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Title: A Voice in the Wilderness

Author: Grace Livingston Hill

Release Date: April 27, 2007 [EBook #21219]

Language: English

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A VOICE in the WILDERNESS

A NOVEL
BY
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL

AUTHOR OF
MARCIA SCHUYLER, ETC.

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK

Published by Arrangement with Harper and Brothers

Made in the United States of America

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Voice in the Wilderness

Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1916

------------------------------------------------------------------------




A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

CHAPTER I


With a lurch the train came to a dead stop and Margaret Earle, hastily
gathering up her belongings, hurried down the aisle and got out into the
night.

It occurred to her, as she swung her heavy suit-case down the rather
long step to the ground, and then carefully swung herself after it, that
it was strange that neither conductor, brakeman, nor porter had come to
help her off the train, when all three had taken the trouble to tell her
that hers was the next station; but she could hear voices up ahead.
Perhaps something was the matter with the engine that detained them and
they had forgotten her for the moment.

The ground was rough where she stood, and there seemed no sign of a
platform. Did they not have platforms in this wild Western land, or was
the train so long that her car had stopped before reaching it?

She strained her eyes into the darkness, and tried to make out things
from the two or three specks of light that danced about like fireflies
in the distance. She could dimly see moving figures away up near the
engine, and each one evidently carried a lantern. The train was
tremendously long. A sudden feeling of isolation took possession of her.
Perhaps she ought not to have got out until some one came to help her.
Perhaps the train had not pulled into the station yet and she ought to
get back on it and wait. Yet if the train started before she found the
conductor she might be carried on somewhere and be justly blame her for
a fool.

There did not seem to be any building on that side of the track. It was
probably on the other, but she was standing too near the cars to see
over. She tried to move back to look, but the ground sloped and she
slipped and fell in the cinders, bruising her knee and cutting her
wrist.

In sudden panic she arose. She would get back into the train, no matter
what the consequences. They had no right to put her out here, away off
from the station, at night, in a strange country. If the train started
before she could find the conductor she would tell him that he must back
it up again and let her off. He certainly could not expect her to get
out like this.

She lifted the heavy suit-case up the high step that was even farther
from the ground than it had been when she came down, because her fall
had loosened some of the earth and caused it to slide away from the
track. Then, reaching to the rail of the step, she tried to pull herself
up, but as she did so the engine gave a long snort and the whole train,
as if it were in league against her, lurched forward crazily, shaking
off her hold. She slipped to her knees again, the suit-case, toppled
from the lower step, descending upon her, and together they slid and
rolled down the short bank, while the train, like an irresponsible nurse
who had slapped her charge and left it to its fate, ran giddily off into
the night.

The horror of being deserted helped the girl to rise in spite of bruises
and shock. She lifted imploring hands to the unresponsive cars as they
hurried by her--one, two, three, with bright windows, each showing a
passenger, comfortable and safe inside, unconscious of her need.

A moment of useless screaming, running, trying to attract some one's
attention, a sickening sense of terror and failure, and the last car
slatted itself past with a mocking clatter, as if it enjoyed her
discomfort.

Margaret stood dazed, reaching out helpless hands, then dropped them at
her sides and gazed after the fast-retreating train, the light on its
last car swinging tauntingly, blinking now and then with a leer in its
eye, rapidly vanishing from her sight into the depth of the night.

She gasped and looked about her for the station that but a short moment
before had been so real to her mind; and, lo! on this side and on that
there was none!

The night was wide like a great floor shut in by a low, vast dome of
curving blue set with the largest, most wonderful stars she had ever
seen. Heavy shadows of purple-green, smoke-like, hovered over earth
darker and more intense than the unfathomable blue of the night sky. It
seemed like the secret nesting-place of mysteries wherein no human foot
might dare intrude. It was incredible that such could be but common
sage-brush, sand, and greasewood wrapped about with the beauty of the
lonely night.

No building broke the inky outlines of the plain, nor friendly light
streamed out to cheer her heart. Not even a tree was in sight, except on
the far horizon, where a heavy line of deeper darkness might mean a
forest. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the blue, deep, starry dome
above and the bluer darkness of the earth below save one sharp shaft
ahead like a black mast throwing out a dark arm across the track.

As soon as she sighted it she picked up her baggage and made her painful
way toward it, for her knees and wrist were bruised and her baggage was
heavy.

A soft drip, drip greeted her as she drew nearer; something plashing
down among the cinders by the track. Then she saw the tall column with
its arm outstretched, and looming darker among the sage-brush the
outlines of a water-tank. It was so she recognized the engine's
drinking-tank, and knew that she had mistaken a pause to water the
engine for a regular stop at a station.

Her soul sank within her as she came up to the dripping water and laid
her hand upon the dark upright, as if in some way it could help her. She
dropped her baggage and stood, trembling, gazing around upon the
beautiful, lonely scene in horror; and then, like a mirage against the
distance, there melted on her frightened eyes a vision of her father
and mother sitting around the library lamp at home, as they sat every
evening. They were probably reading and talking at this very minute, and
trying not to miss her on this her first venture away from the home into
the great world to teach. What would they say if they could see their
beloved daughter, whom they had sheltered all these years and let go
forth so reluctantly now, in all her confidence of youth, bound by
almost absurd promises to be careful and not run any risks.

Yet here she was, standing alone beside a water-tank in the midst of an
Arizona plain, no knowing how many miles from anywhere, at somewhere
between nine and ten o'clock at night! It seemed incredible that it had
really happened! Perhaps she was dreaming! A few moments before in the
bright car, surrounded by drowsy fellow-travelers, almost at her
journey's end, as she supposed; and now, having merely done as she
thought right, she was stranded here!

She rubbed her eyes and looked again up the track, half expecting to see
the train come back for her. Surely, surely the conductor, or the porter
who had been so kind, would discover that she was gone, and do something
about it. They couldn't leave her here alone on the prairie! It would be
too dreadful!

That vision of her father and mother off against the purple-green
distance, how it shook her! The lamp looked bright and cheerful, and she
could see her father's head with its heavy white hair. He turned to look
at her mother to tell her of something he read in the paper. They were
sitting there, feeling contented and almost happy about her, and she,
their little girl--all her dignity as school-teacher dropped from her
like a garment now--she was standing in this empty space alone, with
only an engine's water-tank to keep her from dying, and only the barren,
desolate track to connect her with the world of men and women. She
dropped her head upon her breast and the tears came, sobbing, choking,
raining down. Then off in the distance she heard a low, rising howl of
some snarling, angry beast, and she lifted her head and stood in
trembling terror, clinging to the tank.

That sound was coyotes or wolves howling. She had read about them, but
had not expected to experience them in such a situation. How confidently
had she accepted the position which offered her the opening she had
sought for the splendid career that she hoped was to follow! How
fearless had she been! Coyotes, nor Indians, nor wild cowboy
students--nothing had daunted her courage. Besides, she told her mother
it was very different going to a town from what it would be if she were
a missionary going to the wilds. It was an important school she was to
teach, where her Latin and German and mathematical achievements had won
her the place above several other applicants, and where her well-known
tact was expected to work wonders. But what were Latin and German and
mathematics now? Could they show her how to climb a water-tank? Would
tact avail with a hungry wolf?

The howl in the distance seemed to come nearer. She cast frightened eyes
to the unresponsive water-tank looming high and dark above her. She
must get up there somehow. It was not safe to stand here a minute.
Besides, from that height she might be able to see farther, and perhaps
there would be a light somewhere and she might cry for help.

Investigation showed a set of rude spikes by which the trainmen were
wont to climb up, and Margaret prepared to ascend them. She set her
suit-case dubiously down at the foot. Would it be safe to leave it
there? She had read how coyotes carried off a hatchet from a
camping-party, just to get the leather thong which was bound about the
handle. She could not afford to lose her things. Yet how could she climb
and carry that heavy burden with her? A sudden thought came.

Her simple traveling-gown was finished with a silken girdle, soft and
long, wound twice about her waist and falling in tasseled ends. Swiftly
she untied it and knotted one end firmly to the handle of her suit-case,
tying the other end securely to her wrist. Then slowly, cautiously, with
many a look upward, she began to climb.

It seemed miles, though in reality it was but a short distance. The
howling beasts in the distance sounded nearer now and continually,
making her heart beat wildly. She was stiff and bruised from her falls,
and weak with fright. The spikes were far apart, and each step of
progress was painful and difficult. It was good at last to rise high
enough to see over the water-tank and feel a certain confidence in her
defense.

But she had risen already beyond the short length of her silken tether,
and the suit-case was dragging painfully on her arm. She was obliged to
steady herself where she stood and pull it up before she could go on.
Then she managed to get it swung up to the top of the tank in a
comparatively safe place. One more long spike step and she was beside
it.

The tank was partly roofed over, so that she had room enough to sit on
the edge without danger of falling in and drowning. For a few minutes
she could only sit still and be thankful and try to get her breath back
again after the climb; but presently the beauty of the night began to
cast its spell over her. That wonderful blue of the sky! It hadn't ever
before impressed her that skies were blue at night. She would have said
they were black or gray. As a matter of fact, she didn't remember to
have ever seen so much sky at once before, nor to have noticed skies in
general until now.

This sky was so deeply, wonderfully blue, the stars so real, alive and
sparkling, that all other stars she had ever seen paled before them into
mere imitations. The spot looked like one of Taylor's pictures of the
Holy Land. She half expected to see a shepherd with his crook and sheep
approaching her out of the dim shadows, or a turbaned, white-robed David
with his lifted hands of prayer standing off among the depths of purple
darkness. It would not have been out of keeping if a walled city with
housetops should be hidden behind the clumps of sage-brush farther on.
'Twas such a night and such a scene as this, perhaps, when the wise men
started to follow the star!

But one cannot sit on the edge of a water-tank in the desert night
alone and muse long on art and history. It was cold up there, and the
howling seemed nearer than before. There was no sign of a light or a
house anywhere, and not even a freight-train sent its welcome clatter
down the track. All was still and wide and lonely, save that terrifying
sound of the beasts; such stillness as she had not ever thought could
be--a fearful silence as a setting for the awful voices of the wilds.

The bruises and scratches she had acquired set up a fine stinging, and
the cold seemed to sweep down and take possession of her on her high,
narrow seat. She was growing stiff and cramped, yet dared not move much.
Would there be no train, nor any help? Would she have to sit there all
night? It looked so very near to the ground now. Could wild beasts
climb, she wondered?

Then in the interval of silence that came between the calling of those
wild creatures there stole a sound. She could not tell at first what it
was. A slow, regular, plodding sound, and quite far away. She looked to
find it, and thought she saw a shape move out of the sage-brush on the
other side of the track, but she could not be sure. It might be but a
figment of her brain, a foolish fancy from looking so long at the
huddled bushes on the dark plain. Yet something prompted her to cry out,
and when she heard her own voice she cried again and louder, wondering
why she had not cried before.

"Help! Help!" she called; and again: "Help! Help!"

The dark shape paused and turned toward her. She was sure now. What if
it were a beast instead of a human! Terrible fear took possession of
her; then, to her infinite relief, a nasal voice sounded out:

"Who's thar?"

But when she opened her lips to answer, nothing but a sob would come to
them for a minute, and then she could only cry, pitifully:

"Help! Help!"

"Whar be you?" twanged the voice; and now she could see a horse and
rider like a shadow moving toward her down the track.




CHAPTER II


The horse came to a standstill a little way from the track, and his
rider let forth a stream of strange profanity. The girl shuddered and
began to think a wild beast might be preferable to some men. However,
these remarks seemed to be a mere formality. He paused and addressed
her:

"Heow'd yeh git up thar? D'j'yeh drap er climb?"

He was a little, wiry man with a bristly, protruding chin. She could see
that, even in the starlight. There was something about the point of that
stubby chin that she shrank from inexpressibly. He was not a pleasant
man to look upon, and even his voice was unprepossessing. She began to
think that even the night with its loneliness and unknown perils was
preferable to this man's company.

"I got off the train by mistake, thinking it was my station, and before
I discovered it the train had gone and left me," Margaret explained,
with dignity.

"Yeh didn't 'xpect it t' sit reound on th' plain while you was
gallivantin' up water-tanks, did yeh?"

Cold horror froze Margaret's veins. She was dumb for a second. "I am on
my way to Ashland station. Can you tell me how far it is from here and
how I can get there?" Her tone was like icicles.

"It's a little matter o' twenty miles, more 'r less," said the man
protruding his offensive chin. "The walkin's good. I don't know no other
way from this p'int at this time o' night. Yeh might set still till th'
mornin' freight goes by an' drap atop o' one of the kyars."

"Sir!" said Margaret, remembering her dignity as a teacher.

The man wheeled his horse clear around and looked up at her impudently.
She could smell bad whisky on his breath.

"Say, you must be some young highbrow, ain't yeh? Is thet all yeh want
o' me? 'Cause ef 'tis I got t' git on t' camp. It's a good five mile
yet, an' I 'ain't hed no grub sence noon."

The tears suddenly rushed to the girl's eyes as the horror of being
alone in the night again took possession of her. This dreadful man
frightened her, but the thought of the loneliness filled her with
dismay.

"Oh!" she cried, forgetting her insulted dignity, "you're not going to
leave me up here alone, are you? Isn't there some place near here where
I could stay overnight?"

"Thur ain't no palace hotel round these diggin's, ef that's what you
mean," the man leered at her. "You c'n come along t' camp 'ith me ef you
ain't too stuck up."

