
then she tried to smile again.

He made a motion to take her in his arms and kiss her; but she drew back
suddenly, and spread her hands before her, motioning him back.

"I tell you you must not now. Go! Go! or I will never speak to you again."

He looked into her eyes, and seemed to feel a power that he must obey.
Half sullenly he drew back toward the door.

"But, Bess, this ain't the way to treat a fellow," he whined. "I came way
back here to take care of you. I tell you I love you, and I'm going to
have you. There ain't any other fellow going to run off with you--"

"Stop!" she cried tragically. "Don't you see you're not doing right? My
brother is just dead. I must have some time to mourn. It is only decent."
She was standing now with her back to the little cupboard behind whose
door lay the two pistols. Her hand was behind her on the wooden latch.

"You don't respect my trouble!" she said, catching her breath, and putting
her hand to her eyes. "I don't believe you care for me when you don't do
what I say."

The man was held at bay. He was almost conquered by her sign of tears. It
was a new phase of her to see her melt into weakness so. He was charmed.

"How long must I stay away?" he faltered.

She could scarcely speak, so desperate she felt. O if she dared but say,
"Forever," and shout it at him! She was desperate enough to try her
chances at shooting him if she but had the pistols, and was sure they were
loaded--a desperate chance indeed against the best shot on the Pacific
coast, and a desperado at that.

She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples, and tried to think. At
last she faltered out,

"Three days!"

He swore beneath his breath, and his brows drew down in heavy frowns that
were not good to see. She shuddered at what it would be to be in his power
forever. How he would play with her and toss her aside! Or kill her,
perhaps, when he was tired of her! Her life on the mountain had made her
familiar with evil characters.

He came a step nearer, and she felt she was losing ground.

Straightening up, she said coolly:

"You must go away at once, and not think of coming back at least until
to-morrow night. Go!" With wonderful control she smiled at him, one
frantic, brilliant smile; and to her great wonder he drew back. At the
door he paused, a softened look upon his face.

"Mayn't I kiss you before I go?"

She shuddered involuntarily, but put out her hands in protest again. "Not
to-night!" She shook her head, and tried to smile.

He thought he understood her, but turned away half satisfied. Then she
heard his step coming back to the door again, and she went to meet him. He
must not come in. She had gained in sending him out, if she could but
close the door fast. It was in the doorway that she faced him as he stood
with one foot ready to enter again. The crafty look was out upon his face
plainly now, and in the sunlight she could see it.

"You will be all alone to-night."

"I am not afraid," calmly. "And no one will trouble me. Don't you know
what they say about the spirit of a man--" she stopped; she had almost
said "a man who has been murdered"--"coming back to his home the first
night after he is buried?" It was her last frantic effort.

The man before her trembled, and looked around nervously.

"You better come away to-night with me," he said, edging away from the
door.

"See, the sun is going down! You must go now," she said imperiously; and
reluctantly the man mounted his restless horse, and rode away down the
mountain.

She watched him silhouetted against the blood-red globe of the sun as it
sank lower and lower. She could see every outline of his slouch-hat and
muscular shoulders as he turned now and then and saw her standing still
alone at her cabin door. Why he was going he could not tell; but he went,
and he frowned as he rode away, with the wicked gleam still in his eye;
for he meant to return.

At last he disappeared; and the girl, turning, looked up, and there rode
the white ghost of the moon overhead. She was alone.




CHAPTER II

THE FLIGHT


A great fear settled down upon the girl as she realized that she was alone
and, for a few hours at least, free. It was a marvellous escape. Even now
she could hear the echo of the man's last words, and see his hateful smile
as he waved his good-by and promised to come back for her to-morrow.

She felt sure he would not wait until the night. It might be he would
return even yet. She cast another reassuring look down the darkening road,
and strained her ear; but she could no longer hear hoof-beats.
Nevertheless, it behooved her to hasten. He had blanched at her suggestion
of walking spirits; but, after all, his courage might arise. She shuddered
to think of his returning later, in the night. She must fly somewhere at
once.

Instantly her dormant senses seemed to be on the alert. Fully fledged
plans flashed through her brain. She went into the cabin, and barred the
door. She made every movement swiftly, as if she had not an instant to
spare. Who could tell? He might return even before dark. He had been hard
to baffle, and she did not feel at all secure. It was her one chance of
safety to get away speedily, whither it mattered little, only so she was
away and hidden.

Her first act inside the cottage was to get the belt from the cupboard and
buckle it around her waist. She examined and loaded the pistols. Her
throat seemed seized with sudden constriction when she discovered that
the barrels had been empty and the weapons would have done her no good
even if she could have reached them.

She put into her belt the sharp little knife her brother used to carry,
and then began to gather together everything eatable that she could carry
with her. There was not much that could be easily carried--some dried
beef, a piece of cheese, some corn-meal, a piece of pork, a handful of
cheap coffee-berries, and some pieces of hard corn bread. She hesitated
over a pan half full of baked beans, and finally added them to the store.
They were bulky, but she ought to take them if she could. There was
nothing else in the house that seemed advisable to take in the way of
eatables. Their stores had been running low, and the trouble of the last
day or two had put housekeeping entirely out of her mind. She had not
cared to eat, and now it occurred to her that food had not passed her lips
that day. With strong self-control she forced herself to eat a few of the
dry pieces of corn bread, and to drink some cold coffee that stood in the
little coffee-pot. This she did while she worked, wasting not one minute.

There were some old flour-sacks in the house. She put the eatables into
two of them, with the pan of beans on the top, adding a tin cup, and tied
them securely together. Then she went into her little shed room, and put
on the few extra garments in her wardrobe. They were not many, and that
was the easiest way to carry them. Her mother's wedding-ring, sacredly
kept in a box since the mother's death, she slipped upon her finger. It
seemed the closing act of her life in the cabin, and she paused and bent
her head as if to ask the mother's permission that she might wear the
ring. It seemed a kind of protection to her in her lonely situation.

There were a few papers and an old letter or two yellow with years, which
the mother had always guarded sacredly. One was the certificate of her
mother's marriage. The girl did not know what the others were. She had
never looked into them closely, but she knew that her mother had counted
them precious. These she pinned into the bosom of her calico gown. Then
she was ready.

She gave one swift glance of farewell about the cabin where she had spent
nearly all of her life that she could remember, gathered up the two
flour-sacks and an old coat of her father's that hung on the wall,
remembering at the last minute to put into its pocket the few matches and
the single candle left in the house, and went out from the cabin, closing
the door behind her.

She paused, looking down the road, and listened again; but no sound came
to her save a distant howl of a wolf. The moon rode high and clear by this
time; and it seemed not so lonely here, with everything bathed in soft
silver, as it had in the darkening cabin with its flickering candle.

The girl stole out from the cabin and stealthily across the patch of
moonlight into the shadow of the shackly barn where stamped the poor,
ill-fed, faithful horse that her brother had ridden to his death upon. All
her movements were stealthy as a cat's.

She laid the old coat over the horse's back, swung her brother's saddle
into place,--she had none of her own, and could ride his, or without any;
it made no difference, for she was perfectly at home on horseback,--and
strapped the girths with trembling fingers that were icy cold with
excitement. Across the saddle-bows she hung the two flour-sacks containing
her provisions. Then with added caution she tied some old burlap about
each of the horse's feet. She must make no sound and leave no track as
she stole forth into the great world.

The horse looked curiously down and whinnied at her, as she tied his feet
up clumsily. He did not seem to like his new habiliments, but he suffered
anything at her hand.

"Hush!" she murmured softly, laying her cold hands across his nostrils;
and he put his muzzle into her palm, and seemed to understand.

She led him out into the clear moonlight then, and paused a second,
looking once more down the road that led away in front of the cabin; but
no one was coming yet, though her heart beat high as she listened,
fancying every falling bough or rolling stone was a horse's hoof-beat.

There were three trails leading away from the cabin, for they could hardly
be dignified by the name of road. One led down the mountain toward the
west, and was the way they took to the nearest clearing five or six miles
beyond and to the supply store some three miles further. One led off to
the east, and was less travelled, being the way to the great world; and
the third led down behind the cabin, and was desolate and barren under the
moon. It led down, back, and away to desolation, where five graves lay
stark and ugly at the end. It was the way they had taken that afternoon.

She paused just an instant as if hesitating which way to take. Not the way
to the west--ah, any but that! To the east? Yes, surely, that must be the
trail she would eventually strike; but she had a duty yet to perform. That
prayer was as yet unsaid, and before she was free to seek safety--if
safety there were for her in the wide world--she must take her way down
the lonely path. She walked, leading the horse, which followed her with
muffled tread and arched neck as if he felt he were doing homage to the
dead. Slowly, silently, she moved along into the river of moonlight and
dreariness; for the moonlight here seemed cold, like the graves it shone
upon, and the girl, as she walked with bowed head, almost fancied she saw
strange misty forms flit past her in the night.

As they came in sight of the graves, something dark and wild with plumy
tail slunk away into the shadows, and seemed a part of the place. The girl
stopped a moment to gain courage in full sight of the graves, and the
horse snorted, and stopped too, with his ears a-quiver, and a half-fright
in his eyes.

She patted his neck and soothed him incoherently, as she buried her face
in his mane for a moment, and let the first tears that had dimmed her eyes
since the blow had fallen come smarting their way out. Then, leaving the
horse to stand curiously watching her, she went down and stood at the head
of the new-heaped mound. She tried to kneel, but a shudder passed through
her. It was as if she were descending into the place of the dead herself;
so she stood up and raised her eyes to the wide white night and the moon
riding so high and far away.

"Our Father," she said in a voice that sounded miles away to herself. Was
there any Father, and could He hear her? And did He care? "Which art in
heaven--" but heaven was so far away and looked so cruelly serene to her
in her desolateness and danger! "hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come--"
whatever that might mean. "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."
It was a long prayer to pray, alone with the pale moon-rain and the
graves, and a distant wolf, but it was her mother's wish. Her will being
done here over the dead--was that anything like the will of the Father
being done in heaven? Her untrained thoughts hovered on the verge of
great questions, and then slipped back into her pathetic self and its
fear, while her tongue hurried on through the words of the prayer.

Once the horse stirred and breathed a soft protest. He could not
understand why they were stopping so long in this desolate place, for
nothing apparently. He had looked and looked at the shapeless mound before
which the girl was standing; but he saw no sign of his lost master, and
his instincts warned him that there were wild animals about. Anyhow, this
was no place for a horse and a maid to stop in the night.

A few loose stones rattled from the horse's motion. The girl started, and
looked hastily about, listening for a possible pursuer; but everywhere in
the white sea of moonlight there was empty, desolate space. On to the
"Amen" she finished then, and with one last look at the lonely graves she
turned to the horse. Now they might go, for the duty was done, and there
was no time to be lost.

Somewhere over toward the east across that untravelled wilderness of white
light was the trail that started to the great world from the little cabin
she had left. She dared not go back to the cabin to take it, lest she find
herself already followed. She did not know the way across this lonely
plain, and neither did the horse. In fact, there was no way, for it was
all one arid plain so situated that human traveller seldom came near it,
so large and so barren that one might wander for hours and gain no goal,
so dry that nothing would grow.

With another glance back on the way she had come, the girl mounted the
horse and urged him down into the valley. He stepped cautiously into the
sandy plain, as if he were going into a river and must try its depth. He
did not like the going here, but he plodded on with his burdens. The girl
was light; he did not mind her weight; but he felt this place uncanny, and
now and then would start on a little spurt of haste, to get into a better
way. He liked the high mountain trails, where he could step firmly and
hear the twigs crackle under his feet, not this muffled, velvet way where
one made so little progress and had to work so hard.

