Title: The Girl from Montana
Author: Hill, Grace Livingston
Language: English
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THE GIRL FROM MONTANA

by

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

1922



       *       *       *       *       *

Books By

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL


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

Books By

RUTH LIVINGSTON HILL

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



Dedicated to

MISS VIRGINIA COWAN

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



CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

   I. THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL

  II. THE FLIGHT

 III. THE PURSUIT

  IV. THE TWO FUGITIVES

   V. A NIGHT RIDE

  VI. A CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS

 VII. BAD NEWS

VIII. THE PARTING

  IX. IN A TRAP

   X. PHILADELPHIA AT LAST

  XI. IN FLIGHT AGAIN

 XII. ELIZABETH'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

XIII. ANOTHER GRANDMOTHER

 XIV. IN A NEW WORLD

  XV. AN EVENTFUL PICNIC

 XVI. ALONE AGAIN

XVII. A FINAL FLIGHT AND PURSUIT



CHAPTER I

THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Three days!"

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

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

Straightening up, she said coolly:

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

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

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

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

"You will be all alone to-night."

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

The man before her trembled, and looked around nervously.

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER II

THE FLIGHT


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER III

THE PURSUIT


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He whistled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The girl seemed puzzled; then she replied almost sullenly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She looked at him surprised.

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

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

She looked at him keenly.

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



CHAPTER IV

THE TWO FUGITIVES


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

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

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

He flashed her a look of amusement and pain mingled.

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

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

"Yes, in an automobile!"

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

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

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

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

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

The girl looked around apprehensively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am sorry," she said simply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Did you ever say the prayer?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, I suppose it might."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who heard?"

"Why, 'our Father.'"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER V

A NIGHT RIDE


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VI

A CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS


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

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

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

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

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

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

The girl broke the stillness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then quietly, thoughtfully, they mounted and rode onward.

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

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

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

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

"What is it?" she whispered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you going far?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked at her questioningly.

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

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

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

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

"Don't you?" she asked quickly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His face darkened in a way that made her sorry.

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

"What is that?"

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

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

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



CHAPTER VII

BAD NEWS


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

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

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

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

"No," said the girl.

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

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

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

"No."

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

The girl flashed her eyes in answer.

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

The woman looked relieved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The woman looked as if she were but half convinced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The man went to the public stopping-place and asked for a room, and boldly
demanded a private place for his "sister" to rest for a while. "She is my
little sister," he told himself in excuse for the word. "She is my sister
to care for. That is, if she were my sister, this is what I should want
some good man to do for her."

He smiled as he went on his way after leaving the girl to rest. The
thought of a sister pleased him. The old woman at the ranch had made him
careful for the girl who was thus thrown in his company.

He rode down through the rough town to the railway station, but a short
distance from the rude stopping-place; and there he made inquiries
concerning roads, towns, etc., in the neighboring locality, and sent a
telegram to the friends with whom he had been hunting when he got lost. He
said he would be at the next town about twenty miles away. He knew that by
this time they would be back home and anxious about him, if they were not
already sending out searching parties for him. His message read:

"Hit the trail all right. Am taking a trip for my health. Send mail to me
at ----"

Then after careful inquiry as to directions, and learning that there was
more than one route to the town he had mentioned in his telegram, he went
back to his companion. She was ready to go, for the presence of other
people about her made her uneasy. She feared again there would be
objection to their further progress together. Somehow the old woman's
words had grown into a shadow which hovered over her. She mounted her
horse gladly, and they went forward. He told her what he had just done,
and how he expected to get his mail the next morning when they reached the
next town. He explained that there was a ranch half-way there where they
might stop all night.

She was troubled at the thought of another ranch. She knew there would be
more questions, and perhaps other disagreeable words said; but she held
her peace, listening to his plans. Her wonder was great over the telegram.
She knew little or nothing about modern discoveries. It was a mystery to
her how he could receive word by morning from a place that it had taken
them nearly two days to leave behind, and how had he sent a message over a
wire? Yes, she had heard of telegrams, but had never been quite sure they
were true. When he saw that she was interested, he went on to tell her of
other wonderful triumphs of science, the telephone, the electric light,
gas, and the modern system of water-works. She listened as if it were all
a fairy tale. Sometimes she looked at him, and wondered whether it could
be true, or whether he were not making fun of her; but his earnest, honest
eyes forbade doubt.

At the ranch they found two women, a mother and her daughter. The man
asked frankly whether they could take care of this young friend of his
overnight, saying that she was going on to the town in the morning, and
was in his care for the journey. This seemed to relieve all suspicion. The
two girls eyed each other, and then smiled.

"I'm Myrtle Baker," said the ranch-owner's daughter. "Come; I'll take you
where you can wash your hands and face, and then we'll have some supper."

Myrtle Baker was a chatterer by nature. She talked incessantly; and,
though she asked many questions, she did not wait for half of them to be
answered. Besides, the traveller had grown wary. She did not intend to
talk about the relationship between herself and her travelling companion.
There was a charm in Myrtle's company which made the girl half regret
leaving the next morning, as they did quite early, amid protests from
Myrtle and her mother, who enjoyed a visitor in their isolated home.