"To camp!" faltered Margaret in dismay, wondering what her mother would
say. "Are there any ladies there?"

A loud guffaw greeted her question. "Wal, my woman's thar, sech es she
is; but she ain't no highflier like you. We mostly don't hev ladies to
camp, But I got t' git on. Ef you want to go too, you better light down
pretty speedy, fer I can't wait."

In fear and trembling Margaret descended her rude ladder step by step,
primitive man seated calmly on his horse, making no attempt whatever to
assist her.

"This ain't no baggage-car," he grumbled, as he saw the suit-case in her
hand. "Well, h'ist yerself up thar; I reckon we c'n pull through
somehow. Gimme the luggage."

Margaret stood appalled beside the bony horse and his uncouth rider. Did
he actually expect her to ride with him? "Couldn't I walk?" she
faltered, hoping he would offer to do so.

"'T's up t' you," the man replied, indifferently. "Try 't an' see!"

He spoke to the horse, and it started forward eagerly, while the girl in
horror struggled on behind. Over rough, uneven ground, between
greasewood, sage-brush, and cactus, back into the trail. The man,
oblivious of her presence, rode contentedly on, a silent shadow on a
dark horse wending a silent way between the purple-green clumps of other
shadows, until, bewildered, the girl almost lost sight of them. Her
breath came short, her ankle turned, and she fell with both hands in a
stinging bed of cactus. She cried out then and begged him to stop.

"L'arned yer lesson, hev yeh, sweety?" he jeered at her, foolishly.
"Well, get in yer box, then."

He let her struggle up to a seat behind himself with very little
assistance, but when she was seated and started on her way she began to
wish she had stayed behind and taken any perils of the way rather than
trust herself in proximity to this creature.

From time to time he took a bottle from his pocket and swallowed a
portion of its contents, becoming fluent in his language as they
proceeded on their way. Margaret remained silent, growing more and more
frightened every time the bottle came out. At last he offered it to her.
She declined it with cold politeness, which seemed to irritate the
little man, for he turned suddenly fierce.

"Oh, yer too fine to take a drap fer good comp'ny, are yeh? Wal, I'll
show yeh a thing er two, my pretty lady. You'll give me a kiss with yer
two cherry lips before we go another step. D'yeh hear, my sweetie?" And
he turned with a silly leer to enforce his command; but with a cry of
horror Margaret slid to the ground and ran back down the trail as hard
as she could go, till she stumbled and fell in the shelter of a great
sage-bush, and lay sobbing on the sand.

The man turned bleared eyes toward her and watched until she
disappeared. Then sticking his chin out wickedly, he slung her suit-case
after her and called:

"All right, my pretty lady; go yer own gait an' l'arn yer own lesson."
He started on again, singing a drunken song.

Under the blue, starry dome alone sat Margaret again, this time with no
friendly water-tank for her defense, and took counsel with herself. The
howling coyotes seemed to be silenced for the time; at least they had
become a minor quantity in her equation of troubles. She felt now that
man was her greatest menace, and to get away safely from him back to
that friendly water-tank and the dear old railroad track she would have
pledged her next year's salary. She stole softly to the place where she
had heard the suit-case fall, and, picking it up, started on the weary
road back to the tank. Could she ever find the way? The trail seemed so
intangible a thing, her sense of direction so confused. Yet there was
nothing else to do. She shuddered whenever she thought of the man who
had been her companion on horseback.

When the man reached camp he set his horse loose and stumbled into the
door of the log bunk-house, calling loudly for something to eat.

The men were sitting around the room on the rough benches and bunks,
smoking their pipes or stolidly staring into the dying fire. Two smoky
kerosene-lanterns that hung from spikes driven high in the logs cast a
weird light over the company, eight men in all, rough and hardened with
exposure to stormy life and weather. They were men with unkempt beards
and uncombed hair, their coarse cotton shirts open at the neck, their
brawny arms bare above the elbow, with crimes and sorrows and hard
living written large across their faces.

There was one, a boy in looks, with smooth face and white skin healthily
flushed in places like a baby's. His face, too, was hard and set in
sternness like a mask, as if life had used him badly; but behind it was
a fineness of feature and spirit that could not be utterly hidden. They
called him the Kid, and thought it was his youth that made him different
from them all, for he was only twenty-four, and not one of the rest was
under forty. They were doing their best to help him get over that innate
fineness that was his natural inheritance, but although he stopped at
nothing, and played his part always with the ease of one old in the ways
of the world, yet he kept a quiet reserve about him, a kind of charm
beyond which they had not been able to go.

He was playing cards with three others at the table when the man came
in, and did not look up at the entrance.

The woman, white and hopeless, appeared at the door of the shed-room
when the man came, and obediently set about getting his supper; but her
lifeless face never changed expression.

"Brung a gal 'long of me part way," boasted the man, as he flung himself
into a seat by the table. "Thought you fellers might like t' see 'er,
but she got too high an' mighty fer me, wouldn't take a pull at th'
bottle 'ith me, 'n' shrieked like a catamount when I kissed 'er. Found
'er hangin' on th' water-tank. Got off 't th' wrong place. One o' yer
highbrows out o' th' parlor car! Good lesson fer 'er!"

The Boy looked up from his cards sternly, his keen eyes boring through
the man. "Where is she now?" he asked, quietly; and all the men in the
room looked up uneasily. There was that tone and accent again that made
the Boy alien from them. What was it?

The man felt it and snarled his answer angrily. "Dropped 'er on th'
trail, an' threw her fine-lady b'longin's after 'er. 'Ain't got no use
fer thet kind. Wonder what they was created fer? Ain't no good to
nobody, not even 'emselves." And he laughed a harsh cackle that was not
pleasant to hear.

The Boy threw down his cards and went out, shutting the door. In a few
minutes the men heard two horses pass the end of the bunk-house toward
the trail, but no one looked up nor spoke. You could not have told by
the flicker of an eyelash that they knew where the Boy had gone.

She was sitting in the deep shadow of a sage-bush that lay on the edge
of the trail like a great blot, her suit-case beside her, her breath
coming short with exertion and excitement, when she heard a cheery
whistle in the distance. Just an old love-song dating back some years
and discarded now as hackneyed even by the street pianos at home; but
oh, how good it sounded!

    From the desert I come to thee!

The ground was cold, and struck a chill through her garments as she sat
there alone in the night. On came the clear, musical whistle, and she
peered out of the shadow with eager eyes and frightened heart. Dared she
risk it again? Should she call, or should she hold her breath and keep
still, hoping he would pass her by unnoticed? Before she could decide
two horses stopped almost in front of her and a rider swung himself
down. He stood before her as if it were day and he could see her quite
plainly.

"You needn't be afraid," he explained, calmly. "I thought I had better
look you up after the old man got home and gave his report. He was
pretty well tanked up and not exactly a fit escort for ladies. What's
the trouble?"

Like an angel of deliverance he looked to her as he stood in the
starlight, outlined in silhouette against the wide, wonderful sky: broad
shoulders, well-set head, close-cropped curls, handsome contour even in
the darkness. There was about him an air of quiet strength which gave
her confidence.

"Oh, thank you!" she gasped, with a quick little relieved sob in her
voice. "I am so glad you have come. I was--just a little--frightened, I
think." She attempted to rise, but her foot caught in her skirt and she
sank wearily back to the sand again.

The Boy stooped over and lifted her to her feet. "You certainly are some
plucky girl!" he commented, looking down at her slender height as she
stood beside him. "A 'little frightened,' were you? Well, I should say
you had a right to be."

"Well, not exactly frightened, you know," said Margaret, taking a deep
breath and trying to steady her voice. "I think perhaps I was more
mortified than frightened, to think I made such a blunder as to get off
the train before I reached my station. You see, I'd made up my mind not
to be frightened, but when I heard that awful howl of some beast--And
then that terrible man!" She shuddered and put her hands suddenly over
her eyes as if to shut out all memory of it.

"More than one kind of beasts!" commented the Boy, briefly. "Well, you
needn't worry about him; he's having his supper and he'll be sound
asleep by the time we get back."

"Oh, have we got to go where he is?" gasped Margaret. "Isn't there some
other place? Is Ashland very far away? That is where I am going."

"No other place where you could go to-night. Ashland's a good
twenty-five miles from here. But you'll be all right. Mom Wallis 'll
look out for you. She isn't much of a looker, but she has a kind heart.
She pulled me through once when I was just about flickering out. Come
on. You'll be pretty tired. We better be getting back. Mom Wallis 'll
make you comfortable, and then you can get off good and early in the
morning."

Without an apology, and as if it were the common courtesy of the desert,
he stooped and lifted her easily to the saddle of the second horse,
placed the bridle in her hands, then swung the suit-case up on his own
horse and sprang into the saddle.




CHAPTER III


He turned the horses about and took charge of her just as if he were
accustomed to managing stray ladies in the wilderness every day of his
life and understood the situation perfectly; and Margaret settled
wearily into her saddle and looked about her with content.

Suddenly, again, the wide wonder of the night possessed her.
Involuntarily she breathed a soft little exclamation of awe and delight.
Her companion turned to her questioningly:

"Does it always seem so big here--so--limitless?" she asked in
explanation. "It is so far to everywhere it takes one's breath away, and
yet the stars hang close, like a protection. It gives one the feeling of
being alone in the great universe with God. Does it always seem so out
here?"

He looked at her curiously, her pure profile turned up to the wide dome
of luminous blue above. His voice was strangely low and wondering as he
answered, after a moment's silence:

"No, it is not always so," he said. "I have seen it when it was more
like being alone in the great universe with the devil."

There was a tremendous earnestness in his tone that the girl felt meant
more than was on the surface. She turned to look at the fine young face
beside her. In the starlight she could not make out the bitter hardness
of lines that were beginning to be carved about his sensitive mouth. But
there was so much sadness in his voice that her heart went out to him in
pity.

"Oh," she said, gently, "it would be awful that way. Yes, I can
understand. I felt so, a little, while that terrible man was with me."
And she shuddered again at the remembrance.

Again he gave her that curious look. "There are worse things than Pop
Wallis out here," he said, gravely. "But I'll grant you there's some
class to the skies. It's a case of 'Where every prospect pleases and
only man is vile.'" And with the words his tone grew almost flippant. It
hurt her sensitive nature, and without knowing it she half drew away a
little farther from him and murmured, sadly:

"Oh!" as if he had classed himself with the "man" he had been
describing. Instantly he felt her withdrawal and grew grave again, as if
he would atone.

"Wait till you see this sky at the dawn," he said. "It will burn red
fire off there in the east like a hearth in a palace, and all this dome
will glow like a great pink jewel set in gold. If you want a classy sky,
there you have it! Nothing like it in the East!"

There was a strange mingling of culture and roughness in his speech. The
girl could not make him out; yet there had been a palpitating
earnestness in his description that showed he had felt the dawn in his
very soul.

"You are--a--poet, perhaps?" she asked, half shyly. "Or an artist?" she
hazarded.

He laughed roughly and seemed embarrassed. "No, I'm just a--bum! A sort
of roughneck out of a job."

She was silent, watching him against the starlight, a kind of
embarrassment upon her after his last remark. "You--have been here
long?" she asked, at last.

"Three years." He said it almost curtly and turned his head away, as if
there were something in his face he would hide.

She knew there was something unhappy in his life. Unconsciously her tone
took on a sympathetic sound. "And do you get homesick and want to go
back, ever?" she asked.

His tone was fairly savage now. "No!"

The silence which followed became almost oppressive before the Boy
finally turned and in his kindly tone began to question her about the
happenings which had stranded her in the desert alone at night.

So she came to tell him briefly and frankly about herself, as he
questioned--how she came to be in Arizona all alone.

"My father is a minister in a small town in New York State. When I
finished college I had to do something, and I had an offer of this
Ashland school through a friend of ours who had a brother out here.
Father and mother would rather have kept me nearer home, of course, but
everybody says the best opportunities are in the West, and this was a
good opening, so they finally consented. They would send post-haste for
me to come back if they knew what a mess I have made of things right at
the start--getting out of the train in the desert."

"But you're not discouraged?" said her companion, half wonderingly.
"Some nerve you have with you. I guess you'll manage to hit it off in
Ashland. It's the limit as far as discipline is concerned, I understand,
but I guess you'll put one over on them. I'll bank on you after
to-night, sure thing!"

She turned a laughing face toward him. "Thank you!" she said. "But I
don't see how you know all that. I'm sure I didn't do anything
particularly nervy. There wasn't anything else to do but what I did, if
I'd tried."

"Most girls would have fainted and screamed, and fainted again when they
were rescued," stated the Boy, out of a vast experience.

"I never fainted in my life," said Margaret Earle, with disdain. "I
don't think I should care to faint out in the vast universe like this.
It would be rather inopportune, I should think."

Then, because she suddenly realized that she was growing very chummy
with this stranger in the dark, she asked the first question that came
into her head.

"What was your college?"

That he had not been to college never entered her head. There was
something in his speech and manner that made it a foregone conclusion.

It was as if she had struck him forcibly in his face, so sudden and
sharp a silence ensued for a second. Then he answered, gruffly, "Yale,"
and plunged into an elaborate account of Arizona in its early ages,
including a detailed description of the cliff-dwellers and their homes,
which were still to be seen high in the rocks of the cańons not many
miles to the west of where they were riding.