The girl's heart sank as they went on, for the sand seemed deep and
drifted in places. She felt she was losing time. The way ahead looked
endless, as if they were but treading sand behind them which only returned
in front to be trodden over again. It was to her like the valley of the
dead, and she longed to get out of it. A great fear lest the moon should
go down and leave her in this low valley alone in the dark took hold upon
her. She felt she must get away, up higher. She turned the horse a little
more to the right, and he paused, and seemed to survey the new direction
and to like it. He stepped up more briskly, with a courage that could come
only from an intelligent hope for better things. And at last they were
rewarded by finding the sand shallower, and now and then a bit of rock
cropping out for a firmer footing.

The young rider dismounted, and untied the burlap from the horse's feet.
He seemed to understand, and to thank her as he nosed about her neck. He
thought, perhaps, that their mission was over and they were going to
strike out for home now.

The ground rose steadily before them now, and at times grew quite steep;
but the horse was fresh as yet, and clambered upward with good heart; and
the rider was used to rough places, and felt no discomfort from her
position. The fear of being followed had succeeded to the fear of being
lost, for the time being; and instead of straining her ears on the track
behind she was straining her eyes to the wilderness before. The growth of
sage-brush was dense now, and trees were ahead.

After that the way seemed steep, and the rider's heart stood still with
fear lest she could never get up and over to the trail which she knew must
be somewhere in that direction, though she had never been far out on its
course herself. That it led straight east into all the great cities she
never doubted, and she must find it before she was pursued. That man would
be angry, _angry_ if he came and found her gone! He was not beyond
shooting her for giving him the slip in this way.

The more she thought over it, the more frightened she became, till every
bit of rough way, and every barrier that kept her from going forward
quickly, seemed terrible to her. A bob-cat shot across the way just ahead,
and the green gleam of its eyes as it turned one swift glance at this
strange intruder in its chosen haunts made her catch her breath and put
her hand on the pistols.

They were climbing a long time--it seemed hours to the girl--when at last
they came to a space where a better view of the land was possible. It was
high, and sloped away on three sides. To her looking now in the clear
night the outline of a mountain ahead of her became distinct, and the lay
of the land was not what she had supposed. It brought her a furious sense
of being lost. Over there ought to be the familiar way where the cabin
stood, but there was no sign of anything she had ever seen before, though
she searched eagerly for landmarks. The course she had chosen, and which
had seemed the only one, would take her straight up, up over the
mountain, a way well-nigh impossible, and terrible even if it were
possible.

It was plain she must change her course, but which way should she go? She
was completely turned around. After all, what mattered it? One way might
be as good as another, so it led not home to the cabin which could never
be home again. Why not give the horse his head, and let him pick out a
safe path? Was there danger that he might carry her back to the cabin
again, after all? Horses did that sometimes. But at least he could guide
through this maze of perplexity till some surer place was reached. She
gave him a sign, and he moved on, nimbly picking a way for his feet.

They entered a forest growth where weird branches let the pale moon
through in splashes and patches, and grim moving figures seemed to chase
them from every shadowy tree-trunk. It was a terrible experience to the
girl. Sometimes she shut her eyes and held to the saddle, that she might
not see and be filled with this frenzy of things, living or dead,
following her. Sometimes a real black shadow crept across the path, and
slipped into the engulfing darkness of the undergrowth to gleam with
yellow-lighted eyes upon the intruders.

But the forest did not last forever, and the moon was not yet gone when
they emerged presently upon the rough mountain-side. The girl studied the
moon then, and saw by the way it was setting that after all they were
going in the right general direction. That gave a little comfort until she
made herself believe that in some way she might have made a mistake and
gone the wrong way from the graves, and so be coming up to the cabin after
all.

It was a terrible night. Every step of the way some new horror was
presented to her imagination. Once she had to cross a wild little stream,
rocky and uncertain in its bed, with slippery, precipitous banks; and
twice in climbing a steep incline she came sharp upon sheer precipices
down into a rocky gorge, where the moonlight seemed repelled by dark,
bristling evergreen trees growing half-way up the sides. She could hear
the rush and clamor of a tumbling mountain stream in the depths below.
Once she fancied she heard a distant shot, and the horse pricked up his
ears, and went forward excitedly.

But at last the dawn contended with the night, and in the east a faint
pink flush crept up. Down in the valley a mist like a white feather rose
gently into a white cloud, and obscured everything. She wished she might
carry the wall of white with her to shield her. She had longed for the
dawn; and now, as it came with sudden light and clear revealing of the
things about her, it was almost worse than night, so dreadful were the
dangers when clearly seen, so dangerous the chasms, so angry the mountain
torrents.

With the dawn came the new terror of being followed. The man would have no
fear to come to her in the morning, for murdered men were not supposed to
haunt their homes after the sun was up, and murderers were always
courageous in the day. He might the sooner come, and find her gone, and
perhaps follow; for she felt that he was not one easily to give up an
object he coveted, and she had seen in his evil face that which made her
fear unspeakably.

As the day grew clearer, she began to study the surroundings. All seemed
utter desolation. There was no sign that any one had ever passed that way
before; and yet, just as she had thought that, the horse stopped and
snorted, and there in the rocks before them lay a man's hat riddled with
shot. Peering fearfully around, the girl saw a sight which made her turn
icy cold and begin to tremble; for there, below them, as if he had fallen
from his horse and rolled down the incline, lay a man on his face.

For the instant fear held her riveted, with the horse, one figure like a
statue, girl and beast; the next, sudden panic took hold upon her. Whether
the man were dead or not, she must make haste. It might be he would come
to himself and pursue her, though there was that in the rigid attitude of
the figure down below that made her sure he had been dead some time. But
how had he died? Scarcely by his own hand. Who had killed him? Were there
fiends lurking in the fastnesses of the mountain growth above her?

With guarded motion she urged her horse forward, and for miles beyond the
horse scrambled breathlessly, the girl holding on with shut eyes, not
daring to look ahead for fear of seeing more terrible sights, not daring
to look behind for fear of--what she did not know.

At last the way sloped downward, and they reached more level ground, with
wide stretches of open plain, dotted here and there with sage-brush and
greasewood.

She had been hungry back there before she came upon the dead man; but now
the hunger had gone from her, and in its place was only faintness. Still,
she dared not stop long to eat. She must make as much time as possible
here in this open space, and now she was where she could be seen more
easily if any one were in pursuit.

But the horse had decided that it was time for breakfast. He had had one
or two drinks of water on the mountain, but there had been no time for him
to eat. He was decidedly hungry, and the plain offered nothing in the
shape of breakfast. He halted, lingered, and came to a neighing stop,
looking around at his mistress. She roused from her lethargy of trouble,
and realized that his wants--if not her own--must be attended to.

She must sacrifice some of her own store of eatables, for by and by they
would come to a good grazing-place perhaps, but now there was nothing.

The corn-meal seemed the best for the horse. She had more of it than of
anything else. She poured a scanty portion out on a paper, and the beast
smacked his lips appreciatively over it, carefully licking every grain
from the paper, as the girl guarded it lest his breath should blow any
away. He snuffed hungrily at the empty paper, and she gave him a little
more meal, while she ate some of the cold beans, and scanned the horizon
anxiously. There was nothing but sage-brush in sight ahead of her, and
more hills farther on where dim outlines of trees could be seen. If she
could but get up higher where she could see farther, and perhaps reach a
bench where there would be grass and some shelter.

It was only a brief rest she allowed; and then, hastily packing up her
stores, and retaining some dry corn bread and a few beans in her pocket,
she mounted and rode on.

The morning grew hot, and the way was long. As the ground rose again, it
was stony and overgrown with cactus. A great desolation took possession of
the girl. She felt as if she were in an endless flight from an unseen
pursuer, who would never give up until he had her.

It was high noon by the glaring sun when she suddenly saw another human
being. At first she was not quite sure whether he were human. It was only
a distant view of a moving speck; but it was coming toward her, though
separated by a wide valley that had stretched already for miles. He was
moving along against the sky-line on a high bench on one side of the
valley, and she mounting as fast as her weary beast would go to the top of
another, hoping to find a grassy stretch and a chance to rest.

But the sight of the moving speck startled her. She watched it
breathlessly as they neared each other. Could it be a wild beast? No, it
must be a horse and rider. A moment later there came a puff of smoke as
from a rifle discharged, followed by the distant echo of the discharge. It
was a man, and he was yet a great way off. Should she turn and flee before
she was discovered? But where? Should she go back? No, a thousand times,
no! Her enemy was there. This could not be the one from whom she fled. He
was coming from the opposite direction, but he might be just as bad. Her
experience taught her that men were to be shunned. Even fathers and
brothers were terribly uncertain, sorrow-bringing creatures.

She could not go back to the place where the dead man lay. She must not go
back. And forward she was taking the only course that seemed at all
possible through the natural obstructions of the region. She shrank to her
saddle, and urged the patient horse on. Perhaps she could reach the bench
and get away out of sight before the newcomer saw her.

But the way was longer to the top, and steeper than it had seemed at
first, and the horse was tired. Sometimes he stopped of his own accord,
and snorted appealingly to her with his head turned inquiringly as if to
know how long and how far this strange ride was to continue. Then the man
in the distance seemed to ride faster. The valley between them was not so
wide here. He was quite distinctly a man now, and his horse was going
rapidly. Once it seemed as if he waved his arms; but she turned her head,
and urged her horse with sudden fright. They were almost to the top now.
She dismounted and clambered alongside of the animal up the steep incline,
her breath coming in quick gasps, with the horse's breath hot upon her
cheek as they climbed together.

At last! They were at the top! Ten feet more and they would be on a level,
where they might disappear from view. She turned to look across the
valley, and the man was directly opposite. He must have ridden hard to get
there so soon. Oh, horror! He was waving his hands and calling. She could
distinctly hear a cry! It chilled her senses, and brought a frantic,
unreasoning fear. Somehow she felt he was connected with the one from whom
she fled. Some emissary of his sent out to foil her in her attempt for
safety, perhaps.

She clutched the bridle wildly, and urged the horse up with one last
effort; and just as they reached high ground she heard the wild cry ring
clear and distinct, "Hello! Hello!" and then something else. It sounded
like "Help!" but she could not tell. Was he trying to deceive her?
Pretending he would help her?

She flung herself into the saddle, giving the horse the signal to run;
and, as the animal obeyed and broke into his prairie run, she cast one
fearful glance behind her. The man was pursuing her at a gallop! He was
crossing the valley. There was a stream to cross, but he would cross it.
He had determination in every line of his flying figure. His voice was
pursuing her, too. It seemed as if the sound reached out and clutched her
heart, and tried to draw her back as she fled. And now her pursuers were
three: her enemy, the dead man upon the mountain, and the voice.




CHAPTER III

THE PURSUIT


Straight across the prairie she galloped, not daring to stop for an
instant, with the voice pursuing her. For hours it seemed to ring in her
ears, and even after she was far beyond any possibility of hearing it she
could not be sure but there was now and then a faint echo of it ringing
yet, "Hello!"--ringing like some strange bird amid the silence of the
world.

There were cattle and sheep grazing on the bench, and the horse would fain
have stopped to dine with them; but the girl urged him on, seeming to make
him understand the danger that might be pursuing them.

It was hours before she dared stop for the much-needed rest. Her brain had
grown confused with the fright and weariness. She felt that she could not
much longer stay in the saddle. She might fall asleep. The afternoon sun
would soon be slipping down behind the mountains. When and where dared she
rest? Not in the night, for that would be almost certain death, with wild
beasts about.