Margaret was keen to hear it all, and asked many questions, declaring
her intention of visiting those cliff-caves at her earliest opportunity.
It was so wonderful to her to be actually out here where were all sorts
of queer things about which she had read and wondered. It did not occur
to her, until the next day, to realize that her companion had of
intention led her off the topic of himself and kept her from asking any
more personal questions.

He told her of the petrified forest just over some low hills off to the
left; acres and acres of agatized chips and trunks of great trees all
turned to eternal stone, called by the Indians "Yeitso's bones," after
the great giant of that name whom an ancient Indian hero killed. He
described the coloring of the brilliant days in Arizona, where you stand
on the edge of some flat-topped mesa and look off through the clear air
to mountains that seem quite near by, but are in reality more than two
hundred miles away. He pictured the strange colors and lights of the
place; ledges of rock, yellow, white and green, drab and maroon, and
tumbled piles of red boulders, shadowy buttes in the distance, serrated
cliffs against the horizon, not blue, but rosy pink in the heated haze
of the air, and perhaps a great, lonely eagle poised above the silent,
brilliant waste.

He told it not in book language, with turn of phrase and smoothly
flowing sentences, but in simple, frank words, as a boy might describe a
picture to one he knew would appreciate it--for her sake, and not
because he loved to put it into words; but in a new, stumbling way
letting out the beauty that had somehow crept into his heart in spite of
all the rough attempts to keep all gentle things out of his nature.

The girl, as she listened, marveled more and more what manner of youth
this might be who had come to her out of the desert night.

She forgot her weariness as she listened, in the thrill of wonder over
the new mysterious country to which she had come. She forgot that she
was riding through the great darkness with an utter stranger, to a place
she knew not, and to experiences most dubious. Her fears had fled and
she was actually enjoying herself, and responding to the wonderful story
of the place with soft-murmured exclamations of delight and wonder.

From time to time in the distance there sounded forth those awful
blood-curdling howls of wild beasts that she had heard when she sat
alone by the water-tank, and each time she heard a shudder passed
through her and instinctively she swerved a trifle toward her companion,
then straightened up again and tried to seem not to notice. The Boy saw
and watched her brave attempts at self-control with deep appreciation.
But suddenly, as they rode and talked, a dark form appeared across their
way a little ahead, lithe and stealthy and furry, and two awful eyes
like green lamps glared for an instant, then disappeared silently among
the mesquite bushes.

She did not cry out nor start. Her very veins seemed frozen with horror,
and she could not have spoken if she tried. It was all over in a second
and the creature gone, so that she almost doubted her senses and
wondered if she had seen aright. Then one hand went swiftly to her
throat and she shrank toward her companion.

"There is nothing to fear," he said, reassuringly, and laid a strong
hand comfortingly across the neck of her horse. "The pussy-cat was as
unwilling for our company as we for hers. Besides, look here!"--and he
raised his hand and shot into the air. "She'll not come near us now."

"I am not afraid!" said the girl, bravely. "At least, I don't think I
am--very! But it's all so new and unexpected, you know. Do people around
here always shoot in that--well--unpremeditated fashion?"

They laughed together.

"Excuse me," he said. "I didn't realize the shot might startle you even
more than the wildcat. It seems I'm not fit to have charge of a lady. I
told you I was a roughneck."

"You're taking care of me beautifully," said Margaret Earle, loyally,
"and I'm glad to get used to shots if that's the thing to be expected
often."

Just then they came to the top of the low, rolling hill, and ahead in
the darkness there gleamed a tiny, wizened light set in a blotch of
blackness. Under the great white stars it burned a sickly red and seemed
out of harmony with the night.

"There we are!" said the Boy, pointing toward it. "That's the
bunk-house. You needn't be afraid. Pop Wallis 'll be snoring by this
time, and we'll come away before he's about in the morning. He always
sleeps late after he's been off on a bout. He's been gone three days,
selling some cattle, and he'll have a pretty good top on."

The girl caught her breath, gave one wistful look up at the wide, starry
sky, a furtive glance at the strong face of her protector, and
submitted to being lifted down to the ground.

Before her loomed the bunk-house, small and mean, built of logs, with
only one window in which the flicker of the lanterns menaced, with
unknown trials and possible perils for her to meet.




CHAPTER IV


When Margaret Earle dawned upon that bunk-room the men sat up with one
accord, ran their rough, red hands through their rough, tousled hair,
smoothed their beards, took down their feet from the benches where they
were resting. That was as far as their etiquette led them. Most of them
continued to smoke their pipes, and all of them stared at her
unreservedly. Such a sight of exquisite feminine beauty had not come to
their eyes in many a long day. Even in the dim light of the smoky
lanterns, and with the dust and weariness of travel upon her, Margaret
Earle was a beautiful girl.

"That's what's the matter, father," said her mother, when the subject of
Margaret's going West to teach had first been mentioned. "She's too
beautiful. Far too beautiful to go among savages! If she were homely and
old, now, she might be safe. That would be a different matter."

Yet Margaret had prevailed, and was here in the wild country. Now,
standing on the threshold of the log cabin, she read, in the unveiled
admiration that startled from the eyes of the men, the meaning of her
mother's fears.

Yet withal it was a kindly admiration not unmixed with awe. For there
was about her beauty a touch of the spiritual which set her above the
common run of women, making men feel her purity and sweetness, and
inclining their hearts to worship rather than be bold.

The Boy had been right. Pop Wallis was asleep and out of the way. From a
little shed room at one end his snoring marked time in the silence that
the advent of the girl made in the place.

In the doorway of the kitchen offset Mom Wallis stood with her
passionless face--a face from which all emotions had long ago been
burned by cruel fires--and looked at the girl, whose expression was
vivid with her opening life all haloed in a rosy glow.

A kind of wistful contortion passed over Mom Wallis's hopeless
countenance, as if she saw before her in all its possibility of
perfection the life that she herself had lost. Perhaps it was no longer
possible for her features to show tenderness, but a glow of something
like it burned in her eyes, though she only turned away with the same
old apathetic air, and without a word went about preparing a meal for
the stranger.

Margaret looked wildly, fearfully, around the rough assemblage when she
first entered the long, low room, but instantly the boy introduced her
as "the new teacher for the Ridge School beyond the Junction," and these
were Long Bill, Big Jim, the Fiddling Boss, Jasper Kemp, Fade-away
Forbes, Stocky, Croaker, and Fudge. An inspiration fell upon the
frightened girl, and she acknowledged the introduction by a radiant
smile, followed by the offering of her small gloved hand. Each man in
dumb bewilderment instantly became her slave, and accepted the offered
hand with more or less pleasure and embarrassment. The girl proved her
right to be called tactful, and, seeing her advantage, followed it up
quickly by a few bright words. These men were of an utterly different
type from any she had ever met before, but they had in their eyes a kind
of homage which Pop Wallis had not shown and they were not repulsive to
her. Besides, the Boy was in the background, and her nerve had returned.
The Boy knew how a lady should be treated. She was quite ready to "play
up" to his lead.

It was the Boy who brought the only chair the bunk-house afforded, a
rude, home-made affair, and helped her off with her coat and hat in his
easy, friendly way, as if he had known her all his life; while the men,
to whom such gallant ways were foreign, sat awkwardly by and watched in
wonder and amaze.

Most of all they were astonished at "the Kid," that he could fall so
naturally into intimate talk with this delicate, beautiful woman. She
was another of his kind, a creature not made in the same mold as theirs.
They saw it now, and watched the fairy play with almost childish
interest. Just to hear her call him "Mr. Gardley"!--Lance Gardley, that
was what he had told them was his name the day he came among them. They
had not heard it since. The Kid! Mr. Gardley!

There it was, the difference between them! They looked at the girl half
jealously, yet proudly at the Boy. He was theirs--yes, in a way he was
theirs--had they not found him in the wilderness, sick and nigh to
death, and nursed him back to life again? He was theirs; but he knew
how to drop into her world, too, and not be ashamed. They were glad that
he could, even while it struck them with a pang that some day he would
go back to the world to which he belonged--and where they could never be
at home.

It was a marvel to watch her eat the coarse corn-bread and pork that Mom
Wallis brought her. It might have been a banquet, the pleasant way she
seemed to look at it. Just like a bird she tasted it daintily, and
smiled, showing her white teeth. There was nothing of the idea of
greediness that each man knew he himself felt after a fast. It was all
beautiful, the way she handled the two-tined fork and the old steel
knife. They watched and dropped their eyes abashed as at a lovely
sacrament. They had not felt before that eating could be an art. They
did not know what art meant.

Such strange talk, too! But the Kid seemed to understand. About the
sky--their old, common sky, with stars that they saw every night--making
such a fuss about that, with words like "wide," "infinite," "azure," and
"gems." Each man went furtively out that night before he slept and took
a new look at the sky to see if he could understand.

The Boy was planning so the night would be but brief. He knew the girl
was afraid. He kept the talk going enthusiastically, drawing in one or
two of the men now and again. Long Bill forgot himself and laughed out a
hoarse guffaw, then stopped as if he had been choked. Stocky, red in the
face, told a funny story when commanded by the Boy, and then dissolved
in mortification over his blunders. The Fiddling Boss obediently got
down his fiddle from the smoky corner beside the fireplace and played a
weird old tune or two, and then they sang. First the men, with hoarse,
quavering approach and final roar of wild sweetness; then Margaret and
the Boy in duet, and finally Margaret alone, with a few bashful chords
on the fiddle, feeling their way as accompaniment.

Mom Wallis had long ago stopped her work and was sitting huddled in the
doorway on a nail-keg with weary, folded hands and a strange wistfulness
on her apathetic face. A fine silence had settled over the group as the
girl, recognizing her power, and the pleasure she was giving, sang on.
Now and then the Boy, when he knew the song, would join in with his rich
tenor.

It was a strange night, and when she finally lay down to rest on a hard
cot with a questionable-looking blanket for covering and Mom Wallis as
her room-mate, Margaret Earle could not help wondering what her mother
and father would think now if they could see her. Would they not,
perhaps, almost prefer the water-tank and the lonely desert for her to
her present surroundings?

Nevertheless, she slept soundly after her terrible excitement, and woke
with a start of wonder in the early morning, to hear the men outside
splashing water and humming or whistling bits of the tunes she had sung
to them the night before.

Mom Wallis was standing over her, looking down with a hunger in her eyes
at the bright waves of Margaret's hair and the soft, sleep-flushed
cheeks.

"You got dretful purty hair," said Mom Wallis, wistfully.

Margaret looked up and smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment.

"You wouldn't b'lieve it, but I was young an' purty oncet. Beats all how
much it counts to be young--an' purty! But land! It don't last long.
Make the most of it while you got it."

Browning's immortal words came to Margaret's lips--

    Grow old along with me,
    The best is yet to be,
    The last of life for which the first was made--

but she checked them just in time and could only smile mutely. How could
she speak such thoughts amid these intolerable surroundings? Then with
sudden impulse she reached up to the astonished woman and, drawing her
down, kissed her sallow cheek.

"Oh!" said Mom Wallis, starting back and laying her bony hands upon the
place where she had been kissed, as if it hurt her, while a dull red
stole up from her neck over her cheeks and high forehead to the roots of
her hay-colored hair. All at once she turned her back upon her visitor
and the tears of the years streamed down her impassive face.

"Don't mind me," she choked, after a minute. "I liked it real good, only
it kind of give me a turn." Then, after a second: "It's time t' eat. You
c'n wash outside after the men is done."

That, thought Margaret, had been the scheme of this woman's whole
life--"After the men is done!"

So, after all, the night was passed in safety, and a wonderful dawning
had come. The blue of the morning, so different from the blue of the
night sky, was, nevertheless, just as unfathomable; the air seemed
filled with straying star-beams, so sparkling was the clearness of the
light.

But now a mountain rose in the distance with heliotrope-and-purple
bounds to stand across the vision and dispel the illusion of the night
that the sky came down to the earth all around like a close-fitting
dome. There were mountains on all sides, and a slender, dark line of
mesquite set off the more delicate colorings of the plain.

Into the morning they rode, Margaret and the Boy, before Pop Wallis was
yet awake, while all the other men stood round and watched, eager,
jealous for the handshake and the parting smile. They told her they
hoped she would come again and sing for them, and each one had an
awkward word of parting. Whatever Margaret Earle might do with her
school, she had won seven loyal friends in the camp, and she rode away
amid their admiring glances, which lingered, too, on the broad shoulders
and wide sombrero of her escort riding by her side.

"Wal, that's the end o' him, I 'spose," drawled Long Bill, with a deep
sigh, as the riders passed into the valley out of their sight.

"H'm!" said Jasper Kemp, hungrily. "I reck'n _he_ thinks it's jes' th'
beginnin'!"

"Maybe so! Maybe so!" said Big Jim, dreamily.

The morning was full of wonder for the girl who had come straight from
an Eastern city. The view from the top of the mesa, or the cool, dim
entrance of a cańon where great ferns fringed and feathered its walls,
and strange caves hollowed out in the rocks far above, made real the
stories she had read of the cave-dwellers. It was a new world.

The Boy was charming. She could not have picked out among her city
acquaintances a man who would have done the honors of the desert more
delightfully than he. She had thought him handsome in the starlight and
in the lantern-light the night before, but now that the morning shone
upon him she could not keep from looking at him. His fresh color, which
no wind and weather could quite subdue, his gray-blue eyes with that
mixture of thoughtfulness and reverence and daring, his crisp, brown
curls glinting with gold in the sunlight--all made him good to look
upon. There was something about the firm set of his lips and chin that
made her feel a hidden strength about him.

When they camped a little while for lunch he showed the thoughtfulness
and care for her comfort that many an older man might not have had. Even
his talk was a mixture of boyishness and experience and he seemed to
know her thoughts before she had them fully spoken.

"I do not understand it," she said, looking him frankly in the eyes at
last. "How ever in the world did one like _you_ get landed among all
those dreadful men! Of course, in their way, some of them are not so
bad; but they are not like you, not in the least, and never could be."

They were riding out upon the plain now in the full afternoon light, and
a short time would bring them to her destination.

A sad, set look came quickly into the Boy's eyes and his face grew
almost hard.

"It's an old story. I suppose you've heard it before," he said, and his
voice tried to take on a careless note, but failed. "I didn't make good
back there"--he waved his hand sharply toward the East--"so I came out
here to begin again. But I guess I haven't made good here, either--not
in the way I meant when I came."

"You can't, you know," said Margaret. "Not here."

"Why?" He looked at her earnestly, as if he felt the answer might help
him.

"Because you have to go back where you didn't make good and pick up the
lost opportunities. You can't really make good till you do that _right
where you left off_."

"But suppose it's too late?"

"It's never too late if we're in earnest and not too proud."

There was a long silence then, while the Boy looked thoughtfully off at
the mountains, and when he spoke again it was to call attention to the
beauty of a silver cloud that floated lazily on the horizon. But
Margaret Earle had seen the look in his gray eyes and was not deceived.

A few minutes later they crossed another mesa and descended to the
enterprising little town where the girl was to begin her winter's work.
The very houses and streets seemed to rise briskly and hasten to meet
them those last few minutes of their ride.

Now that the experience was almost over, the girl realized that she had
enjoyed it intensely, and that she dreaded inexpressibly that she must
bid good-by to this friend of a few hours and face an unknown world. It
had been a wonderful day, and now it was almost done. The two looked at
each other and realized that their meeting had been an epoch in their
lives that neither would soon forget--that neither wanted to forget.




CHAPTER V


Slower the horses walked, and slower. The voices of the Boy and girl
were low when they spoke about the common things by the wayside. Once
their eyes met, and they smiled with something both sad and glad in
them.

Margaret was watching the young man by her side and wondering at
herself. He was different from any man whose life had come near to hers
before. He was wild and worldly, she could see that, and unrestrained by
many of the things that were vital principles with her, and yet she felt
strangely drawn to him and wonderfully at home in his company. She could
not understand herself nor him. It was as if his real soul had looked
out of his eyes and spoken, untrammeled by the circumstances of birth or
breeding or habit, and she knew him for a kindred spirit. And yet he was
far from being one in whom she would have expected even to find a
friend. Where was her confidence of yesterday? Why was it that she
dreaded to have this strong young protector leave her to meet alone a
world of strangers, whom yesterday at this time she would have gladly
welcomed?

Now, when his face grew thoughtful and sad, she saw the hard, bitter
lines that were beginning to be graven about his lips, and her heart
ached over what he had said about not making good. She wondered if there
was anything else she could say to help him, but no words came to her,
and the sad, set look about his lips warned her that perhaps she had
said enough. He was not one who needed a long dissertation to bring a
thought home to his consciousness.

Gravely they rode to the station to see about Margaret's trunks and make
inquiries for the school and the house where she had arranged to board.
Then Margaret sent a telegram to her mother to say that she had arrived
safely, and so, when all was done and there was no longer an excuse for
lingering, the Boy realized that he must leave her.

They stood alone for just a moment while the voluble landlady went to
attend to something that was boiling over on the stove. It was an ugly
little parlor that was to be her reception-room for the next year at
least, with red-and-green ingrain carpet of ancient pattern, hideous
chromos on the walls, and frantically common furniture setting up in its
shining varnish to be pretentious; but the girl had not seen it yet. She
was filled with a great homesickness that had not possessed her even
when she said good-by to her dear ones at home. She suddenly realized
that the people with whom she was to be thrown were of another world
from hers, and this one friend whom she had found in the desert was
leaving her.

She tried to shake hands formally and tell him how grateful she was to
him for rescuing her from the perils of the night, but somehow words
seemed so inadequate, and tears kept crowding their way into her throat
and eyes. Absurd it was, and he a stranger twenty hours before, and a
man of other ways than hers, besides. Yet he was her friend and rescuer.

She spoke her thanks as well as she could, and then looked up, a swift,
timid glance, and found his eyes upon her earnestly and troubled.

"Don't thank me," he said, huskily. "I guess it was the best thing I
ever did, finding you. I sha'n't forget, even if you never let me see
you again--and--I hope you will." His eyes searched hers wistfully.

"Of course," she said. "Why not?"

"I thank you," he said in quaint, courtly fashion, bending low over her
hand. "I shall try to be worthy of the honor."

And so saying, he left her and, mounting his horse, rode away into the
lengthening shadows of the afternoon.

She stood in the forlorn little room staring out of the window after her
late companion, a sense of utter desolation upon her. For the moment all
her brave hopes of the future had fled, and if she could have slipped
unobserved out of the front door, down to the station, and boarded some
waiting express to her home, she would gladly have done it then and
there.

Try as she would to summon her former reasons for coming to this wild,
she could not think of one of them, and her eyes were very near to
tears.

But Margaret Earle was not given to tears, and as she felt them smart
beneath her lids she turned in a panic to prevent them. She could not
afford to cry now. Mrs. Tanner would be returning, and she must not find
the "new schoolma'am" weeping.

With a glance she swept the meager, pretentious room, and then,
suddenly, became aware of other presences. In the doorway stood a man
and a dog, both regarding her intently with open surprise, not unmixed
with open appraisement and a marked degree of admiration.

The man was of medium height, slight, with a putty complexion; cold,
pale-blue eyes; pale, straw-colored hair, and a look of self-indulgence
around his rather weak mouth. He was dressed in a city business suit of
the latest cut, however, and looked as much out of place in that crude
little house as did Margaret Earle herself in her simple gown of
dark-blue crępe and her undeniable air of style and good taste.

His eyes, as they regarded her, had in them a smile that the girl
instinctively resented. Was it a shade too possessive and complacently
sure for a stranger?

The dog, a large collie, had great, liquid, brown eyes, menacing or
loyal, as circumstances dictated, and regarded her with an air of brief
indecision. She felt she was being weighed in the balance by both pairs
of eyes. Of the two the girl preferred the dog.

Perhaps the dog understood, for he came a pace nearer and waved his
plumy tail tentatively. For the dog she felt a glow of friendliness at
once, but for the man she suddenly, and most unreasonably, of course,
conceived one of her violent and unexpected dislikes.

Into this tableau bustled Mrs. Tanner. "Well, now, I didn't go to leave
you by your lonesome all this time," she apologized, wiping her hands on
her apron, "but them beans boiled clean over, and I hed to put 'em in a
bigger kettle. You see, I put in more beans 'count o' you bein' here,
an' I ain't uset to calca'latin' on two extry." She looked happily from
the man to the girl and back again.

"Mr. West, I 'spose, o' course, you interjuced yerself? Bein' a
preacher, you don't hev to stan' on ceremony like the rest of mankind.
You 'ain't? Well, let me hev the pleasure of interjucin' our new
school-teacher, Miss Margaret Earle. I 'spect you two 'll be awful
chummy right at the start, both bein' from the East that way, an' both
hevin' ben to college."

Margaret Earle acknowledged the bow with a cool little inclination of
her head. She wondered why she didn't hate the garrulous woman who
rattled on in this happy, take-it-for-granted way; but there was
something so innocently pleased in her manner that she couldn't help
putting all her wrath on the smiling man who came forward instantly with
a low bow and a voice of fulsome flattery.

"Indeed, Miss Earle, I assure you I am happily surprised. I am sure Mrs.
Tanner's prophecy will come true and we shall be the best of friends.
When they told me the new teacher was to board here I really hesitated.
I have seen something of these Western teachers in my time, and scarcely
thought I should find you congenial; but I can see at a glance that you
are the exception to the rule."

He presented a soft, unmanly white hand, and there was nothing to do but
take it or seem rude to her hostess; but her manner was like icicles,
and she was thankful she had not yet removed her gloves.

If the reverend gentleman thought he was to enjoy a lingering hand-clasp
he was mistaken, for the gloved finger-tips merely touched his hand and
were withdrawn, and the girl turned to her hostess with a smile of
finality as if he were dismissed. He did not seem disposed to take the
hint and withdraw, however, until on a sudden the great dog came and
stood between them with open-mouthed welcome and joyous greeting in the
plumy, wagging tail. He pushed close to her and looked up into her face
insistently, his hanging pink tongue and wide, smiling countenance
proclaiming that he was satisfied with his investigation.

Margaret looked down at him, and then stooped and put her arms about his
neck. Something in his kindly dog expression made her feel suddenly as
if she had a real friend.

It seemed the man, however, did not like the situation. He kicked
gingerly at the dog's hind legs, and said in a harsh voice:

"Get out of the way, sir. You're annoying the lady. Get out, I say!"

The dog, however, uttered a low growl and merely showed the whites of
his menacing eyes at the man, turning his body slightly so that he stood
across the lady's way protectingly, as if to keep the man from her.

Margaret smiled at the dog and laid her hand on his head, as if to
signify her acceptance of the friendship he had offered her, and he
waved his plume once more and attended her from the room, neither of
them giving further attention to the man.

"Confound that dog!" said Rev. Frederick West, in a most unpreacher-like
tone, as he walked to the window and looked out. Then to himself he
mused: "A pretty girl. A _very pretty_ girl. I really think it'll be
worth my while to stay a month at least."

Up in her room the "very pretty girl" was unpacking her suit-case and
struggling with the tears. Not since she was a wee little girl and went
to school all alone for the first time had she felt so very forlorn, and
it was the little bare bedroom that had done it. At least that had been
the final straw that had made too great the burden of keeping down those
threatening tears.

It was only a bare, plain room with unfinished walls, rough woodwork, a
cheap wooden bed, a bureau with a warped looking-glass, and on the floor
was a braided rug of rags. A little wooden rocker, another small,
straight wooden chair, a hanging wall-pocket decorated with purple
roses, a hanging bookshelf composed of three thin boards strung together
with maroon picture cord, a violently colored picture-card of "Moses in
the Bulrushes" framed in straws and red worsted, and bright-blue paper
shades at the windows. That was the room!

How different from her room at home, simply and sweetly finished anew
for her home-coming from college! It rose before her homesick vision
now. Soft gray walls, rose-colored ceiling, blended by a wreath of
exquisite wild roses, whose pattern was repeated in the border of the
simple curtains and chair cushions, white-enamel furniture, pretty brass
bed soft as down in its luxurious mattress, spotless and inviting
always. She glanced at the humpy bed with its fringed gray spread and
lumpy-looking pillows in dismay. She had not thought of little
discomforts like that, yet how they loomed upon her weary vision now!

The tiny wooden stand with its thick, white crockery seemed ill
substitute for the dainty white bath-room at home. She had known she
would not have her home luxuries, of course, but she had not realized
until set down amid these barren surroundings what a difference they
would make.

Going to the window and looking out, she saw for the first tune the one
luxury the little room possessed--a view! And such a view! Wide and
wonderful and far it stretched, in colors unmatched by painter's brush,
a purple mountain topped by rosy clouds in the distance. For the second
time in Arizona her soul was lifted suddenly out of itself and its
dismay by a vision of the things that God has made and the largeness of
it all.




CHAPTER VI


For some time she stood and gazed, marveling at the beauty and recalling
some of the things her companion of the afternoon had said about his
impressions of the place; then suddenly there loomed a dark speck in the
near foreground of her meditation, and, looking down annoyed, she
discovered the minister like a gnat between the eye and a grand
spectacle, his face turned admiringly up to her window, his hand lifted
in familiar greeting.

Vexed at his familiarity, she turned quickly and jerked down the shade;
then throwing herself on the bed, she had a good cry. Her nerves were
terribly wrought up. Things seemed twisted in her mind, and she felt
that she had reached the limit of her endurance. Here was she, Margaret
Earle, newly elected teacher to the Ashland Ridge School, lying on her
bed in tears, when she ought to be getting settled and planning her new
life; when the situation demanded her best attention she was wrought up
over a foolish little personal dislike. Why did she have to dislike a
minister, anyway, and then take to a wild young fellow whose life thus
far had been anything but satisfactory even to himself? Was it her
perverse nature that caused her to remember the look in the eyes of the
Boy who had rescued her from a night in the wilderness, and to feel
there was far more manliness in his face than in the face of the man
whose profession surely would lead one to suppose he was more worthy of
her respect and interest? Well, she was tired. Perhaps things would
assume their normal relation to one another in the morning. And so,
after a few minutes, she bathed her face in the little, heavy,
iron-stone wash-bowl, combed her hair, and freshened the collar and
ruffles in her sleeves preparatory to going down for the evening meal.
Then, with a swift thought, she searched through her suit-case for every
available article wherewith to brighten that forlorn room.