A little group of greasewood offered a scanty shelter. As if the beast
understood her thoughts he stopped with a neigh, and looked around at her.
She scanned the surroundings. There were cattle all about. They had looked
up curiously from their grazing as the horse flew by, but were now going
quietly on about their business. They would serve as a screen if any
should be still pursuing her. One horse among the other animals in a
landscape would not be so noticeable as one alone against the sky. The
greasewood was not far from sloping ground where she might easily flee for
hiding if danger approached.

The horse had already begun to crop the tender grass at his feet as if his
life depended upon a good meal. The girl took some more beans from the
pack she carried, and mechanically ate them, though she felt no appetite,
and her dry throat almost refused to swallow. She found her eyes shutting
even against her will; and in desperation she folded the old coat into a
pillow, and with the horse's bridle fastened in her belt she lay down.

The sun went away; the horse ate his supper; and the girl slept. By and by
the horse drowsed off too, and the bleating sheep in the distance, the
lowing of the cattle, the sound of night-birds, came now and again from
the distance; but still the girl slept on. The moon rose full and round,
shining with flickering light through the cottonwoods; and the girl
stirred in a dream and thought some one was pursuing her, but slept on
again. Then out through the night rang a vivid human voice, "Hello!
Hello!" The horse roused from his sleep, and stamped his feet nervously,
twitching at his bridle; but the relaxed hand that lay across the leather
strap did not quicken, and the girl slept on. The horse listened, and
thought he heard a sound good to his ear. He neighed, and neighed again;
but the girl slept on.

The first ray of the rising sun at last shot through the gray of dawning,
and touched the girl full in the face as it slid under the branches of her
sheltering tree. The light brought her acutely to her senses. Before she
opened her eyes she seemed to be keenly and painfully aware of much that
had gone on during her sleep. With another flash her eyes flew open. Not
because she willed it, but rather as if the springs that held the lids
shut had unexpectedly been touched and they sprang back because they had
to.

She shrank, as her eyes opened, from a new day, and the memory of the old
one. Then before her she saw something which kept her motionless, and
almost froze the blood in her veins. She could not stir nor breathe, and
for a moment even thought was paralyzed. There before her but a few feet
away stood a man! Beyond him, a few feet from her own horse, stood his
horse. She could not see it without turning her head, and that she dared
not do; but she knew it was there, felt it even before she noticed the
double stamping and breathing of the animals. Her keen senses seemed to
make the whole surrounding landscape visible to her without the moving of
a muscle. She knew to a nicety exactly how her weapons lay, and what
movement would bring her hand to the trigger of her pistol; yet she
stirred not.

Gradually she grew calm enough to study the man before her. He stood
almost with his back turned toward her, his face just half turned so that
one cheek and a part of his brow were visible. He was broad-shouldered and
well built. There was strength in every line of his body. She felt how
powerless she would be in his grasp. Her only hope would be in taking him
unaware. Yet she moved not one atom.

He wore a brown flannel shirt, open at the throat, brown leather belt and
boots; in short, his whole costume was in harmonious shades of brown, and
looked new as if it had been worn but a few days. His soft felt sombrero
was rolled back from his face, and the young red sun tinged the short
brown curls to a ruddy gold. He was looking toward the rising sun. The
gleam of it shot across his brace of pistols in his belt, and flashed twin
rays into her eyes. Then all at once the man turned and looked at her.

Instantly the girl sprang to her feet, her hands upon her pistol, her eyes
meeting with calm, desperate defiance the blue ones that were turned to
her. She was braced against a tree, and her senses were measuring the
distance between her horse and herself, and deciding whether escape were
possible.

"Good morning," said the man politely. "I hope I haven't disturbed your
nap."

The girl eyed him solemnly, and said nothing. This was a new kind of man.
He was not like the one from whom she had fled, nor like any she had ever
seen; but he might be a great deal worse. She had heard that the world was
full of wickedness.

"You see," went on the man with an apologetic smile, which lit up his eyes
in a wonderfully winning way, "you led me such a desperate race nearly all
day yesterday that I was obliged to keep you in sight when I finally
caught you."

He looked for an answering smile, but there was none. Instead, the girl's
dark eyes grew wide and purple with fear. He was the same one, then, that
she had seen in the afternoon, the voice who had cried to her; and he had
been pursuing her. He was an enemy, perhaps, sent by the man from whom she
fled. She grasped her pistol with trembling fingers, and tried to think
what to say or do.

The young man wondered at the formalities of the plains. Were all these
Western maidens so reticent?

"Why did you follow me? Who did you think I was?" she asked breathlessly
at last.

"Well, I thought you were a man," he said; "at least, you appeared to be a
human being, and not a wild animal. I hadn't seen anything but wild
animals for six hours, and very few of those; so I followed you."

The girl was silent. She was not reassured. It did not seem to her that
her question was directly answered. The young man was playing with her.

"What right had you to follow me?" she demanded fiercely.

"Well, now that you put it in that light, I'm not sure that I had any
right at all, unless it may be the claim that every human being has upon
all creation."

His arms were folded now across his broad brown flannel chest, and the
pistols gleamed in his belt below like fine ornaments. He wore a
philosophical expression, and looked at his companion as if she were a new
specimen of the human kind, and he was studying her variety, quite
impersonally, it is true, but interestedly. There was something in his
look that angered the girl.

"What do you want?" She had never heard of the divine claims of all the
human family. Her one instinct at present was fear.

An expression that was almost bitter flitted over the young man's face, as
of an unpleasant memory forgotten for the instant.

"It really wasn't of much consequence when you think of it," he said with
a shrug of his fine shoulders. "I was merely lost, and was wanting to
inquire where I was--and possibly the way to somewhere. But I don't know
as 'twas worth the trouble."

The girl was puzzled. She had never seen a man like this before. He was
not like her wild, reckless brother, nor any of his associates.

"This is Montana," she said, "or was, when I started," she added with
sudden thought.

"Yes? Well, it was Montana when I started, too; but it's as likely to be
the Desert of Sahara as anything else. I'm sure I've come far enough, and
found it barren enough."

"I never heard of that place," said the girl seriously; "is it in Canada?"

"I believe not," said the man with sudden gravity; "at least, not that I
know of. When I went to school, it was generally located somewhere in
Africa."

"I never went to school," said the girl wistfully; "but--" with a sudden
resolve--"I'll go now."

"Do!" said the man. "I'll go with you. Let's start at once; for, now that
I think of it, I haven't had anything to eat for over a day, and there
might be something in that line near a schoolhouse. Do you know the way?"

"No," said the girl, slowly studying him--she began to feel he was making
fun of her; "but I can give you something to eat."

"Thank you!" said the man. "I assure you I shall appreciate anything from
hardtack to bisque ice-cream."

"I haven't any of those," said the girl, "but there are plenty of beans
left; and, if you will get some wood for a fire, I'll make some coffee."

"Agreed," said the man. "That sounds better than anything I've heard for
forty-eight hours."

The girl watched him as he strode away to find wood, and frowned for an
instant; but his face was perfectly sober, and she turned to the business
of getting breakfast. For a little her fears were allayed. At least, he
would do her no immediate harm. Of course she might fly from him now
while his back was turned; but then of course he would pursue her again,
and she had little chance of getting away. Besides, he was hungry. She
could not leave him without something to eat.

"We can't make coffee without water," she said as he came back with a
bundle of sticks.

He whistled.

"Could you inform me where to look for water?" he asked.

She looked into his face, and saw how worn and gray he was about his eyes;
and a sudden compassion came upon her.

"You'd better eat something first," she said, "and then we'll go and hunt
for water. There's sure to be some in the valley. We'll cook some meat."

She took the sticks from him, and made the fire in a businesslike way. He
watched her, and wondered at her grace. Who was she, and how had she
wandered out into this waste place? Her face was both beautiful and
interesting. She would make a fine study if he were not so weary of all
human nature, and especially woman. He sighed as he thought again of
himself.

The girl caught the sound, and, turning with the quickness of a wild
creature, caught the sadness in his face. It seemed to drive away much of
her fear and resentment. A half-flicker of a smile came to her lips as
their eyes met. It seemed to recognize a comradeship in sorrow. But her
face hardened again almost at once into disapproval as he answered her
look.

The man felt a passing disappointment. After a minute, during which the
girl had dropped her eyes to her work again, he said: "Now, why did you
look at me in that way? Ought I to be helping you in some way? I'm
awkward, I know, but I can obey if you'll just tell me how."

The girl seemed puzzled; then she replied almost sullenly:

"There's nothing more to do. It's ready to eat."

She gave him a piece of the meat and the last of the corn bread in the tin
cup, and placed the pan of beans beside him; but she did not attempt to
eat anything herself.

He took a hungry bite or two, and looked furtively at her.

"I insist upon knowing why you looked--" he paused and eyed her--"why you
look at me in that way. I'm not a wolf if I am hungry, and I'm not going
to eat you up."

The look of displeasure deepened on the girl's brow. In spite of his
hunger the man was compelled to watch her. She seemed to be looking at a
flock of birds in the sky. Her hand rested lightly at her belt. The birds
were coming towards them, flying almost over their heads.

Suddenly the girl's hand was raised with a quick motion, and something
gleamed in the sun across his sight. There was a loud report, and one of
the birds fell almost at his feet, dead. It was a sage-hen. Then the girl
turned and walked towards him with as haughty a carriage as ever a society
belle could boast.

"You were laughing at me," she said quietly.

It had all happened so suddenly that the man had not time to think.
Several distinct sensations of surprise passed over his countenance. Then,
as the meaning of the girl's act dawned upon him, and the full intention
of her rebuke, the color mounted in his nice, tanned face. He set down the
tin cup, and balanced the bit of corn bread on the rim, and arose.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I never will do it again. I couldn't have
shot that bird to save my life," and he touched it with the tip of his tan
leather boot as if to make sure it was a real bird.

The girl was sitting on the ground, indifferently eating some of the
cooked pork. She did not answer. Somehow the young man felt uncomfortable.
He sat down, and took up his tin cup, and went at his breakfast again; but
his appetite seemed in abeyance.

"I've been trying myself to learn to shoot during the last week," he began
soberly. "I haven't been able yet to hit anything but the side of a barn.
Say, I'm wondering, suppose I had tried to shoot at those birds just now
and had missed, whether you wouldn't have laughed at me--quietly, all to
yourself, you know. Are you quite sure?"

The girl looked up at him solemnly without saying a word for a full
minute.

"Was what I said as bad as that?" she asked slowly.

"I'm afraid it was," he answered thoughtfully; "but I was a blamed idiot
for laughing at you. A girl that shoots like that may locate the Desert of
Sahara in Canada if she likes, and Canada ought to be proud of the honor."

She looked into his face for an instant, and noted his earnestness; and
all at once she broke into a clear ripple of laughter. The young man was
astonished anew that she had understood him enough to laugh. She must be
unusually keen-witted, this lady of the desert.

"If 'twas as bad as that," she said in quite another tone, "you c'n
laugh."

They looked at each other then in mutual understanding, and each fell to
eating his portion in silence. Suddenly the man spoke.

"I am eating your food that you had prepared for your journey, and I have
not even said, 'Thank you' yet, nor asked if you have enough to carry you
to a place where there is more. Where are you going?"

The girl did not answer at once; but, when she did, she spoke
thoughtfully, as if the words were a newly made vow from an impulse just
received.

"I am going to school," she said in her slow way, "to learn to 'sight' the
Desert of Sahara."

He looked at her, and his eyes gave her the homage he felt was her due;
but he said nothing. Here evidently was an indomitable spirit, but how did
she get out into the wilderness? Where did she come from, and why was she
alone? He had heard of the freedom of Western women, but surely such girls
as this did not frequent so vast a waste of uninhabited territory as his
experience led him to believe this was. He sat studying her.