The dainty dressing-case of Dresden silk with rosy ribbons that her girl
friends at home had given as a parting gift covered a generous portion
of the pine bureau, and when she had spread it out and bestowed its
silver-mounted brushes, combs, hand-glass, and pretty sachet, things
seemed to brighten up a bit. She hung up a cobweb of a lace boudoir cap
with its rose-colored ribbons over the bleary mirror, threw her kimono
of flowered challis over the back of the rocker, arranged her soap and
toothbrush, her own wash-rag and a towel brought from home on the
wash-stand, and somehow felt better and more as if she belonged. Last
she ranged her precious photographs of father and mother and the dear
vine-covered church and manse across in front of the mirror. When her
trunks came there would be other things, and she could bear it, perhaps,
when she had this room buried deep in the home belongings. But this
would have to do for to-night, for the trunk might not come till
morning, and, anyhow, she was too weary to unpack.

She ventured one more look out of her window, peering carefully at first
to make sure her fellow-boarder was not still standing down below on the
grass. A pang of compunction shot through her conscience. What would her
dear father think of her feeling this way toward a minister, and before
she knew the first thing about him, too? It was dreadful! She must shake
it off. Of course he was a good man or he wouldn't be in the ministry,
and she had doubtless mistaken mere friendliness for forwardness. She
would forget it and try to go down and behave to him the way her father
would want her to behave toward a fellow-minister.

Cautiously she raised the shade again and looked out. The mountain was
bathed in a wonderful ruby light fading into amethyst, and all the path
between was many-colored like a pavement of jewels set in filigree.
While she looked the picture changed, glowed, softened, and changed
again, making her think of the chapter about the Holy City in
Revelation.

She started at last when some one knocked hesitatingly on the door, for
the wonderful sunset light had made her forget for the moment where she
was, and it seemed a desecration to have mere mortals step in and
announce supper, although the odor of pork and cabbage had been
proclaiming it dumbly for some time.

She went to the door, and, opening it, found a dark figure standing in
the hall. For a minute she half feared it was the minister, until a
shy, reluctant backwardness in the whole stocky figure and the stirring
of a large furry creature just behind him made her sure it was not.

"Ma says you're to come to supper," said a gruff, untamed voice; and
Margaret perceived that the person in the gathering gloom of the hall
was a boy.

"Oh!" said Margaret, with relief in her voice. "Thank you for coming to
tell me. I meant to come down and not give that trouble, but I got to
looking at the wonderful sunset. Have you been watching it?" She pointed
across the room to the window. "Look! Isn't that a great color there on
the tip of the mountain? I never saw anything like that at home. I
suppose you're used to it, though."

The boy came a step nearer the door and looked blankly, half
wonderingly, across at the window, as if he expected to see some
phenomenon. "Oh! _That!_" he exclaimed, carelessly. "Sure! We have them
all the time."

"But that wonderful silver light pouring down just in that one tiny
spot!" exclaimed Margaret. "It makes the mountain seem alive and
smiling!"

The boy turned and looked at her curiously. "Gee!" said he, "I c'n show
you plenty like that!" But he turned and looked at it a long, lingering
minute again.

"But we mustn't keep your mother waiting," said Margaret, remembering
and turning reluctantly toward the door. "Is this your dog? Isn't he a
beauty? He made me feel really as if he were glad to see me." She
stooped and laid her hand on the dog's head and smiled brightly up at
his master.

The boy's face lit with a smile, and he turned a keen, appreciative look
at the new teacher, for the first time genuinely interested in her.
"Cap's a good old scout," he admitted.

"So his name is Cap. Is that short for anything?"

"Cap'n."

"Captain. What a good name for him. He looks as if he were a captain,
and he waves that tail grandly, almost as if it might be a badge of
office. But who are you? You haven't told me your name yet. Are you Mrs.
Tanner's son?"

The boy nodded. "I'm just Bud Tanner."

"Then you are one of my pupils, aren't you? We must shake hands on
that." She put out her hand, but she was forced to go out after Bud's
reluctant red fist, take it by force in a strange grasp, and do all the
shaking; for Bud had never had that experience before in his life, and
he emerged from it with a very red face and a feeling as if his right
arm had been somehow lifted out of the same class with the rest of his
body. It was rather awful, too, that it happened just in the open
dining-room door, and that "preacher-boarder" watched the whole
performance. Bud put on an extra-deep frown and shuffled away from the
teacher, making a great show of putting Cap out of the dining-room,
though he always sat behind his master's chair at meals, much to the
discomfiture of the male boarder, who was slightly in awe of his
dogship, not having been admitted into friendship as the lady had been.

Mr. West stood back of his chair, awaiting the arrival of the new
boarder, an expectant smile on his face, and rubbing his hands together
with much the same effect as a wolf licking his lips in anticipation of
a victim. In spite of her resolves to like the man, Margaret was again
struck with aversion as she saw him standing there, and was intensely
relieved when she found that the seat assigned to her was on the
opposite side of the table from him, and beside Bud. West, however, did
not seem to be pleased with the arrangement, and, stepping around the
table, said to his landlady:

"Did you mean me to sit over here?" and he placed a possessive hand on
the back of the chair that was meant for Bud.

"No, Mister West, you jest set where you ben settin'," responded Mrs.
Tanner. She had thought the matter all out and decided that the minister
could converse with the teacher to the better advantage of the whole
table if he sat across from her. Mrs. Tanner was a born match-maker.
This she felt was an opportunity not to be despised, even if it sometime
robbed the Ridge School of a desirable teacher.

But West did not immediately return to his place at the other side of
the table. To Margaret's extreme annoyance he drew her chair and waited
for her to sit down. The situation, however, was somewhat relieved of
its intimacy by a sudden interference from Cap, who darted away from his
frowning master and stepped up authoritatively to the minister's side
with a low growl, as if to say:

"Hands off that chair! That doesn't belong to you!"

West suddenly released his hold on the chair without waiting to shove
it up to the table, and precipitately retired to his own place. "That
dog's a nuisance!" he said, testily, and was answered with a glare from
Bud's dark eyes.

Bud came to his seat with his eyes still set savagely on the minister,
and Cap settled down protectingly behind Margaret's chair.

Mrs. Tanner bustled in with the coffee-pot, and Mr. Tanner came last,
having just finished his rather elaborate hair-comb at the kitchen glass
with the kitchen comb, in full view of the assembled multitude. He was a
little, thin, wiry, weather-beaten man, with skin like leather and
sparse hair. Some of his teeth were missing, leaving deep hollows in his
cheeks, and his kindly protruding chin was covered with scraggy gray
whiskers, which stuck out ahead of him like a cow-catcher. He was in his
shirt-sleeves and collarless, but looked neat and clean, and he greeted
the new guest heartily before he sat down, and nodded to the minister:

"Naow, Brother West, I reckon we're ready fer your part o' the
performance. You'll please to say grace."

Mr. West bowed his sleek, yellow head and muttered a formal blessing
with an offhand manner, as if it were a mere ceremony. Bud stared
contemptuously at him the while, and Cap uttered a low rumble as of a
distant growl. Margaret felt a sudden desire to laugh, and tried to
control herself, wondering what her father would feel about it all.

The genial clatter of knives and forks broke the stiffness after the
blessing. Mrs. Tanner bustled back and forth from the stove to the
table, talking clamorously the while. Mr. Tanner joined in with his
flat, nasal twang, responding, and the minister, with an air of utter
contempt for them both, endeavored to set up a separate and altogether
private conversation with Margaret across the narrow table; but Margaret
innocently had begun a conversation with Bud about the school, and had
to be addressed by name each time before Mr. West could get her
attention. Bud, with a boy's keenness, noticed her aversion, and put
aside his own backwardness, entering into the contest with remarkably
voluble replies. The minister, if he would be in the talk at all, was
forced to join in with theirs, and found himself worsted and
contradicted by the boy at every turn.

Strange to say, however, this state of things only served to make the
man more eager to talk with the lady. She was not anxious for his
attention. Ah! She was coy, and the acquaintance was to have the zest of
being no lightly won friendship. All the better. He watched her as she
talked, noted every charm of lash and lid and curving lip; stared so
continually that she finally gave up looking his way at all, even when
she was obliged to answer his questions.

Thus, at last, the first meal in the new home was concluded, and
Margaret, pleading excessive weariness, went to her room. She felt as if
she could not endure another half-hour of contact with her present world
until she had had some rest. If the world had been just Bud and the dog
she could have stayed below stairs and found out a little more about the
new life; but with that oily-mouthed minister continually butting in
her soul was in a tumult.

When she had prepared for rest she put out her light and drew up the
shade. There before her spread the wide wonder of the heavens again,
with the soft purple of the mountain under stars; and she was carried
back to the experience of the night before with a vivid memory of her
companion. Why, just _why_ couldn't she be as interested in the minister
down there as in the wild young man? Well, she was too tired to-night to
analyze it all, and she knelt beside her window in the starlight to
pray. As she prayed her thoughts were on Lance Gardley once more, and
she felt her heart go out in longing for him, that he might find a way
to "make good," whatever his trouble had been.

As she rose to retire she heard a step below, and, looking down, saw the
minister stalking back and forth in the yard, his hands clasped behind,
his head thrown back raptly. He could not see her in her dark room, but
she pulled the shade down softly and fled to her hard little bed. Was
that man going to obsess her vision everywhere, and must she try to like
him just because he was a minister?

So at last she fell asleep.




CHAPTER VII


The next day was filled with unpacking and with writing letters home. By
dint of being very busy Margaret managed to forget the minister, who
seemed to obtrude himself at every possible turn of the day, and would
have monopolized her if she had given him half a chance.

The trunks, two delightful steamer ones, and a big packing-box with her
books, arrived the next morning and caused great excitement in the
household. Not since they moved into the new house had they seen so many
things arrive. Bud helped carry them up-stairs, while Cap ran wildly
back and forth, giving sharp barks, and the minister stood by the front
door and gave ineffectual and unpractical advice to the man who had
brought them. Margaret heard the man and Bud exchanging their opinion of
West in low growls in the hall as they entered her door, and she
couldn't help feeling that she agreed with them, though she might not
have expressed her opinion in the same terms.

The minister tapped at her door a little later and offered his services
in opening her box and unstrapping her trunks; but she told him Bud had
already performed that service for her, and thanked him with a finality
that forbade him to linger. She half hoped he heard the vicious little
click with which she locked the door after him, and then wondered if she
were wicked to feel that way. But all such compunctions were presently
forgotten in the work of making over her room.

The trunks, after they were unpacked and repacked with the things she
would not need at once, were disposed in front of the two windows with
which the ugly little room was blessed. She covered them with two Bagdad
rugs, relics of her college days, and piled several college pillows from
the packing-box on each, which made the room instantly assume a homelike
air. Then out of the box came other things. Framed pictures of home
scenes, college friends and places, pennants, and flags from football,
baseball, and basket-ball games she had attended; photographs; a few
prints of rare paintings simply framed; a roll of rose-bordered white
scrim like her curtains at home, wherewith she transformed the
blue-shaded windows and the stiff little wooden rocker, and even made a
valance and bed-cover over pink cambric for her bed. The bureau and
wash-stand were given pink and white covers, and the ugly walls
literally disappeared beneath pictures, pennants, banners, and symbols.

When Bud came up to call her to dinner she flung the door open, and he
paused in wide-eyed amazement over the transformation. His eyes kindled
at a pair of golf-sticks, a hockey-stick, a tennis-racket, and a big
basket-ball in the corner; and his whole look of surprise was so
ridiculous that she had to laugh. He looked as if a miracle had been
performed on the room, and actually stepped back into the hall to get
his breath and be sure he was still in his father's house.

"I want you to come in and see all my pictures and get acquainted with
my friends when you have time," she said. "I wonder if you could make
some more shelves for my books and help me unpack and set them up?"

"Sure!" gasped Bud, heartily, albeit with awe. She hadn't asked the
minister; she had asked _him_--_Bud!_ Just a boy! He looked around the
room with anticipation. What wonder and delight he would have looking at
all those things!

Then Cap stepped into the middle of the room as if he belonged, mouth
open, tongue lolling, smiling and panting a hearty approval, as he
looked about at the strangeness for all the world as a human being might
have done. It was plain he was pleased with the change.

There was a proprietary air about Bud during dinner that was pleasant to
Margaret and most annoying to West. It was plain that West looked on the
boy as an upstart whom Miss Earle was using for the present to block his
approach, and he was growing most impatient over the delay. He suggested
that perhaps she would like his escort to see something of her
surroundings that afternoon; but she smilingly told him that she would
be very busy all the afternoon getting settled, and when he offered
again to help her she cast a dazzling smile on Bud and said she didn't
think she would need any more help, that Bud was going to do a few
things for her, and that was all that was necessary.

Bud straightened up and became two inches taller. He passed the bread,
suggested two pieces of pie, and filled her glass of water as if she
were his partner. Mr. Tanner beamed to see his son in high favor, but
Mrs. Tanner looked a little troubled for the minister. She thought
things weren't just progressing as fast as they ought to between him and
the teacher.

Bud, with Margaret's instructions, managed to make a very creditable
bookcase out of the packing-box sawed in half, the pieces set side by
side. She covered them deftly with green burlap left over from college
days, like her other supplies, and then the two arranged the books. Bud
was delighted over the prospect of reading some of the books, for they
were not all school-books, by any means, and she had brought plenty of
them to keep her from being lonesome on days when she longed to fly back
to her home.