The brow was sweet and thoughtful, with a certain keen inquisitiveness
about the eyes. The mouth was firm; yet there were gentle lines of grace
about it. In spite of her coarse, dark calico garb, made in no particular
fashion except with an eye to covering with the least possible fuss and
trouble, she was graceful. Every movement was alert and clean-cut. When
she turned to look full in his face, he decided that she had almost
beautiful eyes.

She had arisen while he was watching her, and seemed to be looking off
with sudden apprehension. He followed her gaze, and saw several dark
figures moving against the sky.

"It's a herd of antelope," she said with relief; "but it's time we hit the
trail." She turned, and put her things together with incredible swiftness,
giving him very little opportunity to help, and mounted her pony without
more words.

For an hour he followed her at high speed as she rode full tilt over rough
and smooth, casting furtive, anxious glances behind her now and then,
which only half included him. She seemed to know that he was there and was
following; that was all.

The young man felt rather amused and flattered. He reflected that most
women he knew would have ridden by his side, and tried to make him talk.
But this girl of the wilderness rode straight ahead as if her life
depended upon it. She seemed to have nothing to say to him, and to be
anxious neither to impart her own history nor to know his.

Well, that suited his mood. He had come out into the wilderness to think
and to forget. Here was ample opportunity. There had been a little too
much of it yesterday, when he wandered from the rest of his party who had
come out to hunt; and for a time he had felt that he would rather be back
in his native city with a good breakfast and all his troubles than to be
alone in the vast waste forever. But now there was human company, and a
possibility of getting somewhere sometime. He was content.

The lithe, slender figure of the girl ahead seemed one with the horse it
rode. He tried to think what this ride would be if another woman he knew
were riding on that horse ahead, but there was very small satisfaction in
that. In the first place, it was highly improbable, and the young man was
of an intensely practical turn of mind. It was impossible to imagine the
haughty beauty in a brown calico riding a high-spirited horse of the
wilds. There was but one parallel. If she had been there, she would, in
her present state of mind, likely be riding imperiously and indifferently
ahead instead of by his side where he wanted her. Besides, he came out to
the plains to forget her. Why think of her?

The sky was exceedingly bright and wide. Why had he never noticed this
wideness in skies at home? There was another flock of birds. What if he
should try to shoot one? Idle talk. He would probably hit anything but the
birds. Why had that girl shot that bird, anyway? Was it entirely because
she might need it for food? She had picked it up significantly with the
other things, and fastened it to her saddle-bow without a word. He was too
ignorant to know whether it was an edible bird or not, or she was merely
carrying it to remind him of her skill.

And what sort of a girl was she? Perhaps she was escaping from justice.
She ran from him yesterday, and apparently stopped only when utterly
exhausted. She seemed startled and anxious when the antelopes came into
sight. There was no knowing whether her company meant safety, after all.
Yet his interest was so thoroughly aroused in her that he was willing to
risk it.

Of course he might go more slowly and gradually, let her get ahead, and he
slip out of sight. It was not likely he had wandered so many miles away
from human habitation but that he would reach one sometime; and, now that
he was re-enforced by food, perhaps it would be the part of wisdom to part
with this strange maiden. As he thought, he unconsciously slackened his
horse's pace. The girl was a rod or more ahead, and just vanishing behind
a clump of sage-brush. She vanished, and he stopped for an instant, and
looked about him on the desolation; and a great loneliness settled upon
him like a frenzy. He was glad to see the girl riding back toward him
with a smile of good fellowship on her face.

"What's the matter?" she called. "Come on! There's water in the valley."

The sound of water was good; and life seemed suddenly good for no reason
whatever but that the morning was bright, and the sky was wide, and there
was water in the valley. He rode forward, keeping close beside her now,
and in a moment there gleamed below in the hot sunshine the shining of a
sparkling stream.

"You seem to be running away from some one," he explained. "I thought you
wanted to get rid of me, and I would give you a chance."

She looked at him surprised.

"I am running away," she said, "but not from you."

"From whom, then, may I ask? It might be convenient to know, if we are to
travel in the same company."

She looked at him keenly.

"Who are you, and where do you belong?"




CHAPTER IV

THE TWO FUGITIVES


"I'm not anybody in particular," he answered, "and I'm not just sure where
I belong. I live in Pennsylvania, but I didn't seem to belong there
exactly, at least not just now, and so I came out here to see if I
belonged anywhere else. I concluded yesterday that I didn't. At least, not
until I came in sight of you. But I suspect I am running away myself. In
fact, that is just what I am doing, running away from a woman!"

He looked at her with his honest hazel eyes, and she liked him. She felt
he was telling her the truth, but it seemed to be a truth he was just
finding out for himself as he talked.

"Why do you run away from a woman? How could a woman hurt you? Can she
shoot?"

He flashed her a look of amusement and pain mingled.

"She uses other weapons," he said. "Her words are darts, and her looks are
swords."

"What a queer woman! Does she ride well?"

"Yes, in an automobile!"

"What is that?" She asked the question shyly as if she feared he might
laugh again; and he looked down, and perceived that he was talking far
above her. In fact, he was talking to himself more than to the girl.

There was a bitter pleasure in speaking of his lost lady to this wild
creature who almost seemed of another kind, more like an intelligent bird
or flower.

"An automobile is a carriage that moves about without horses," he answered
her gravely. "It moves by machinery."

"I should not like it," said the girl decidedly. "Horses are better than
machines. I saw a machine once. It was to cut wheat. It made a noise, and
did not go fast. It frightened me."

"But automobiles go very fast, faster than any horses And they do not all
make a noise."

The girl looked around apprehensively.

"My horse can go very fast. You do not know how fast. If you see her
coming, I will change horses with you. You must ride to the nearest bench
and over, and then turn backward on your tracks. She will never find you
that way. And I am not afraid of a woman."

The man broke into a hearty laugh, loud and long. He laughed until the
tears rolled down his cheeks; and the girl, offended, rode haughtily
beside him. Then all in a moment he grew quite grave.

"Excuse me," he said; "I am not laughing at you now, though it looks that
way. I am laughing out of the bitterness of my soul at the picture you put
before me. Although I am running away from her, the lady will not come out
in her automobile to look for me. She does not want me!"

"She does not want you! And yet you ran away from her?"

"That's exactly it," he said. "You see, _I_ wanted _her_!"

"Oh!" She gave a sharp, quick gasp of intelligence, and was silent. After
a full minute she rode quite close to his horse, and laid her small brown
hand on the animal's mane.

"I am sorry," she said simply.

"Thank you," he answered. "I'm sure I don't know why I told you. I never
told any one before."

There was a long silence between them. The man seemed to have forgotten
her as he rode with his eyes upon his horse's neck, and his thoughts
apparently far away.

At last the girl said softly, as if she were rendering return for the
confidence given her, "I ran away from a man."

The man lifted his eyes courteously, questioningly, and waited.

"He is big and dark and handsome. He shoots to kill. He killed my brother.
I hate him. He wants me, and I ran away from him. But he is a coward. I
frightened him away. He is afraid of dead men that he has killed."

The young man gave his attention now to the extraordinary story which the
girl told as if it were a common occurrence.

"But where are your people, your family and friends? Why do they not send
the man away?"

"They're all back there in the sand," she said with a sad little flicker
of a smile and a gesture that told of tragedy. "I said the prayer over
them. Mother always wanted it when we died. There wasn't anybody left but
me. I said it, and then I came away. It was cold moonlight, and there were
noises. The horse was afraid. But I said it. Do you suppose it will do any
good?"

She fastened her eyes upon the young man with her last words as if
demanding an answer. The color came up to his cheeks. He felt embarrassed
at such a question before her trouble.

"Why, I should think it ought to," he stammered. "Of course it will," he
added with more confident comfort.

"Did you ever say the prayer?"

"Why,--I--yes, I believe I have," he answered somewhat uncertainly.

"Did it do any good?" She hung upon his words.

"Why, I--believe--yes, I suppose it did. That is, praying is always a good
thing. The fact is, it's a long time since I've tried it. But of course
it's all right."

A curious topic for conversation between a young man and woman on a ride
through the wilderness. The man had never thought about prayer for so many
minutes consecutively in the whole of his life; at least, not since the
days when his nurse tried to teach him "Now I lay me."

"Why don't you try it about the lady?" asked the girl suddenly.

"Well, the fact is, I never thought of it."

"Don't you believe it will do any good?"

"Well, I suppose it might."

"Then let's try it. Let's get off now, quick, and both say it. Maybe it
will help us both. Do you know it all through? Can't you say it?" This
last anxiously, as he hesitated and looked doubtful.

The color came into the man's face. Somehow this girl put him in a very
bad light. He couldn't shoot; and, if he couldn't pray, what would she
think of him?

"Why, I think I could manage to say it with help," he answered uneasily.
"But what if that man should suddenly appear on the scene?"

"You don't think the prayer is any good, or you wouldn't say that." She
said it sadly, hopelessly.

"O, why, certainly," he said, "only I thought there might be some better
time to try it; but, if you say so, we'll stop right here." He sprang to
the ground, and offered to assist her; but she was beside him before he
could get around his horse's head.

Down she dropped, and clasped her hands as a little child might have done,
and closed her eyes.

"Our Father," she repeated slowly, precisely, as if every word belonged to
a charm and must be repeated just right or it would not work. The man's
mumbling words halted after hers. He was reflecting upon the curious
tableau they would make to the chance passer-by on the desert if there
were any passers-by. It was strange, this aloneness. There was a wideness
here that made praying seem more natural than it would have been at home
in the open country.

The prayer, by reason of the unaccustomed lips, went slowly; but, when it
was finished, the girl sprang to her saddle again with a businesslike
expression.

"I feel better," she said with a winning smile. "Don't you? Don't you
think He heard?"

"Who heard?"

"Why, 'our Father.'"

"O, certainly! That is, I've always been taught to suppose He did. I
haven't much experimental knowledge in this line, but I dare say it'll do
some good some where. Now do you suppose we could get some of that very
sparkling water? I feel exceedingly thirsty."

They spurred their horses, and were soon beside the stream, refreshing
themselves.

"Did you ride all night?" asked the girl.

"Pretty much," answered the man. "I stopped once to rest a few minutes;
but a sound in the distance stirred me up again, and I was afraid to lose
my chance of catching you, lest I should be hopelessly lost. You see, I
went out with a party hunting, and I sulked behind. They went off up a
steep climb, and I said I'd wander around below till they got back, or
perhaps ride back to camp; but, when I tried to find the camp, it wasn't
where I had left it."

"Well, you've got to lie down and sleep awhile," said the girl decidedly.
"You can't keep going like that. It'll kill you. You lie down, and I'll
watch, and get dinner. I'm going to cook that bird."

He demurred, but in the end she had her way; for he was exceedingly weary,
and she saw it. So he let her spread the old coat down for him while he
gathered some wood for a fire, and then he lay down and watched her simple
preparations for the meal. Before he knew it he was asleep.

When he came to himself, there was a curious blending of dream and
reality. He thought his lady was coming to him across the rough plains in
an automobile, with gray wings like those of the bird the girl had shot,
and his prayer as he knelt in the sand was drawing her, while overhead the
air was full of a wild, sweet music from strange birds that mocked and
called and trilled. But, when the automobile reached him and stopped, the
lady withered into a little, old, dried-up creature of ashes; and the girl
of the plains was sitting in her place radiant and beautiful.

He opened his eyes, and saw the rude little dinner set, and smelt the
delicious odor of the roasted bird. The girl was standing on the other
side of the fire, gravely whistling a most extraordinary song, like unto
all the birds of the air at once.

She had made a little cake out of the corn-meal, and they feasted royally.