At last the work was done, and they stood back to survey it. The books
filled up every speck of space and overflowed to the three little
hanging shelves over them; but they were all squeezed in at last except
a pile of school-books that were saved out to take to the school-house.
Margaret set a tiny vase on the top of one part of the packing-case and
a small brass bowl on the top of the other, and Bud, after a knowing
glance, scurried away for a few minutes and brought back a handful of
gorgeous cactus blossoms to give the final touch.

"Gee!" he said, admiringly, looking around the room. "Gee! You wouldn't
know it fer the same place!"

That evening after supper Margaret sat down to write a long letter home.
She had written a brief letter, of course, the night before, but had
been too weary to go into detail. The letter read:

     DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER,--I'm unpacked and settled at last in my
     room, and now I can't stand it another minute till I talk to you.

     Last night, of course, I was pretty homesick, things all looked so
     strange and new and different. I had known they would, but then I
     didn't realize at all how different they would be. But I'm not
     getting homesick already; don't think it. I'm not a bit sorry I
     came, or at least I sha'n't be when I get started in school. One of
     the scholars is Mrs. Tanner's son, and I like him. He's crude, of
     course, but he has a brain, and he's been helping me this
     afternoon. We made a bookcase for my books, and it looks fine. I
     wish you could see it. I covered it with the green burlap, and the
     books look real happy in smiling rows over on the other side of the
     room. Bud Tanner got me some wonderful cactus blossoms for my brass
     bowl. I wish I could send you some. They are gorgeous!

     But you will want me to tell about my arrival. Well, to begin with,
     I was late getting here [Margaret had decided to leave out the
     incident of the desert altogether, for she knew by experience that
     her mother would suffer terrors all during her absence if she once
     heard of that wild adventure], which accounts for the lateness of
     the telegram I sent you. I hope its delay didn't make you worry
     any.

     A very nice young man named Mr. Gardley piloted me to Mrs. Tanner's
     house and looked after my trunks for me. He is from the East. It
     was fortunate for me that he happened along, for he was most kind
     and gentlemanly and helpful. Tell Jane not to worry lest I'll fall
     in love with him; he doesn't live here. He belongs to a ranch or
     camp or something twenty-five miles away. She was so afraid I'd
     fall in love with an Arizona man and not come back home.

     Mrs. Tanner is very kind and motherly according to her lights. She
     has given me the best room in the house, and she talks a blue
     streak. She has thin, brown hair turning gray, and she wears it in
     a funny little knob on the tip-top of her round head to correspond
     with the funny little tuft of hair on her husband's protruding
     chin. Her head is set on her neck like a clothes-pin, only she is
     squattier than a clothes-pin. She always wears her sleeves rolled
     up (at least so far she has) and she always bustles around noisily
     and apologizes for everything in the jolliest sort of way. I would
     like her, I guess, if it wasn't for the other boarder; but she has
     quite made up her mind that I shall like him, and I don't, of
     course, so she is a bit disappointed in me so far.

     Mr. Tanner is very kind and funny, and looks something like a
     jack-knife with the blades half-open. He never disagrees with Mrs.
     Tanner, and I really believe he's in love with her yet, though they
     must have been married a good while. He calls her "Ma," and seems
     restless unless she's in the room. When she goes out to the kitchen
     to get some more soup or hash or bring in the pie, he shouts
     remarks at her all the time she's gone, and she answers, utterly
     regardless of the conversation the rest of the family are carrying
     on. It's like a phonograph wound up for the day.

     Bud Tanner is about fourteen, and I like him. He's well developed,
     strong, and almost handsome; at least he would be if he were fixed
     up a little. He has fine, dark eyes and a great shock of dark hair.
     He and I are friends already. And so is the dog. The dog is a
     peach! Excuse me, mother, but I just must use a little of the dear
     old college slang somewhere, and your letters are the only
     safety-valve, for I'm a schoolmarm now and must talk "good and
     proper" all the time, you know.

     The dog's name is Captain, and he looks the part. He has
     constituted himself my bodyguard, and it's going to be very nice
     having him. He's perfectly devoted already. He's a great, big,
     fluffy fellow with keen, intelligent eyes, sensitive ears, and a
     tail like a spreading plume. You'd love him, I know. He has a smile
     like the morning sunshine.

     And now I come to the only other member of the family, the boarder,
     and I hesitate to approach the topic, because I have taken one of
     my violent and naughty dislikes to him, and--awful thought--mother!
     father! _he's a minister!_ Yes, he's a _Presbyterian minister_! I
     know it will make you feel dreadfully, and I thought some of not
     telling you, but my conscience hurt me so I had to. I just can't
     _bear_ him, so there! Of course, I may get over it, but I don't see
     how ever, for I can't think of anything that's more like him than
     _soft soap_! Oh yes, there is one other word. Grandmother used to
     use it about men she hadn't any use for, and that was "squash."
     Mother, I can't help it, but he does seem something like a squash.
     One of that crook-necked, yellow kind with warts all over it, and a
     great, big, splurgy vine behind it to account for its being there
     at all. Insipid and thready when it's cooked, you know, and has to
     have a lot of salt and pepper and butter to make it go down at all.
     Now I've told you the worst, and I'll try to describe him and see
     what you think I'd better do about it. Oh, he isn't the regular
     minister here, or missionary--I guess they call him. He's located
     quite a distance off, and only comes once a month to preach here,
     and, anyhow, _he's_ gone East now to take his wife to a hospital
     for an operation, and won't be back for a couple of months,
     perhaps, and this man isn't even taking his place. He's just here
     for his health or for fun or something, I guess. He says he had a
     large suburban church near New York, and had a nervous breakdown;
     but I've been wondering if he didn't make a mistake, and it wasn't
     the church had the nervous breakdown instead. He isn't very big nor
     very little; he's just insignificant. His hair is like wet straw,
     and his eyes like a fish's. His hand feels like a dead toad when
     you have to shake hands, which I'm thankful doesn't have to be done
     but once. He looks at you with a flat, sickening grin. He has an
     acquired double chin, acquired to make him look pompous, and he
     dresses stylishly and speaks of the inhabitants of this country
     with contempt. He wants to be very affable, and offers to take me
     to all sorts of places, but so far I've avoided him. I can't think
     how they ever came to let him be a minister--I really can't! And
     yet, I suppose it's all my horrid old prejudice, and father will be
     grieved and you will think I am perverse. But, really, I'm sure
     he's not one bit like father was when he was young. I never saw a
     minister like him. Perhaps I'll get over it. I do sometimes, you
     know, so don't begin to worry yet. I'll try real hard. I suppose
     he'll preach Sunday, and then, perhaps, his sermon will be grand
     and I'll forget how soft-soapy he looks and think only of his great
     thoughts.

     But I know it will be a sort of comfort to you to know that there
     is a Presbyterian minister in the house with me, and I'll really
     try to like him if I can.

     There's nothing to complain of in the board. It isn't luxurious, of
     course, but I didn't expect that. Everything is very plain, but
     Mrs. Tanner manages to make it taste good. She makes fine
     corn-bread, almost as good as yours--not quite.

     My room is all lovely, now that I have covered its bareness with my
     own things, but it has one great thing that can't compare with
     anything at home, and that is its view. It is wonderful! I wish I
     could make you see it. There is a mountain at the end of it that
     has as many different garments as a queen. To-night, when sunset
     came, it grew filmy as if a gauze of many colors had dropped upon
     it and melted into it, and glowed and melted until it turned to
     slate blue under the wide, starred blue of the wonderful night sky,
     and all the dark about was velvet. Last night my mountain was all
     pink and silver, and I have seen it purple and rose. But you can't
     think the wideness of the sky, and I couldn't paint it for you with
     words. You must see it to understand. A great, wide, dark sapphire
     floor just simply ravished with stars like big jewels!

     But I must stop and go to bed, for I find the air of this country
     makes me very sleepy, and my wicked little kerosene-lamp is
     smoking. I guess you would better send me my student-lamp, after
     all, for I'm surely going to need it.

     Now I must turn out the light and say good night to my mountain,
     and then I will go to sleep thinking of you. Don't worry about the
     minister. I'm very polite to him, but I shall never--_no,
     never_--fall in love with _him_--tell Jane.

                                                Your loving little girl,
                                                     MARGARET.




CHAPTER VIII


Margaret had arranged with Bud to take her to the school-house the next
morning, and he had promised to have a horse hitched up and ready at ten
o'clock, as it seemed the school was a magnificent distance from her
boarding-place. In fact, everything seemed to be located with a view to
being as far from everywhere else as possible. Even the town was
scattering and widespread and sparse.

When she came down to breakfast she was disappointed to find that Bud
was not there, and she was obliged to suffer a breakfast tęte-ŕ-tęte
with West. By dint, however, of asking him questions instead of allowing
him to take the initiative, she hurried through her breakfast quite
successfully, acquiring a superficial knowledge of her fellow-boarder
quite distant and satisfactory. She knew where he spent his college days
and at what theological seminary he had prepared for the ministry. He
had served three years in a prosperous church of a fat little suburb of
New York, and was taking a winter off from his severe, strenuous
pastoral labors to recuperate his strength, get a new stock of sermons
ready, and possibly to write a book of some of his experiences. He
flattened his weak, pink chin learnedly as he said this, and tried to
look at her impressively. He said that he should probably take a large
city church as his next pastorate when his health was fully recuperated.
He had come out to study the West and enjoy its freedom, as he
understood it was a good place to rest and do as you please unhampered
by what people thought. He wanted to get as far away from churches and
things clerical as possible. He felt it was due himself and his work
that he should. He spoke of the people he had met in Arizona as a kind
of tamed savages, and Mrs. Tanner, sitting behind her coffee-pot for a
moment between bustles, heard his comments meekly and looked at him with
awe. What a great man he must be, and how fortunate for the new teacher
that he should be there when she came!

Margaret drew a breath of relief as she hurried away from the
breakfast-table to her room. She was really anticipating the ride to the
school with Bud. She liked boys, and Bud had taken her fancy. But when
she came down-stairs with her hat and sweater on she found West standing
out in front, holding the horse.

"Bud had to go in another direction, Miss Earle," he said, touching his
hat gracefully, "and he has delegated to me the pleasant task of driving
you to the school."

Dismay filled Margaret's soul, and rage with young Bud. He had deserted
her and left her in the hands of the enemy! And she had thought he
understood! Well, there was nothing for it but to go with this man, much
as she disliked it. Her father's daughter could not be rude to a
minister.

She climbed into the buckboard quickly to get the ceremony over, for her
escort was inclined to be too officious about helping her in, and
somehow she couldn't bear to have him touch her. Why was it that she
felt so about him? Of course he must be a good man.

West made a serious mistake at the very outset of that ride. He took it
for granted that all girls like flattery, and he proceeded to try it on
Margaret. But Margaret did not enjoy being told how delighted he was to
find that instead of the loud, bold "old maid" he had expected, she had
turned out to be "so beautiful and young and altogether congenial"; and,
coolly ignoring his compliments, she began a fire of questions again.

She asked about the country, because that was the most obvious topic of
conversation. What plants were those that grew by the wayside? She found
he knew greasewood from sage-brush, and that was about all. To some of
her questions he hazarded answers that were absurd in the light of the
explanations given her by Gardley two days before. However, she
reflected that he had been in the country but a short time, and that he
was by nature a man not interested in such topics. She tried religious
matters, thinking that here at least they must have common interests.
She asked him what he thought of Christianity in the West as compared
with the East. Did he find these Western people more alive and awake to
the things of the Kingdom?

West gave a startled look at the clear profile of the young woman beside
him, thought he perceived that she was testing him on his clerical side,
flattened his chin in his most learned, self-conscious manner, cleared
his throat, and put on wisdom.

"Well, now, Miss Earle," he began, condescendingly, "I really don't know
that I have thought much about the matter. Ah--you know I have been
resting absolutely, and I really haven't had opportunity to study the
situation out here in detail; but, on the whole, I should say that
everything was decidedly primitive; yes--ah--I might say--ah--well,
crude. Yes, _crude_ in the extreme! Why, take it in this mission
district. The missionary who is in charge seems to be teaching the most
absurd of the old dogmas such as our forefathers used to teach. I
haven't met him, of course. He is in the East with his wife for a time.
I am told she had to go under some kind of an operation. I have never
met him, and really don't care to do so; but to judge from all I hear,
he is a most unfit man for a position of the kind. For example, he is
teaching such exploded doctrines as the old view of the atonement, the
infallibility of the Scriptures, the deity of Christ, belief in
miracles, and the like. Of course, in one sense it really matters very
little what the poor Indians believe, or what such people as the Tanners
are taught. They have but little mind, and would scarcely know the
difference; but you can readily see that with such a primitive,
unenlightened man at the head of religious affairs, there could scarcely
be much broadening and real religious growth. Ignorance, of course,
holds sway out here. I fancy you will find that to be the case soon
enough. What in the world ever led you to come to a field like this to
labor? Surely there must have been many more congenial places open to
such as you." He leaned forward and cast a sentimental glance at her,
his eyes looking more "fishy" than ever.

"I came out here because I wanted to get acquainted with this great
country, and because I thought there was an opportunity to do good,"
said Margaret, coldly. She did not care to discuss her own affairs with
this man. "But, Mr. West, I don't know that I altogether understand you.
Didn't you tell me that you were a Presbyterian minister?"

"I certainly did," he answered, complacently, as though he were honoring
the whole great body of Presbyterians by making the statement.

"Well, then, what in the world did you mean? All Presbyterians, of
course, believe in the infallibility of the Scriptures and the deity of
Jesus--and the atonement!"

"Not necessarily," answered the young man, loftily. "You will find, my
dear young lady, that there is a wide, growing feeling in our church in
favor of a broader view. The younger men, and the great student body of
our church, have thrown to the winds all their former beliefs and are
ready to accept new light with open minds. The findings of science have
opened up a vast store of knowledge, and all thinking men must
acknowledge that the old dogmas are rapidly vanishing away. Your father
doubtless still holds to the old faith, perhaps, and we must be lenient
with the older men who have done the best they could with the light they
had; but all younger, broad-minded men are coming to the new way of
looking at things. We have had enough of the days of preaching hell-fire
and damnation. We need a religion of love to man, and good works. You
should read some of the books that have been written on this subject if
you care to understand. I really think it would be worth your while. You
look to me like a young woman with a mind. I have a few of the latest
with me. I shall be glad to read and discuss them with you if you are
interested."

"Thank you, Mr. West," said Margaret, coolly, though her eyes burned
with battle. "I think I have probably read most of those books and
discussed them with my father. He may be old, but he is not without
'light,' as you call it, and he always believed in knowing all that the
other side was saying. He brought me up to look into these things for
myself. And, anyhow, I should not care to read and discuss any of these
subjects with a man who denies the deity of my Saviour and does not
believe in the infallibility of the Bible. It seems to me you have
nothing left--"

"Ah! Well--now--my dear young lady--you mustn't misjudge me! I should be
sorry indeed to shake your faith, for an innocent faith is, of course, a
most beautiful thing, even though it may be unfounded."

"Indeed, Mr. West, that would not be possible. You could not shake my
faith in my Christ, because _I know Him_. If I had not ever felt His
presence, nor been guided by His leading, such words might possibly
trouble me, but having seen 'Him that is invisible,' _I know_."
Margaret's voice was steady and gentle. It was impossible for even that
man not to be impressed by her words.

"Well, let us not quarrel about it," he said, indulgently, as to a
little child. "I'm sure you have a very charming way of stating it, and
I'm not sure that it is not a relief to find a woman of the
old-fashioned type now and then. It really is man's place to look into
these deeper questions, anyway. It is woman's sphere to live and love
and make a happy home--"

His voice took on a sentimental purr, and Margaret was fairly boiling
with rage at him; but she would not let her temper give way, especially
when she was talking on the sacred theme of the Christ. She felt as if
she must scream or jump out over the wheel and run away from this
obnoxious man, but she knew she would do neither. She knew she would sit
calmly through the expedition and somehow control that conversation.
There was one relief, anyway. Her father would no longer expect respect
and honor and liking toward a minister who denied the very life and
foundation of his faith.

"It can't be possible that the school-house is so far from the town,"
she said, suddenly looking around at the widening desert in front of
them. "Haven't you made some mistake?"

"Why, I thought we should have the pleasure of a little drive first,"
said West, with a cunning smile. "I was sure you would enjoy seeing the
country before you get down to work, and I was not averse myself to a
drive in such delightful company."

"I would like to go back to the school-house at once, please," said
Margaret, decidedly, and there was that in her voice that caused the man
to turn the horse around and head it toward the village.

"Why, yes, of course, if you prefer to see the school-house first, we
can go back and look it over, and then, perhaps, you will like to ride a
little farther," he said. "We have plenty of time. In fact, Mrs. Tanner
told me she would not expect us home to dinner, and she put a very
promising-looking basket of lunch under the seat for us in case we got
hungry before we came back."

"Thank you," said Margaret, quite freezingly now. "I really do not care
to drive this morning. I would like to see the school-house, and then I
must return to the house at once. I have a great many things to do this
morning."

Her manner at last penetrated even the thick skin of the self-centered
man, and he realized that he had gone a step too far in his attentions.
He set himself to undo the mischief, hoping perhaps to melt her yet to
take the all-day drive with him. But she sat silent during the return to
the village, answering his volubility only by yes or no when absolutely
necessary. She let him babble away about college life and tell incidents
of his late pastorate, at some of which he laughed immoderately; but he
could not even bring a smile to her dignified lips.

He hoped she would change her mind when they got to the school building,
and he even stooped to praise it in a kind of contemptuous way as they
drew up in front of the large adobe building.

"I suppose you will want to go through the building," he said, affably,
producing the key from his pocket and putting on a pleasant anticipatory
smile, but Margaret shook her head. She simply would not go into the
building with that man.

"It is not necessary," she said again, coldly. "I think I will go home
now, please." And he was forced to turn the horse toward the Tanner
house, crestfallen, and wonder why this beautiful girl was so extremely
hard to win. He flattered himself that he had always been able to
interest any girl he chose. It was really quite a bewildering type. But
he would win her yet.

He set her down silently at the Tanner door and drove off, lunch-basket
and all, into the wilderness, vexed that she was so stubbornly
unfriendly, and pondering how he might break down the dignity wherewith
she had surrounded herself. There would be a way and he would find it.
There was a stubbornness about that weak chin of his, when one observed
it, and an ugliness in his pale-blue eye; or perhaps you would call it a
hardness.




CHAPTER IX


She watched him furtively from her bedroom window, whither she had fled
from Mrs. Tanner's exclamations. He wore his stylish derby tilted down
over his left eye and slightly to one side in a most unministerial
manner, showing too much of his straw-colored back hair, which rose in a
cowlick at the point of contact with the hat, and he looked a small,
mean creature as he drove off into the vast beauty of the plain.
Margaret, in her indignation, could not help comparing him with the
young man who had ridden away from the house two days before.

And he to set up to be a minister of Christ's gospel and talk like that
about the Bible and Christ! Oh, what was the church of Christ coming to,
to have ministers like that? How ever did he get into the ministry,
anyway? Of course, she knew there were young men with honest doubts who
sometimes slid through nowadays, but a mean little silly man like that?
How ever did he get in? What a lot of ridiculous things he had said! He
was one of those described in the Bible who "darken counsel with words."
He was not worth noticing. And yet, what a lot of harm he could do in an
unlearned community. Just see how Mrs. Tanner hung upon his words, as
though they were law and gospel! How _could_ she?

Margaret found herself trembling yet over the words he had spoken about
Christ, the atonement, and the faith. They meant so much to her and to
her mother and father. They were not mere empty words of tradition that
she believed because she had been taught. She had lived her faith and
proved it; and she could not help feeling it like a personal insult to
have him speak so of her Saviour. She turned away and took her Bible to
try and get a bit of calmness.

She fluttered the leaves for something--she could not just tell
what--and her eye caught some of the verses that her father had marked
for her before she left home for college, in the days when he was
troubled for her going forth into the world of unbelief.

     As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in
     him: Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as
     ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware
     lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after
     the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not
     after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
     bodily....

How the verses crowded upon one another, standing out clearly from the
pages as she turned them, marked with her father's own hand in clear ink
underlinings. It almost seemed as if God had looked ahead to these times
and set these words down just for the encouragement of his troubled
servants who couldn't understand why faith was growing dim. God knew
about it, had known it would be, all this doubt, and had put words here
just for troubled hearts to be comforted thereby.

     For I know whom I have believed [How her heart echoed to that
     statement!], and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I
     have committed unto him against that day.

And on a little further:

     Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal,
     The Lord knoweth them that are his.

There was a triumphant look to the words as she read them.

Then over in Ephesians her eye caught a verse that just seemed to fit
that poor blind minister:

     Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of
     God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness
     of their heart.

And yet he was set to guide the feet of the blind into the way of life!
And he had looked on her as one of the ignorant. Poor fellow! He
couldn't know the Christ who was her Saviour or he never would have
spoken in that way about Him. What could such a man preach? What was
there left to preach, but empty words, when one rejected all these
doctrines? Would she have to listen to a man like that Sunday after
Sunday? Did the scholars in her school, and their parents, and the young
man out at the camp, and his rough, simple-hearted companions have to
listen to preaching from that man, when they listened to any? Her heart
grew sick within her, and she knelt beside her bed for a strengthening
word with the Christ who since her little childhood had been a very
real presence in her life.

When she arose from her knees she heard the kitchen door slam
down-stairs and the voice of Bud calling his mother. She went to her
door and opened it, listening a moment, and then called the boy.

There was a dead silence for an instant after her voice was heard, and
then Bud appeared at the foot of the stairs, very frowning as to brow,
and very surly as to tone:

"What d'ye want?"

It was plain that Bud was "sore."

"Bud,"--Margaret's voice was sweet and a bit cool as she leaned over the
railing and surveyed the boy; she hadn't yet got over her compulsory
ride with that minister--"I wanted to ask you, please, next time you
can't keep an appointment with me don't ask anybody else to take your
place. I prefer to pick out my own companions. It was all right, of
course, if you had to go somewhere else, but I could easily have gone
alone or waited until another time. I'd rather not have you ask Mr. West
to go anywhere with me again."

Bud's face was a study. It cleared suddenly and his jaw dropped in
surprise; his eyes fairly danced with dawning comprehension and
pleasure, and then his brow drew down ominously.

"I never ast him," he declared, vehemently. "He told me you wanted him
to go, and fer me to get out of the way 'cause you didn't want to hurt
my feelings. Didn't you say nothing to him about it at all this
morning?"

"No, indeed!" said Margaret, with flashing eyes.

"Well, I just thought he was that kind of a guy. I told ma he was lying,
but she said I didn't understand young ladies, and, of course, you
didn't want me when there was a man, and especially a preacher, round.
Some preacher he is! This 's the second time I've caught him lying. I
think he's the limit. I just wish you'd see our missionary. If he was
here he'd beat the dust out o' that poor stew. _He's_ some man, he is.
He's a regular white man, _our missionary_! Just you wait till _he_ gets
back."

Margaret drew a breath of relief. Then the missionary was a real man,
after all. Oh, for his return!

"Well, I'm certainly very glad it wasn't your fault, Bud. I didn't feel
very happy to be turned off that way," said the teacher, smiling down
upon the rough head of the boy.

"You bet it wasn't my fault!" said the boy, vigorously. "I was sore's a
pup at you, after you'd made a date and all, to do like that; but I
thought if you wanted to go with that guy it was up to you."

"Well, I didn't and I don't. You'll please understand hereafter that I'd
always rather have your company than his. How about going down to the
school-house some time to-day? Have you time?"

"Didn't you go yet?" The boy's face looked as if he had received a
kingdom, and his voice had a ring of triumph.

"We drove down there, but I didn't care to go in without you, so we came
back."

"Wanta go now?" The boy's face fairly shone.

"I'd love to. I'll be ready in three minutes. Could we carry some books
down?"

"Sure! Oh--gee! That guy's got the buckboard. We'll have to walk.
Doggone him!"

"I shall enjoy a walk. I want to find out just how far it is, for I
shall have to walk every day, you know."

"No, you won't, neither, 'nless you wanta. I c'n always hitch up."

"That'll be very nice sometimes, but I'm afraid I'd get spoiled if you
babied me all the time that way. I'll be right down."

They went out together into the sunshine and wideness of the morning,
and it seemed a new day had been created since she got back from her
ride with the minister. She looked at the sturdy, honest-eyed boy beside
her, and was glad to have him for a companion.

Just in front of the school-house Margaret paused. "Oh, I forgot! The
key! Mr. West has the key in his pocket! We can't get in, can we?"

"Aw, we don't need a key," said her escort. "Just you wait!" And he
whisked around to the back of the building, and in about three minutes
his shock head appeared at the window. He threw the sash open and
dropped out a wooden box. "There!" he said, triumphantly, "you c'n climb
up on that, cantcha? Here, I'll holdya steady. Take holta my hand."

And so it was through the front window that the new teacher of the Ridge
School first appeared on her future scene of action and surveyed her
little kingdom.

Bud threw open the shutters, letting the view of the plains and the
sunshine into the big, dusty room, and showed her the new blackboard
with great pride.

"There's a whole box o' chalk up on the desk, too; 'ain't never been
opened yet. Dad said that was your property. Want I should open it?"

"Why, yes, you might, and then we'll try the blackboard, won't we?"

Bud went to work gravely opening the chalk-box as if it were a small
treasure-chest, and finally produced a long, smooth stick of chalk and
handed it to her with shining eyes.

"You try it first, Bud," said the teacher, seeing his eagerness; and the
boy went forward awesomely, as if it were a sacred precinct and he
unworthy to intrude.

Shyly, awkwardly, with infinite painstaking, he wrote in a cramped hand,
"William Budlong Tanner," and then, growing bolder, "Ashland, Arizona,"
with a big flourish underneath.

"Some class!" he said, standing back and regarding his handiwork with
pride. "Say, I like the sound the chalk makes on it, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," said Margaret, heartily, "so smooth and business-like,
isn't it? You'll enjoy doing examples in algebra on it, won't you?"

"Good night! Algebra! Me? No chance. I can't never get through the
arithmetic. The last teacher said if he'd come back twenty years from
now he'd still find me working compound interest."

"Well, we'll prove to that man that he wasn't much of a judge of boys,"
said Margaret, with a tilt of her chin and a glint of her teacher-mettle
showing in her eyes. "If you're not in algebra before two months are
over I'll miss my guess. We'll get at it right away and show him."

Bud watched her, charmed. He was beginning to believe that almost
anything she tried would come true.