"I caught two fishes in the brook. We'll take them along for supper," she
said as they packed the things again for starting. He tried to get her to
take a rest also, and let him watch; but she insisted that they must go
on, and promised to rest just before dark. "For we must travel hard at
night, you know," she added fearfully.

He questioned her more about the man who might be pursuing, and came to
understand her fears.

"The scoundrel!" he muttered, looking at the delicate features and clear,
lovely profile of the girl. He felt a strong desire to throttle the evil
man.

He asked a good many questions about her life, and was filled with wonder
over the flower-like girl who seemed to have blossomed in the wilderness
with no hand to cultivate her save a lazy, clever, drunken father, and a
kind but ignorant mother. How could she have escaped being coarsened amid
such surroundings. How was it, with such brothers as she had, that she had
come forth as lovely and unhurt as she seemed? He somehow began to feel a
great anxiety for her lonely future and a desire to put her in the way of
protection. But at present they were still in the wilderness; and he began
to be glad that he was here too, and might have the privilege of
protecting her now, if there should be need.

As it grew toward evening, they came upon a little grassy spot in a coulee
where the horses might rest and eat. Here they stopped, and the girl threw
herself under a shelter of trees, with the old coat for a pillow, and
rested, while the man paced up and down at a distance, gathering wood for
a fire, and watching the horizon. As night came on, the city-bred man
longed for shelter. He was by no means a coward where known quantities
were concerned, but to face wild animals and drunken brigands in a
strange, wild plain with no help near was anything but an enlivening
prospect. He could not understand why they had not come upon some human
habitation by this time. He had never realized how vast this country was
before. When he came westward on the train he did not remember to have
traversed such long stretches of country without a sign of civilization,
though of course a train went so much faster than a horse that he had no
adequate means of judging. Then, besides, they were on no trail now, and
had probably gone in a most roundabout way to anywhere. In reality they
had twice come within five miles of little homesteads, tucked away beside
a stream in a fertile spot; but they had not known it. A mile further to
the right at one spot would have put them on the trail and made their way
easier and shorter, but that they could not know.

The girl did not rest long. She seemed to feel her pursuit more as the
darkness crept on, and kept anxiously looking for the moon.

"We must go toward the moon," she said as she watched the bright spot
coming in the east.

They ate their supper of fish and corn-bread with the appetite that grows
on horseback, and by the time they had started on their way again the moon
spread a path of silver before them, and they went forward feeling as if
they had known each other a long time. For a while their fears and hopes
were blended in one.

Meantime, as the sun sank and the moon rose, a traveller rode up the steep
ascent to the little lonely cabin which the girl had left. He was handsome
and dark and strong, with a scarlet kerchief knotted at his throat; and he
rode slowly, cautiously, looking furtively about and ahead of him. He was
doubly armed, and his pistols gleamed in the moonlight, while an ugly
knife nestled keenly in a secret sheath.

He was wicked, for the look upon his face was not good to see; and he was
a coward, for he started at the flutter of a night-bird hurrying late to
its home in a rock by the wayside. The mist rising from the valley in
wreaths of silver gauze startled him again as he rounded the trail to the
cabin, and for an instant he stopped and drew his dagger, thinking the
ghost he feared was walking thus early. A draught from the bottle he
carried in his pocket steadied his nerves, and he went on, but stopped
again in front of the cabin; for there stood another horse, and there in
the doorway stood a figure in the darkness! His curses rang through the
still air and smote the moonlight. His pistol flashed forth a volley of
fire to second him.

In answer to his demand who was there came another torrent of profanity.
It was one of his comrades of the day before. He explained that he and two
others had come up to pay a visit to the pretty girl. They had had a wager
as to who could win her, and they had come to try; but she was not here.
The door was fastened. They had forced it. There was no sign of her about.
The other two had gone down to the place where her brother was buried to
see whether she was there. Women were known to be sentimental. She might
be that kind. He had agreed to wait here, but he was getting uneasy.
Perhaps, if the other two found her, they might not be fair.

The last comer with a mighty oath explained that the girl belonged to him,
and that no one had a right to her. He demanded that the other come with
him to the grave, and see what had become of the girl; and then they would
all go and drink together--but the girl belonged to him.

They rode to the place of the graves, and met the two others returning;
but there was no sign of the girl, and the three taunted the one, saying
that the girl had given him the slip. Amid much argument as to whose she
was and where she was, they rode on cursing through God's beauty. They
passed the bottle continually, that their nerves might be the steadier;
and, when they came to the deserted cabin once more, they paused and
discussed what to do.

At last it was agreed that they should start on a quest after her, and
with oaths, and coarse jests, and drinking, they started down the trail of
which the girl had gone in search by her roundabout way.




CHAPTER V

A NIGHT RIDE


It was a wonderful night that the two spent wading the sea of moonlight
together on the plain. The almost unearthly beauty of the scene grew upon
them. They had none of the loneliness that had possessed each the night
before, and might now discover all the wonders of the way.

Early in the way they came upon a prairie-dogs' village, and the man would
have lingered watching with curiosity, had not the girl urged him on. It
was the time of night when she had started to run away, and the same
apprehension that filled her then came upon her with the evening. She
longed to be out of the land which held the man she feared. She would
rather bury herself in the earth and smother to death than be caught by
him. But, as they rode on, she told her companion much of the habits of
the curious little creatures they had seen; and then, as the night settled
down upon them, she pointed out the dark, stealing creatures that slipped
from their way now and then, or gleamed with a fearsome green eye from
some temporary refuge.

At first the cold shivers kept running up and down the young man as he
realized that here before him in the sage-brush was a real live animal
about which he had read so much, and which he had come out bravely to
hunt. He kept his hand upon his revolver, and was constantly on the alert,
nervously looking behind lest a troop of coyotes or wolves should be
quietly stealing upon him. But, as the girl talked fearlessly of them in
much the same way as we talk of a neighbor's fierce dog, he grew gradually
calmer, and was able to watch a dark, velvet-footed moving object ahead
without starting.

By and by he pointed to the heavens, and talked of the stars. Did she know
that constellation? No? Then he explained. Such and such stars were so
many miles from the earth. He told their names, and a bit of mythology
connected with the name, and then went on to speak of the moon, and the
possibility of its once having been inhabited.

The girl listened amazed. She knew certain stars as landmarks, telling
east from west and north from south; and she had often watched them one by
one coming out, and counted them her friends; but that they were worlds,
and that the inhabitants of this earth knew anything whatever about the
heavenly bodies, she had never heard. Question after question she plied
him with, some of them showing extraordinary intelligence and thought, and
others showing deeper ignorance than a little child in our kindergartens
would show.

He wondered more and more as their talk went on. He grew deeply interested
in unfolding the wonders of the heavens to her; and, as he studied her
pure profile in the moonlight with eager, searching, wistful gaze, her
beauty impressed him more and more. In the East the man had a friend, an
artist. He thought how wonderful a theme for a painting this scene would
make. The girl in picturesque hat of soft felt, riding with careless ease
and grace; horse, maiden, plain, bathed in a sea of silver.

More and more as she talked the man wondered how this girl reared in the
wilds had acquired a speech so free from grammatical errors. She was
apparently deeply ignorant, and yet with a very few exceptions she made
no serious errors in English. How was it to be accounted for?

He began to ply her with questions about herself, but could not find that
she had ever come into contact with people who were educated. She had not
even lived in any of the miserable little towns that flourish in the
wildest of the West, and not within several hundred miles of a city. Their
nearest neighbors in one direction had been forty miles away, she said,
and said it as if that were an everyday distance for a neighbor to live.

Mail? They had had a letter once that she could remember, when she was a
little girl. It was just a few lines in pencil to say that her mother's
father had died. He had been killed in an accident of some sort, working
in the city where he lived. Her mother had kept the letter and cried over
it till almost all the pencil marks were gone.

No, they had no mail on the mountain where their homestead was.

Yes, her father went there first because he thought he had discovered
gold, but it turned out to be a mistake; so, as they had no other place to
go to, and no money to go with, they had just stayed there; and her father
and brothers had been cow-punchers, but she and her mother had scarcely
ever gone away from home. There were the little children to care for; and,
when they died, her mother did not care to go, and would not let her go
far alone.

O, yes, she had ridden a great deal, sometimes with her brothers, but not
often. They went with rough men, and her mother felt afraid to have her
go. The men all drank. Her brothers drank. Her father drank too. She
stated it as if it were a sad fact common to all mankind, and ended with
the statement which was almost, not quite, a question, "I guess you drink
too."

"Well," said the young man hesitatingly, "not that way. I take a glass of
wine now and then in company, you know--"

"Yes, I know," sighed the girl. "Men are all alike. Mother used to say so.
She said men were different from women. They had to drink. She said they
all did it. Only she said her father never did; but he was very good,
though he had to work hard."

"Indeed," said the young man, his color rising in the moonlight, "indeed,
you make a mistake. I don't drink at all, not that way. I'm not like them.
I--why, I only--well, the fact is, I don't care a red cent about the stuff
anyway; and I don't want you to think I'm like them. If it will do you any
good, I'll never touch it again, not a drop."

He said it earnestly. He was trying to vindicate himself. Just why he
should care to do so he did not know, only that all at once it was very
necessary that he should appear different in the eyes of this girl from,
the other men she had known.

"Will you really?" she asked, turning to look in his face. "Will you
promise that?"

"Why, certainly I will," he said, a trifle embarrassed that she had taken
him at his word. "Of course I will. I tell you it's nothing to me. I only
took a glass at the club occasionally when the other men were drinking,
and sometimes when I went to banquets, class banquets, you know, and
dinners--"

Now the girl had never heard of class banquets, but to take a glass
occasionally when the other men were drinking was what her brothers did;
and so she sighed, and said: "Yes, you may promise, but I know you won't
keep it. Father promised too; but, when he got with the other men, it did
no good. Men are all alike."

"But I'm not," he insisted stoutly. "I tell you I'm not. I don't drink,
and I won't drink. I promise you solemnly here under God's sky that I'll
never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor again if I know it as long
as I live."

He put out his hand toward her, and she put her own into it with a quick
grasp for just an instant.

"Then you're not like other men, after all," she said with a glad ring in
her voice. "That must be why I wasn't so very much afraid of you when I
woke up and found you standing there."

A distinct sense of pleasure came over him at her words. Why it should
make him glad that she had not been afraid of him when she had first seen
him in the wilderness he did not know. He forgot all about his own
troubles. He forgot the lady in the automobile. Right then and there he
dropped her out of his thoughts. He did not know it; but she was
forgotten, and he did not think about her any more during that journey.
Something had erased her. He had run away from her, and he had succeeded
most effectually, more so than he knew.

There in the desert the man took his first temperance pledge, urged
thereto by a girl who had never heard of a temperance pledge in her life,
had never joined a woman's temperance society, and knew nothing about
women's crusades. Her own heart had taught her out of a bitter experience
just how to use her God-given influence.

They came to a long stretch of level ground then, smooth and hard; and the
horses as with common consent set out to gallop shoulder to shoulder in a
wild, exhilarating skim across the plain. Talking was impossible. The man
reflected that he was making great strides in experience, first a prayer
and then a pledge, all in the wilderness. If any one had told him he was
going into the West for this, he would have laughed him to scorn.

Towards morning they rode more slowly. Their horses were growing jaded.
They talked in lower tones as they looked toward the east. It was as if
they feared they might waken some one too soon. There is something awesome
about the dawning of a new day, and especially when one has been sailing a
sea of silver all night. It is like coming back from an unreal world into
a sad, real one. Each was almost sorry that the night was over. The new
day might hold so much of hardship or relief, so much of trouble or
surprise; and this night had been perfect, a jewel cut to set in memory
with every facet flashing to the light. They did not like to get back to
reality from the converse they had held together. It was an experience for
each which would never be forgotten.