"Now, Bud, suppose we get to work. I'd like to get acquainted with my
class a little before Monday. Isn't it Monday school opens? I thought
so. Well, suppose you give me the names of the scholars and I'll write
them down, and that will help me to remember them. Where will you begin?
Here, suppose you sit down in the front seat and tell me who sits there
and a little bit about him, and I'll write the name down; and then you
move to the next seat and tell me about the next one, and so on. Will
you?"

"Sure!" said Bud, entering into the new game. "But it ain't a 'he' sits
there. It's Susie Johnson. She's Bill Johnson's smallest girl. She has
to sit front 'cause she giggles so much. She has yellow curls and she
ducks her head down and snickers right out this way when anything funny
happens in school." And Bud proceeded to duck and wriggle in perfect
imitation of the small Susie.

Margaret saw the boy's power of imitation was remarkable, and laughed
heartily at his burlesque. Then she turned and wrote "Susie Johnson" on
the board in beautiful script.

Bud watched with admiration, saying softly under his breath; "Gee!
that's great, that blackboard, ain't it?"

Amelia Schwartz came next. She was long and lank, with the buttons off
the back of her dress, and hands and feet too large for her garments.
Margaret could not help but see her in the clever pantomime the boy
carried on. Next was Rosa Rogers, daughter of a wealthy cattleman, the
pink-cheeked, blue-eyed beauty of the school, with all the boys at her
feet and a perfect knowledge of her power over them. Bud didn't, of
course, state it that way, but Margaret gathered as much from his
simpering smile and the coy way he looked out of the corner of his eyes
as he described her.

Down the long list of scholars he went, row after row, and when he came
to the seats where the boys sat his tone changed. She could tell by the
shading of his voice which boys were the ones to look out for.

Jed Brower, it appeared, was a name to conjure with. He could ride any
horse that ever stood on four legs, he could outshoot most of the boys
in the neighborhood, and he never allowed any teacher to tell him what
to do. He was Texas Brower's only boy, and always had his own way. His
father was on the school board. Jed Brower was held in awe, even while
his methods were despised, by some of the younger boys. He was big and
powerful, and nobody dared fool with him. Bud did not exactly warn
Margaret that she must keep on the right side of Jed Brower, but he
conveyed that impression without words. Margaret understood. She knew
also that Tad Brooks, Larry Parker, Jim Long, and Dake Foster were
merely henchmen of the worthy Jed, and not negligible quantities when
taken by themselves. But over the name of Timothy Forbes--"Delicate
Forbes," Bud explained was his nickname--the boy lingered with that
loving inflection of admiration that a younger boy will sometimes have
for a husky, courageous older lad. The second time Bud spoke of him he
called him "Forbeszy," and Margaret perceived that here was Bud's model
of manhood. Delicate Forbes could outshoot and outride even Jed Brower
when he chose, and his courage with cattle was that of a man. Moreover,
he was good to the younger boys and wasn't above pitching baseball with
them when he had nothing better afoot. It became evident from the
general description that Delicate Forbes was not called so from any lack
of inches to his stature. He had a record of having licked every man
teacher in the school, and beaten by guile every woman teacher they had
had in six years. Bud was loyal to his admiration, yet it could be
plainly seen that he felt Margaret's greatest hindrance in the school
would be Delicate Forbes.

Margaret mentally underlined the names in her memory that belonged to
the back seats in the first and second rows of desks, and went home
praying that she might have wisdom and patience to deal with Jed Brower
and Timothy Forbes, and through them to manage the rest of her school.

She surprised Bud at the dinner-table by handing him a neat diagram of
the school-room desks with the correct names of all but three or four of
the scholars written on them. Such a feat of memory raised her several
notches in his estimation.

"Say, that's going some! Guess you won't forget nothing, no matter how
much they try to make you."




CHAPTER X


The minister did not appear until late in the evening, after Margaret
had gone to her room, for which she was sincerely thankful. She could
hear his voice, fretful and complaining, as he called loudly for Bud to
take the horse. It appeared he had lost his way and wandered many miles
out of the trail. He blamed the country for having no better trails, and
the horse for not being able to find his way better. Mr. Tanner had gone
to bed, but Mrs. Tanner bustled about and tried to comfort him.

"Now that's too bad! Dearie me! Bud oughta hev gone with you, so he
ought. Bud! _Oh_, Bud, you 'ain't gonta sleep yet, hev you? Wake up and
come down and take this horse to the barn."

But Bud declined to descend. He shouted some sleepy directions from his
loft where he slept, and said the minister could look after his own
horse, he "wasn'ta gonta!" There was "plentya corn in the bin."

The minister grumbled his way to the barn, highly incensed at Bud, and
disturbed the calm of the evening view of Margaret's mountain by his
complaints when he returned. He wasn't accustomed to handling horses,
and he thought Bud might have stayed up and attended to it himself. Bud
chuckled in his loft and stole down the back kitchen roof while the
minister ate his late supper. Bud would never leave the old horse to
that amateur's tender mercies, but he didn't intend to make it easy for
the amateur. Margaret, from her window-seat watching the night in the
darkness, saw Bud slip off the kitchen roof and run to the barn, and she
smiled to herself. She liked that boy. He was going to be a good
comrade.

The Sabbath morning dawned brilliantly, and to the homesick girl there
suddenly came a sense of desolation on waking. A strange land was this,
without church-bells or sense of Sabbath fitness. The mountain, it is
true, greeted her with a holy light of gladness, but mountains are not
dependent upon humankind for being in the spirit on the Lord's day. They
are "continually praising Him." Margaret wondered how she was to get
through this day, this dreary first Sabbath away from her home and her
Sabbath-school class, and her dear old church with father preaching. She
had been away, of course, a great many times before, but never to a
churchless community. It was beginning to dawn upon her that that was
what Ashland was--a churchless community. As she recalled the walk to
the school and the ride through the village she had seen nothing that
looked like a church, and all the talk had been of the missionary. They
must have services of some sort, of course, and probably that flabby,
fish-eyed man, her fellow-boarder, was to preach; but her heart turned
sick at thought of listening to a man who had confessed to the
unbeliefs that he had. Of course, he would likely know enough to keep
such doubts to himself; but he had told her, and nothing he could say
now would help or uplift her in the least.

She drew a deep sigh and looked at her watch. It was late. At home the
early Sabbath-school bells would be ringing, and little girls in white,
with bunches of late fall flowers for their teachers, and holding hands
with their little brothers, would be hurrying down the street. Father
was in his study, going over his morning sermon, and mother putting her
little pearl pin in her collar, getting ready to go to her Bible class.
Margaret decided it was time to get up and stop thinking of it all.

She put on a little white dress that she wore to church at home and
hurried down to discover what the family plans were for the day, but
found, to her dismay, that the atmosphere below-stairs was just like
that of other days. Mr. Tanner sat tilted back in a dining-room chair,
reading the weekly paper, Mrs. Tanner was bustling in with hot
corn-bread, Bud was on the front-door steps teasing the dog, and the
minister came in with an air of weariness upon him, as if he quite
intended taking it out on his companions that he had experienced a
trying time on Saturday. He did not look in the least like a man who
expected to preach in a few minutes. He declined to eat his egg because
it was cooked too hard, and poor Mrs. Tanner had to try it twice before
she succeeded in producing a soft-boiled egg to suit him. Only the
radiant outline of the great mountain, which Margaret could see over the
minister's head, looked peaceful and Sabbath-like.

"What time do you have service?" Margaret asked, as she rose from the
table.

"Service?" It was Mr. Tanner who echoed her question as if he did not
quite know what she meant.

Mrs. Tanner raised her eyes from her belated breakfast with a worried
look, like a hen stretching her neck about to see what she ought to do
next for the comfort of the chickens under her care. It was apparent
that she had no comprehension of what the question meant. It was the
minister who answered, condescendingly:

"Um! Ah! There is no church edifice here, you know, Miss Earle. The
mission station is located some miles distant."

"I know," said Margaret, "but they surely have some religious service?"

"I really don't know," said the minister, loftily, as if it were
something wholly beneath his notice.

"Then you are not going to preach this morning?" In spite of herself
there was relief in her tone.

"Most certainly not," he replied, stiffly. "I came out here to rest, and
I selected this place largely because it was so far from a church. I
wanted to be where I should not be annoyed by requests to preach. Of
course, ministers from the East would be a curiosity in these Western
towns, and I should really get no rest at all if I had gone where my
services would have been in constant demand. When I came out here I was
in much the condition of our friend the minister of whom you have
doubtless heard. He was starting on his vacation, and he said to a
brother minister, with a smile of joy and relief, 'No preaching, no
praying, no reading of the Bible for six whole weeks!'"

"Indeed!" said Margaret, freezingly. "No, I am not familiar with
ministers of that sort." She turned with dismissal in her manner and
appealed to Mrs. Tanner. "Then you really have no Sabbath service of any
sort whatever in town?" There was something almost tragic in her face.
She stood aghast at the prospect before her.

Mrs. Tanner's neck stretched up a little longer, and her lips dropped
apart in her attempt to understand the situation. One would scarcely
have been surprised to hear her say, "Cut-cut-cut-ca-daw-cut?" so
fluttered did she seem.

Then up spoke Bud. "We gotta Sunday-school, ma!" There was pride of
possession in Bud's tone, and a kind of triumph over the minister,
albeit Bud had adjured Sunday-school since his early infancy. He was
ready now, however, to be offered on the altar of Sunday-school, even,
if that would please the new teacher--and spite the minister. "I'll take
you ef you wanta go." He looked defiantly at the minister as he said it.

But at last Mrs. Tanner seemed to grasp what was the matter.
"Why!--why!--why! You mean preaching service!" she clucked out. "Why,
yes, Mr. West, wouldn't that be fine? You could preach for us. We could
have it posted up at the saloon and the crossings, and out a ways on
both trails, and you'd have quite a crowd. They'd come from over to the
camp, and up the cańon way, and roundabouts. They'd do you credit, they
surely would, Mr. West. And you could have the school-house for a
meeting-house. Pa, there, is one of the school board. There wouldn't be
a bit of trouble--"

"Um! Ah! Mrs. Tanner, I assure you it's quite out of the question. I
told you I was here for absolute rest. I couldn't think of preaching.
Besides, it's against my principles to preach without remuneration. It's
a wrong idea. The workman is worthy of his hire, you know, Mrs. Tanner,
the Good Book says." Mr. West's tone took on a self-righteous
inflection.

"Oh! Ef that's all, that 'u'd be all right!" she said, with relief. "You
could take up a collection. The boys would be real generous. They always
are when any show comes along. They'd appreciate it, you know, and I'd
like fer Miss Earle here to hear you preach. It 'u'd be a real treat to
her, her being a preacher's daughter and all." She turned to Margaret
for support, but that young woman was talking to Bud. She had promptly
closed with his offer to take her to Sunday-school, and now she hurried
away to get ready, leaving Mrs. Tanner to make her clerical arrangements
without aid.

The minister, meantime, looked after her doubtfully. Perhaps, after all,
it would have been a good move to have preached. He might have impressed
that difficult young woman better that way than any other, seeing she
posed as being so interested in religious matters. He turned to Mrs.
Tanner and began to ask questions about the feasibility of a church
service. The word "collection" sounded good to him. He was not averse to
replenishing his somewhat depleted treasury if it could be done so
easily as that.

Meantime Margaret, up in her room, was wondering again how such a man as
Mr. West ever got into the Christian ministry.

West was still endeavoring to impress the Tanners with the importance of
his late charge in the East as Margaret came down-stairs. His pompous
tones, raised to favor the deafness that he took for granted in Mr.
Tanner, easily reached her ears.

"I couldn't, of course, think of doing it every Sunday, you understand.
It wouldn't be fair to myself nor my work which I have just left; but,
of course, if there were sufficient inducement I might consent to preach
some Sunday before I leave."

Mrs. Tanner's little satisfied cluck was quite audible as the girl
closed the front door and went out to the waiting Bud.

The Sunday-school was a desolate affair, presided over by an elderly and
very illiterate man, who nursed his elbows and rubbed his chin
meditatively between the slow questions which he read out of the
lesson-leaf. The woman who usually taught the children was called away
to nurse a sick neighbor, and the children were huddled together in a
restless group. The singing was poor, and the whole of the exercises
dreary, including the prayer. The few women present sat and stared in a
kind of awe at the visitor, half belligerently, as if she were an
intruder. Bud lingered outside the door and finally disappeared
altogether, reappearing when the last hymn was sung. Altogether the new
teacher felt exceedingly homesick as she wended her way back to the
Tanners' beside Bud.

"What do you do with yourself on Sunday afternoons, Bud?" she asked, as
soon as they were out of hearing of the rest of the group.

The boy turned wondering eyes toward her. "Do?" he repeated, puzzled.
"Why, we pass the time away, like 'most any day. There ain't much
difference."

A great desolation possessed her. No church! Worse than no minister! No
Sabbath! What kind of a land was this to which she had come?

The boy beside her smelled of tobacco smoke. He had been off somewhere
smoking while she was in the dreary little Sunday-school. She looked at
his careless boy-face furtively as they walked along. He smoked, of
course, like most boys of his age, probably, and he did a lot of other
things he ought not to do. He had no interest in God or righteousness,
and he did not take it for granted that the Sabbath was different from
any other day. A sudden heart-sinking came upon her. What was the use of
trying to do anything for such as he? Why not give it up now and go back
where there was more promising material to work upon and where she would
be welcome indeed? Of course, she ha