Once there came the distant sound of shots and shouts. The two shrank
nearer each other, and the man laid his strong hand protectingly on the
mane of the girl's horse; but he did not touch her hand. The lady of his
thoughts had sometimes let him hold her jewelled hand, and smiled with
drooping lashes when he fondled it; and, when she had tired of him, other
admirers might claim the same privilege. But this woman of the
wilderness--he would not even in his thoughts presume to touch her little
brown, firm hand. Somehow she had commanded his honor and respect from the
first minute, even before she shot the bird.

Once a bob-cat shot across their path but a few feet in front of them, and
later a kit-fox ran growling up with ruffled fur; but the girl's quick
shot soon put it to flight, and they passed on through the dawning morning
of the first real Sabbath day the girl had ever known.

"It is Sunday morning at home," said the man gravely as he watched the sun
lift its rosy head from the mist of mountain and valley outspread before
them. "Do you have such an institution out here?"

The girl grew white about the lips. "Awful things happen on Sunday," she
said with a shudder.

He felt a great pity rising in his heart for her, and strove to turn her
thoughts in other directions. Evidently there was a recent sorrow
connected with the Sabbath.

"You are tired," said he, "and the horses are tired. See! We ought to stop
and rest. The daylight has come, and nothing can hurt us. Here is a good
place, and sheltered. We can fasten the horses behind these bushes, and no
one will guess we are here."

She assented, and they dismounted. The man cut an opening into a clump of
thick growth with his knife, and there they fastened the weary horses,
well hidden from sight if any one chanced that way. The girl lay down a
few feet away in a spot almost entirely surrounded by sage-brush which had
reached an unusual height and made a fine hiding-place. Just outside the
entrance of this natural chamber the man lay down on a fragrant bed of
sage-brush. He had gathered enough for the girl first, and spread out the
old coat over it; and she had dropped asleep almost as soon as she lay
down. But, although his own bed of sage-brush was tolerably comfortable,
even to one accustomed all his life to the finest springs and hair
mattress that money could buy, and although the girl had insisted that he
must rest too, for he was weary and there was no need to watch, sleep
would not come to his eyelids.

He lay there resting and thinking. How strange was the experience through
which he was passing! Came ever a wealthy, college-bred, society man into
the like before? What did it all mean? His being lost, his wandering for a
day, the sight of this girl and his pursuit, the prayer under the open
sky, and that night of splendor under the moonlight riding side by side.
It was like some marvellous tale.

And this girl! Where was she going? What was to become of her? Out in the
world where he came from, were they ever to reach it, she would be
nothing. Her station in life was beneath his so far that the only
recognition she could have would be one which would degrade her. This
solitary journey they were taking, how the world would lift up its hands
in horror at it! A girl without a chaperon! She was impossible! And yet it
all seemed right and good, and the girl was evidently recognized by the
angels; else how had she escaped from degradation thus far?

Ah! How did he know she had? But he smiled at that. No one could look into
that pure, sweet face, and doubt that she was as good as she was
beautiful. If it was not so, he hoped he would never find it out. She
seemed to him a woman yet unspoiled, and he shrank from the thought of
what the world might do for her--the world and its cultivation, which
would not be for her, because she was friendless and without money or
home. The world would have nothing but toil to give her, with a meagre
living.

Where was she going, and what was she proposing to do? Must he not try to
help her in some way? Did not the fact that she had saved his life demand
so much from him? If he had not found her, he must surely have starved
before he got out of this wild place. Even yet starvation was not an
impossibility; for they had not reached any signs of habitation yet, and
there was but one more portion of corn-meal and a little coffee left. They
had but two matches now, and there had been no more flights of birds, nor
brooks with fishes.

In fact, the man found a great deal to worry about as he lay there, too
weary with the unaccustomed exercise and experiences to sleep.

He reflected that the girl had told him very little, after all, about her
plans. He must ask her. He wished he knew more of her family. If he were
only older and she younger, or if he had the right kind of a woman friend
to whom he might take her, or send her! How horrible that that scoundrel
was after her! Such men were not men, but beasts, and should be shot down.

Far off in the distance, it might have been in the air or in his
imagination, there sometimes floated a sound as of faint voices or shouts;
but they came and went, and he listened, and by and by heard no more. The
horses breathed heavily behind their sage-brush stable, and the sun rose
higher and hotter. At last sleep came, troubled, fitful, but sleep,
oblivion. This time there was no lady in an automobile.

It was high noon when he awoke, for the sun had reached around the
sage-brush, and was pouring full into his face. He was very uncomfortable,
and moreover an uneasy sense of something wrong pervaded his mind. Had he
or had he not, heard a strange, low, sibilant, writhing sound just as he
came to consciousness? Why did he feel that something, some one, had
passed him but a moment before?

He rubbed his eyes open, and fanned himself with his hat. There was not a
sound to be heard save a distant hawk in the heavens, and the breathing of
the horses. He stepped over, and made sure that they were all right, and
then came back. Was the girl still sleeping? Should he call her? But what
should he call her? She had no name to him as yet. He could not say, "My
dear madam" in the wilderness, nor yet "mademoiselle."

Perhaps it was she who had passed him. Perhaps she was looking about for
water, or for fire-wood. He cast his eyes about, but the thick growth of
sage-brush everywhere prevented his seeing much. He stepped to the right
and then to the left of the little enclosure where she had gone to sleep,
but there was no sign of life.

At last the sense of uneasiness grew upon him until he spoke.

"Are you awake yet?" he ventured; but the words somehow stuck in his
throat, and would not sound out clearly. He ventured the question again,
but it seemed to go no further than the gray-green foliage in front of
him. Did he catch an alert movement, the sound of attention, alarm? Had he
perhaps frightened her?

His flesh grew creepy, and he was angry with himself that he stood here
actually trembling and for no reason. He felt that there was danger in the
air. What could it mean? He had never been a believer in premonitions or
superstitions of any kind. But the thought came to him that perhaps that
evil man had come softly while he slept, and had stolen the girl away.
Then all at once a horror seized him, and he made up his mind to end this
suspense and venture in to see whether she were safe.




CHAPTER VI

A CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS


He stepped boldly around the green barrier, and his first glance told him
she was lying there still asleep; but the consciousness of another
presence held him from going away. There, coiled on the ground with
venomous fangs extended and eyes glittering like slimy jewels, was a
rattlesnake, close beside her.

For a second he gazed with a kind of fascinated horror, and his brain
refused to act. Then he knew he must do something, and at once. He had
read of serpents and travellers' encounters with them, but no memory of
what was to be done under such circumstances came. Shoot? He dared not. He
would be more likely to kill the girl than the serpent, and in any event
would precipitate the calamity. Neither was there any way to awaken the
girl and drag her from peril, for the slightest movement upon her part
would bring the poisoned fangs upon her.

He cast his eyes about for some weapon, but there was not a stick or a
stone in sight. He was a good golf-player; if he had a loaded stick, he
could easily take the serpent's head off, he thought; but there was no
stick. There was only one hope, he felt, and that would be to attract the
creature to himself; and he hardly dared move lest the fascinated gaze
should close upon the victim as she lay there sweetly sleeping, unaware of
her new peril.

Suddenly he knew what to do. Silently he stepped back out of sight, tore
off his coat, and then cautiously approached the snake again, holding the
coat up before him. There was an instant's pause when he calculated
whether the coat could drop between the snake and the smooth brown arm in
front before the terrible fangs would get there; and then the coat
dropped, the man bravely holding one end of it as a wall between the
serpent and the girl, crying to her in an agony of frenzy to awaken and
run.

There was a terrible moment in which he realized that the girl was saved
and he himself was in peril of death, while he held to the coat till the
girl was on her feet in safety. Then he saw the writhing coil at his feet
turn and fasten its eyes of fury upon him. He was conscious of being
uncertain whether his fingers could let go the coat, and whether his
trembling knees could carry him away before the serpent struck; then it
was all over, and he and the girl were standing outside the sage-brush,
with the sound of the pistol dying away among the echoes, and the fine
ache of his arm where her fingers had grasped him to drag him from danger.

The serpent was dead. She had shot it. She took that as coolly as she had
taken the bird in its flight. But she stood looking at him with great eyes
of gratitude, and he looked at her amazed that they were both alive, and
scarcely understanding all that had happened.

The girl broke the stillness.

"You are what they call a 'tenderfoot,'" she said significantly.

"Yes," he assented humbly, "I guess I am. I couldn't have shot it to save
anybody's life."

"You are a tenderfoot, and you couldn't shoot," she continued
eulogistically, as if it were necessary to have it all stated plainly,
"but you--you are what my brother used to call 'a white man.' You
couldn't shoot; but you could risk your life, and hold that coat, and look
death in the face. _You_ are no tenderfoot."

There was eloquence in her eyes, and in her voice there were tears. She
turned away to hide if any were in her eyes. But the man put out his hand
on her sure little brown one, and took it firmly in his own, looking down
upon her with his own eyes filled with tears of which he was not ashamed.

"And what am I to say to you for saving my life?" he said.

"I? O, that was easy," said the girl, rousing to the commonplace. "I can
always shoot. Only you were hard to drag away. You seemed to want to stay
there and die with your coat."

"They laughed at me for wearing that coat when we started away. They said
a hunter never bothered himself with extra clothing," he mused as they
walked away from the terrible spot.

"Do you think it was the prayer?" asked the girl suddenly.

"It may be!" said the man with wondering accent.

Then quietly, thoughtfully, they mounted and rode onward.

Their way, due east, led them around the shoulder of a hill. It was
tolerably smooth, but they were obliged to go single file, so there was
very little talking done.

It was nearly the middle of the afternoon when all at once a sound reached
them from below, a sound so new that it was startling. They stopped their
horses, and looked at each other. It was the faint sound of singing wafted
on the light breeze, singing that came in whiffs like a perfume, and then
died out. Cautiously they guided their horses on around the hill, keeping
close together now. It was plain they were approaching some human being or
beings. No bird could sing like that. There were indistinct words to the
music.

They rounded the hillside, and stopped again side by side. There below
them lay the trail for which they had been searching, and just beneath
them, nestled against the hill, was a little schoolhouse of logs,
weather-boarded, its windows open; and behind it and around it were horses
tied, some of them hitched to wagons, but most of them with saddles.

The singing was clear and distinct now. They could hear the words. "O,
that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me--"

"What is it?" she whispered.

"Why, I suspect it is a Sunday school or something of the kind."

"O! A school! Could we go in?"

"If you like," said the man, enjoying her simplicity. "We can tie out
horses here behind the building, and they can rest. There is fresh grass
in this sheltered place; see?"

He led her down behind the schoolhouse to a spot where the horses could
not be seen from the trail. The girl peered curiously around the corner
into the window. There sat two young girls about her own age, and one of
them smiled at her. It seemed an invitation. She smiled back, and went on
to the doorway reassured. When she entered the room, she found them
pointing to a seat near a window, behind a small desk.

There were desks all over the room at regular intervals, and a larger desk
up in front. Almost all the people sat at desks.

There was a curious wooden box in front at one side of, the big desk, and
a girl sat before it pushing down some black and white strips that looked
like sticks, and making her feet go, and singing with all her might. The
curious box made music, the same music the people were singing. Was it a
piano? she wondered. She had heard of pianos. Her father used to talk
about them. O, and what was that her mother used to want? A
"cab'net-organ." Perhaps this was a cab'net-organ. At any rate, she was
entranced with the music.

Up behind the man who sat at the big desk was a large board painted black
with some white marks on it. The sunlight glinted across it, and she could
not tell what they were; but, when she moved a little, she saw quite
clearly it was a large cross with words underneath it--"He will hide me."

It was a strange place. The girl looked around shyly, and felt submerged
in the volume of song that rolled around her, from voices untrained,
perhaps, but hearts that knew whereof they sang. To her it was heavenly
music, if she had the least conception of what such music was like.
"Glory," "glory," "glory!" The words seemed to fit the day, and the
sunshine, and the deliverance that had come to her so recently. She looked
around for her companion and deliverer to enjoy it with him, but he had
not come in yet.

The two girls were handing her a book now and pointing to the place. She
could read. Her mother had taught her just a little before the other
children were born, but not much in the way of literature had ever come in
her way. She grasped the book eagerly, hungrily, and looked where the
finger pointed. Yes, there were the words. "Glory for me!" "Glory for me!"
Did that mean her? Was there glory for her anywhere in the world? She
sighed with the joy of the possibility, as the "Glory Song" rolled along,
led by the enthusiasm of one who had recently come from a big city where
it had been sung in a great revival service. Some kind friend had given
some copies of a leaflet containing it and a few other new songs to this
little handful of Christians, and they were singing them as if they had
been a thousand strong.

The singing ceased and the man at the big desk said, "Let us have the
verses."

"'The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting
arms,'" said a careworn woman in the front seat.

"'He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou
trust,'" said a young man next.

"'In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret
of his tabernacle shall he hide me,'" read the girl who had handed the
book. The slip of paper she had written it on fluttered to the floor at
the feet of the stranger, and the stranger stooped and picked it up,
offering it back; but the other girl shook her head, and the stranger kept
it, looking wonderingly at the words, trying to puzzle out a meaning.

There were other verses repeated, but just then a sound smote upon the
girl's ear which deadened all others. In spite of herself she began to
tremble. Even her lips seemed to her to move with the weakness of her
fear. She looked up, and the man was just coming toward the door; but her
eyes grew dizzy, and a faintness seemed to come over her.

Up the trail on horseback, with shouts and ribald songs, rode four rough
men, too drunk to know where they were going. The little schoolhouse
seemed to attract their attention as they passed, and just for deviltry
they shouted out a volley of oaths and vile talk to the worshippers
within. One in particular, the leader, looked straight into the face of
the young man as he returned from fastening the horses and was about to
enter the schoolhouse, and pretended to point his pistol at him,
discharging it immediately into the air. This was the signal for some wild
firing as the men rode on past the schoolhouse, leaving a train of curses
behind them to haunt the air and struggle with the "Glory Song" in the
memories of those who heard.

The girl looked out from her seat beside the window, and saw the evil face
of the man from whom she had fled. She thought for a terrible minute,
which seemed ages long to her, that she was cornered now. She began to
look about on the people there helplessly, and wonder whether they would
save her, would help her, in her time of need. Would they be able to fight
and prevail against those four terrible men mad with liquor?

Suppose he said she was his--his wife, perhaps, or sister, who had run
away. What could they do? Would they believe her? Would the man who had
saved her life a few minutes ago believe her? Would anybody help her?

The party passed, and the man came in and sat down beside her quietly
enough; but without a word or a look he knew at once who the man was he
had just seen. His soul trembled for the girl, and his anger rose hot. He
felt that a man like that ought to be wiped off the face of the earth in
some way, or placed in solitary confinement the rest of his life.

He looked down at the girl, trembling, brave, white, beside him; and he
felt like gathering her in his arms and hiding her himself, such a frail,
brave, courageous little soul she seemed. But the calm nerve with which
she had shot the serpent was gone now. He saw she was trembling and ready
to cry. Then he smiled upon her, a smile the like of which he had never
given to human being before; at least, not since he was a tiny baby and
smiled confidingly into his mother's face. Something in that smile was
like sunshine to a nervous chill.

The girl felt the comfort of it, though she still trembled. Down her eyes
drooped to the paper in her shaking hands. Then gradually, letter by
letter, word by word, the verse spoke to her. Not all the meaning she
gathered, for "pavilion" and "tabernacle" were unknown words to her, but
the hiding she could understand. She had been hidden in her time of
trouble. Some one had done it. "He"--the word would fit the man by her
side, for he had helped to hide her, and to save her more than once; but
just now there came a dim perception that it was some other He, some One
greater who had worked this miracle and saved her once more to go on
perhaps to better things.

There were many things said in that meeting, good and wise and true. They
might have been helpful to the girl if she had understood, but her
thoughts had much to do. One grain of truth she had gathered for her
future use. There was a "hiding" somewhere in this world, and she had had
it in a time of trouble. One moment more out upon the open, and the
terrible man might have seen her.

There came a time of prayer in which all heads were bowed, and a voice
here and there murmured a few soft little words which she did not
comprehend; but at the close they all joined in "the prayer"; and, when
she heard the words, "Our Father," she closed her eyes, which had been
curiously open and watching, and joined her voice softly with the rest.
Somehow it seemed to connect her safety with "our Father," and she felt a
stronger faith than ever in her prayer.

The young man listened intently to all he heard. There was something
strangely impressive to him in this simple worship out in what to him was
a vast wilderness. He felt more of the true spirit of worship than he had
ever felt at home sitting in the handsomely upholstered pew beside his
mother and sister while the choir-boys chanted the processional and the
light filtered through costly windows of many colors over the large and
cultivated congregation. There was something about the words of these
people that went straight to the heart more than all the intonings of the
cultured voices he had ever heard. Truly they meant what they said, and
God had been a reality to them in many a time of trouble. That seemed to
be the theme of the afternoon, the saving power of the eternal God, made
perfect through the need and the trust of His people. He was reminded more
than once of the incident of the morning and the miraculous saving of his
own and his companion's life.

When the meeting was over, the people gathered in groups and talked with
one another. The girl who had handed the book came over and spoke to the
strangers, putting out her hand pleasantly. She was the missionary's
daughter.

"What is this? School?" asked the stranger eagerly.

"Yes, this is the schoolhouse," said the missionary's daughter; "but this
meeting is Christian Endeavor. Do you live near here? Can't you come every
time?"

"No. I live a long way off," said the girl sadly. "That is, I did. I
don't live anywhere now. I'm going away."

"I wish you lived here. Then you could come to our meeting. Did you have a
Christian Endeavor where you lived?"

"No. I never saw one before. It's nice. I like it."

Another girl came up now, and put out her hand in greeting. "You must come
again," she said politely.

"I don't know," said the visitor. "I sha'n't be coming back soon."

"Are you going far?"

"As far as I can. I'm going East."

"O," said the inquisitor; and then, seeing the missionary's daughter was
talking to some one else, she whispered, nodding toward the man, "Is he
your husband?"

The girl looked startled, while a slow color mounted into her cheeks.

"No," said she gravely, thoughtfully. "But--he saved my life a little
while ago."

"Oh!" said the other, awestruck. "My! And ain't he handsome? How did he do
it?"

But the girl could not talk about it. She shuddered.

"It was a dreadful snake," she said, "and I was--I didn't see it. It was
awful! I can't tell you about it."

"My!" said the girl. "How terrible!"

The people were passing out now. The man was talking with the missionary,
asking the road to somewhere. The girl suddenly realized that this hour of
preciousness was over, and life was to be faced again. Those men, those
terrible men! She had recognized the others as having been among her
brother's funeral train. Where were they, and why had they gone that way?
Were they on her track? Had they any clue to her whereabouts? Would they
turn back pretty soon, and catch her when the people were gone home?

It appeared that the nearest town was Malta, sixteen miles away, down in
the direction where the party of men had passed. There were only four
houses near the schoolhouse, and they were scattered in different
directions along the stream in the valley. The two stood still near the
door after the congregation had scattered. The girl suddenly shivered. As
she looked down the road, she seemed again to see the coarse face of the
man she feared, and to hear his loud laughter and oaths. What if he should
come back again? "I cannot go that way!" she said, pointing down the trail
toward Malta. "I would rather die with wild beasts."

"No!" said the man with decision. "On no account can we go that way. Was
that the man you ran away from?"

"Yes." She looked up at him, her eyes filled with wonder over the way in
which he had coupled his lot with hers.

"Poor little girl!" he said with deep feeling. "You would be better off
with the beasts. Come, let us hurry away from here!"

They turned sharply away from the trail, and followed down behind a family
who were almost out of sight around the hill. There would be a chance of
getting some provisions, the man thought. The girl thought of nothing
except to get away. They rode hard, and soon came within hailing-distance
of the people ahead of them, and asked a few questions.

No, there were no houses to the north until you were over the Canadian
line, and the trail was hard to follow. Few people went that way. Most
went down to Malta. Why didn't they go to Malta? There was a road there,
and stores. It was by all means the best way. Yes, there was another house
about twenty miles away on this trail. It was a large ranch, and was near
to another town that had a railroad. The people seldom came this way, as
there were other places more accessible to them. The trail was little
used, and might be hard to find in some places; but, if they kept the
Cottonwood Creek in sight, and followed on to the end of the valley, and
then crossed the bench to the right, they would be in sight of it, and
couldn't miss it. It was a good twenty miles beyond their house; but, if
the travellers didn't miss the way, they might reach it before dark. Yes,
the people could supply a few provisions at their house if the strangers
didn't mind taking what was at hand.

The man in the wagon tried his best to find out where the two were going
and what they were going for; but the man from the East baffled his
curiosity in a most dexterous manner, so that, when the two rode away from
the two-roomed log house where the kind-hearted people lived, they left no
clue to their identity or mission beyond the fact that they were going
quite a journey, and had got a little off their trail and run out of
provisions.

They felt comparatively safe from pursuit for a few hours at least, for
the men could scarcely return and trace them very soon. They had not
stopped to eat anything; but all the milk they could drink had been given
to them, and its refreshing strength was racing through their veins. They
started upon their long ride with the pleasure of their companionship
strong upon them.

"What was it all about?" asked the girl as they settled into a steady gait
after a long gallop across a smooth level place.

He looked at her questioningly.

"The school. What did it mean? She said it was a Christian Endeavor. What
is that?"

"Why, some sort of a religious meeting, or something of that kind, I
suppose," he answered lamely. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes," she answered solemnly, "I liked it. I never went to such a thing
before. The girl said they had one everywhere all over the world. What do
you think she meant?"

"Why, I don't know, I'm sure, unless it's some kind of a society. But it
looked to me like a prayer meeting. I've heard about prayer meetings, but
I never went to one, though I never supposed they were so interesting.
That was a remarkable story that old man told of how he was taken care of
that night among the Indians. He evidently believes that prayer helps
people."

"Don't you?" she asked quickly.

"O, certainly!" he said, "but there was something so genuine about the way
the old man told it that it made you feel it in a new way."

"It is all new to me," said the girl. "But mother used to go to Sunday
school and church and prayer meeting. She's often told me about it. She
used to sing sometimes. One song was 'Rock of Ages.' Did you ever hear
that?

    "'Rock of Ages, cleft for me.
    Let me hide myself in Thee.'"

She said it slowly and in a singsong voice, as if she were measuring the
words off to imaginary notes. "I thought about that the night I started. I
wished I knew where that rock was. Is there a rock anywhere that they call
the Rock of Ages?"

The young man was visibly embarrassed. He wanted to laugh, but he would
not hurt her in that way again. He was not accustomed to talking
religion; yet here by this strange girl's side it seemed perfectly natural
that he, who knew so very little experimentally himself about it, should
be trying to explain the Rock of Ages to a soul in need. All at once it
flashed upon him that it was for just such souls in need as this one that
the Rock of Ages came into the world.

"I've heard the song. Yes, I think they sing it in all churches. It's
quite common. No, there isn't any place called Rock of Ages. It
refers--that is, I believe--why, you see the thing is figurative--that is,
a kind of picture of things. It refers to the Deity."

"O! Who is that?" asked the girt.

"Why--God." He tried to say it as if he had been telling her it was Mr.
Smith or Mr. Jones, but somehow the sound of the word on his lips thus
shocked him. He did not know how to go on. "It just means God will take
care of people."

"O!" she said, and this time a light of understanding broke over her face.
"But," she added, "I wish I knew what it meant, the meeting, and why they
did it. There must be some reason. They wouldn't do it for nothing. And
how do they know it's all so? Where did they find it out?"

The man felt he was beyond his depth; so he sought to change the subject.
"I wish you would tell me about yourself," he said gently. "I should like
to understand you better. We have travelled together for a good many hours
now, and we ought to know more about each other."

"What do you want to know?" She asked it gravely. "There isn't much to
tell but what I've told you. I've lived on a mountain all my life, and
helped mother. The rest all died. The baby first, and my two brothers, and
father, and mother, and then John. I said the prayer for John, and ran
away."

"Yes, but I want to know about your life. You know I live in the East
where everything is different. It's all new to me out here. I want to
know, for instance, how you came to talk so well. You don't talk like a
girl that never went to school. You speak as if you had read and studied.
You make so few mistakes in your English. You speak quite correctly. That
is not usual, I believe, when people have lived all their lives away from
school, you know. You don't talk like the girls I have met since I came
out here."

"Father always made me speak right. He kept at every one of us children
when we said a word wrong, and made us say it over again. It made him
angry to hear words said wrong. He made mother cry once when she said
'done' when she ought to have said 'did.' Father went to school once, but
mother only went a little while. Father knew a great deal, and when he was
sober he used to teach us things once in a while. He taught me to read. I
can read anything I ever saw."

"Did you have many books and magazines?" he asked innocently.

"We had three books!" she answered proudly, as if that were a great many.
"One was a grammar. Father bought it for mother before they were married,
and she always kept it wrapped up in paper carefully. She used to get it
out for me to read in sometimes; but she was very careful with it, and
when she died I put it in her hands. I thought she would like to have it
close to her, because it always seemed so much to her. You see father
bought it. Then there was an almanac, and a book about stones and earth. A
man who was hunting for gold left that. He stopped over night at our
house, and asked for some, thing to eat. He hadn't any money to pay for
it; so he left that book with us, and said when he found the gold he would
come and buy it back again. But he never came back."

"Is that all that you have ever read?" he asked compassionately.

"O, no! We got papers sometimes. Father would come home with a whole paper
wrapped around some bundle. Once there was a beautiful story about a girl;
but the paper was torn in the middle, and I never knew how it came out."

There was great wistfulness in her voice. It seemed to be one of the
regrets of her girlhood that she did not know how that other girl in the
story fared. All at once she turned to him.

"Now tell me about your life," she said. "I'm sure you have a great deal
to tell."

His face darkened in a way that made her sorry.

"O, well," said he as if it mattered very little about his life, "I had a
nice home--have yet, for the matter of that. Father died when I was
little, and mother let me do just about as I pleased. I went to school
because the other fellows did, and because that was the thing to do. After
I grew up I liked it. That is, I liked some studies; so I went to a
university."

"What is that?"

"O, just a higher school where you learn grown-up things. Then I
travelled. When I came home, I went into society a good deal. But"--and
his face darkened again--"I got tired of it all, and thought I would come
out here for a while and hunt, and I got lost, and I found you!" He smiled
into her face. "Now you know the rest."

Something passed between them in that smile and glance, a flash of the
recognition of souls, and a gladness in each other's company, that made
the heart warm. They said no more for some time, but rode quietly side by
side.

They had come to the end of the valley, and were crossing the bench. The
distant ranch could quite distinctly be seen. The silver moon had come up,
for they had not been hurrying, and a great beauty pervaded everything.
They almost shrank from approaching the buildings and people. They had
enjoyed the ride and the companionship. Every step brought them nearer to
what they had known all the time was an indistinct future from which they
had been joyously shut away for a little time till they might know each
other.




CHAPTER VII

BAD NEWS


They found rest for the night at the ranch house. The place was wide and
hospitable. The girl looked about her with wonder on the comfortable
arrangements for work. If only her mother had had such a kitchen to work
in, and such a pleasant, happy home, she might have been living yet. There
was a pleasant-faced, sweet-voiced woman with gray hair whom the men
called "mother." She gave the girl a kindly welcome, and made her sit down
to a nice warm supper, and, when it was over, led her to a little room
where her own bed was, and told her she might sleep with her. The girl lay
down in a maze of wonder, but was too weary with the long ride to keep
awake and think about it.

They slept, the two travellers, a sound and dreamless sleep, wherein
seemed peace and moonlight, and a forgetting of sorrows.

Early the next morning the girl awoke. The woman by her side was already
stirring. There was breakfast to get for the men. The woman asked her a
few questions about her journey.

"He's your brother, ain't he, dearie?" asked the woman as she was about to
leave the room.

"No," said the girl.

"O," said the woman, puzzled, "then you and he's goin' to be married in
the town."

"O, no!" said the girl with scarlet cheeks, thinking of the lady in the
automobile.

"Not goin' to be married, dearie? Now that's too bad. Ain't he any kind of
relation to you? Not an uncle nor cousin nor nothin'?"

"No."

"Then how be's you travellin' lone with him? It don't seem just right.
You's a sweet, good girl; an' he's a fine man. But harm's come to more'n
one. Where'd you take up with each other? Be he a neighbor? He looks like
a man from way off, not hereabouts. You sure he ain't deceivin' you,
dearie?"

The girl flashed her eyes in answer.

"Yes, I'm sure. He's a good man. He prays to our Father. No, he's not a
neighbor, nor an uncle, nor a cousin. He's just a man that got lost. We
were both lost on the prairie in the night; and he's from the East, and
got lost from his party of hunters. He had nothing to eat, but I had; so I
gave him some. Then he saved my life when a snake almost stung me. He's
been good to me."

The woman looked relieved.

"And where you goin', dearie, all 'lone? What your folks thinkin' 'bout to
let you go 'lone this way?"

"They're dead," said the girl with great tears in her eyes.

"Dearie me! And you so young! Say, dearie, s'pose you stay here with me.
I'm lonesome, an' there's no women near by here. You could help me and be
comp'ny. The men would like to have a girl round. There's plenty likely
men on this ranch could make a good home fer a girl sometime. Stay here
with me, dearie."

Had this refuge been offered the girl during her first flight in the
wilderness, with what joy and thankfulness she would have accepted! Now it
suddenly seemed a great impossibility for her to stay. She must go on. She
had a pleasant ride before her, and delightful companionship; and she was
going to school. The world was wide, and she had entered it. She had no
mind to pause thus on the threshold, and never see further than Montana.
Moreover, the closing words of the woman did not please her.

"I cannot stay," she said decidedly. "I'm going to school. And I do not
want a man. I have just run away from a man, a dreadful one. I am going to
school in the East. I have some relations there, and perhaps I can find
them."

"You don't say so!" said the woman, looking disappointed. She had taken a
great fancy to the sweet young face. "Well, dearie, why not stay here a
little while, and write to your folks, and then go on with some one who is
going your way? I don't like to see you go off with that man. It ain't the
proper thing. He knows it himself. I'm afraid he's deceivin' you. I can
see by his clo'es he's one of the fine young fellows that does as they
please. He won't think any good of you if you keep travellin' 'lone with
him. It's all well 'nough when you get lost, an' he was nice to help you
out and save you from snakes; but he knows he ain't no business travellin'
'lone with you, you pretty little creature!"

"You must not talk so!" said the girl, rising and flashing her eyes again.
"He's a good man. He's what my brother called 'a white man all through.'
Besides, he's got a lady, a beautiful lady, in the East. She rides in some
kind of a grand carriage that goes of itself, and he thinks a great deal
of her."

The woman looked as if she were but half convinced.

"It may seem all right to you, dearie," she said sadly; "but I'm old, and
I've seen things happen. You'd find his fine lady wouldn't go jantin'
round the world 'lone with him unless she's married. I've lived East, and
I know; and what's more, he knows it too. He may mean all right, but you
never can trust folks."

The woman went away to prepare breakfast then, and left the girl feeling
as if the whole world was against her, trying to hold her. She was glad
when the man suggested that they hurry their breakfast and get away as
quickly as possible. She did not smile when the old woman came out to bid
her good-by, and put a detaining hand on the horse's bridle, saying, "You
better stay with me, after all, hadn't you, dearie?"

The man looked inquiringly at the two women, and saw like a flash the
suspicion of the older woman, read the trust and haughty anger in the
beautiful younger face, and then smiled down on the old woman whose kindly
hospitality had saved them for a while from the terrors of the open night,
and said:

"Don't you worry about her, auntie. I'm going to take good care of her,
and perhaps she'll write you a letter some day, and tell you where she is
and what she's doing."

Half reassured, the old woman gave him her name and address; and he wrote
them down in a little red notebook.

When they were well started on their way, the man explained that he had
hurried because from conversation with the men he had learned that this
ranch where they had spent the night was on the direct trail from Malta to
another small town. It might be that the pursuers would go further than
Malta. Did she think they would go so far? They must have come almost a
hundred miles already. Would they not be discouraged?

But the girl looked surprised. A hundred miles on horseback was not far.
Her brother often used to ride a hundred miles just to see a fight or have
a good time. She felt sure the men would not hesitate to follow a long
distance if something else did not turn them aside.

The man's face looked sternly out from under his wide hat. He felt a great
responsibility for the girl since he had seen the face of the man who was
pursuing her.

Their horses were fresh, and the day was fine. They rode hard as long as
the road was smooth, and did little talking. The girl was turning over in
her mind the words the woman had spoken to her. But the thing that stuck
there and troubled her was, "And he knows it is so."

Was she doing something for which this man by her side would not respect
her? Was she overstepping some unwritten law of which she had never heard,
and did he know it, and yet encourage her in it?

That she need fear him in the least she would not believe. Had she not
watched the look of utmost respect on his face as he stood quietly waiting
for her to awake the first morning they had met? Had he not had
opportunity again and again to show her dishonor by word or look? Yet he
had never been anything but gentle and courteous to her. She did not call
things by these names, but she felt the gentleman in him.

Besides, there was the lady. He had told about her at the beginning. He
evidently honored the lady. The woman had said that the lady would not
ride with him alone. Was it true? Would he not like to have the lady ride
alone with him when she was not his relative in any way? Then was there a
difference between his thought of the lady and of herself? Of course,
there was some; he loved the lady, but he should not think less honorably
of her than of any lady in the land.

She sat straight and proudly in her man's saddle, and tried to make him
feel that she was worthy of respect. She had tried to show him this when
she had shot the bird. Now she recognized that there was a fine something,
higher than shooting or prowess of any kind, which would command respect.
It was something she felt belonged to her, yet she was not sure she
commanded it. What did she lack, and how could she secure it?

He watched her quiet, thoughtful face, and the lady of his former troubled
thoughts was as utterly forgotten by him as if she had never existed. He
was unconsciously absorbed in the study of eye and lip and brow. His eyes
were growing accustomed to the form and feature of this girl beside him,
and he took pleasure in watching her.

They stopped for lunch in a coulee under a pretty cluster of cedar-trees a
little back from the trail, where they might look over the way they had
come and be warned against pursuers. About three o'clock they reached a
town. Here the railroad came directly from Malta, but there was but one
train a day each way.

The man went to the public stopping-place and asked for a room, and boldly
demanded a private place for his "sister" to rest for a while. "She is my
little sister," he told himself in excuse for the word.