But the ride that morning was constrained. Each felt in some subtle way
that their pleasant companionship was coming to a crisis. Ahead in that
town would be letters, communications from the outside world of friends,
people who did not know or care what these two had been through together,
and who would not hesitate to separate them with a firm hand. Neither put
this thought into words, but it was there in their hearts, in the form of
a vague fear. They talked very little, but each was feeling how pleasant
the journey had been, and dreading what might be before.

They wanted to stay in this Utopia of the plains, forever journeying
together, and never reaching any troublesome futures where were laws and
opinions by which they must abide.

But the morning grew bright, and the road was not half long enough. Though
at the last they walked their horses, they reached the town before the
daily train had passed through. They went straight to the station, and
found that the train was an hour late; but a telegram had arrived for the
man. He took it nervously, his fingers trembling. He felt a premonition
that it contained something unpleasant.

The girl sat on her horse by the platform, watching him through the open
station door where he was standing as he tore open the envelope. She saw a
deathly pallor overspread his face, and a look of anguish as if an arrow
had pierced his heart. She felt as if the arrow had gone on into her own
heart, and then she sat and waited. It seemed hours before he glanced up,
with an old, weary look in his eyes. The message read:

"Your mother seriously ill. Wants you immediately. Will send your baggage
on morning train. Have wired you are coming."

It was signed by his cousin with whom he had been taking his
hunting-trip, and who was bound by business to go further West within a
few days more.

The strong young man was almost bowed under this sudden stroke. His mother
was very dear to him. He had left her well and happy. He must go to her at
once, of course; but what should he do with the girl who had within the
last two days taken so strong a hold upon his--he hesitated, and called it
"protection." That word would do in the present emergency.

Then he looked, and saw her own face pale under the tan, and stepped out
to the platform to tell her.



CHAPTER VIII

THE PARTING


She took the news like a Spartan. Her gentle pity was simply expressed,
and then she held her peace. He must go. He must leave her. She knew that
the train would carry him to his mother's bedside quicker than a horse
could go. She felt by the look in his eyes and the set of his mouth that
he had already decided that. Of course he must go. And the lady was there
too! His mother and the lady! The lady would be sorry by this time, and
would love him. Well, it was all right. He had been good to her. He had
been a strong, bright angel God had sent to help her out of the
wilderness; and now that she was safe the angel must return to his heaven.
This was what she thought.

He had gone into the station to inquire about the train. It was an hour
late. He had one short hour in which to do a great deal. He had very
little money with him. Naturally men do not carry a fortune when they go
out into the wilderness for a day's shooting. Fortunately he had his
railroad return ticket to Philadelphia. That would carry him safely. But
the girl. She of course had no money. And where was she going? He realized
that he had failed to ask her many important questions. He hurried out,
and explained to her.

"The train is an hour late. We must sell our horses, and try to get money
enough to take us East. It is the only way. Where do you intend going?"

But the girl stiffened in her seat. She knew it was her opportunity to
show that she was worthy of his honor and respect.

"I cannot go with you," she said very quietly.

"But you must," said he impatiently. "Don't you see there is no other way?
I must take this train and get to my mother as soon as possible. She may
not be living when I reach her if I don't." Something caught in his throat
as he uttered the horrible thought that kept coming to his mind.

"I know," said the girl quietly. "You must go, but I must ride on."

"And why? I should like to know. Don't you see that I cannot leave you
here alone? Those villains may be upon us at any minute. In fact, it is a
good thing for us to board the train and get out of their miserable
country as fast as steam can carry us. I am sorry you must part with your
horse, for I know you are attached to it; but perhaps we can arrange to
sell it to some one who will let us redeem it when we send the money out.
You see I have not money enough with me to buy you a ticket. I couldn't
get home myself if I hadn't my return ticket with me in my pocket. But
surely the sale of both horses will bring enough to pay your way."

"You are very kind, but I must not go." The red lips were firm, and the
girl was sitting very erect. She looked as she had done after she had shot
the bird.

"But why?"

"I cannot travel alone with you. It is not your custom where you come
from. The woman on the ranch told me. She said you knew girls did not do
that, and that you did not respect me for going alone with you. She said
it was not right, and that you knew it."

He looked at her impatient, angry, half ashamed that she should face him
with these words.

"Nonsense!" said he. "This is a case of necessity. You are to be taken
care of, and I am the one to do it."

"But it is not the custom among people where you live, is it?"

The clear eyes faced him down, and he had to admit that it was not.

"Then I can't go," she said decidedly.

"But you must. If you don't, I won't go."

"But you must," said the girl, "and I mustn't. If you talk that way, I'll
run away from you. I've run away from one man, and I guess I can from
another. Besides, you're forgetting the lady."

"What lady?"

"Your lady. The lady who rides in a carriage without horses."

"Hang the lady!" he said inelegantly. "Do you know that the train will be
along here in less than an hour, and we have a great deal to do before we
can get on board? There's no use stopping to talk about this matter. We
haven't time. If you will just trust things to me, I'll attend to them
all, and I'll answer your questions when we get safely on the train. Every
instant is precious. Those men might come around that corner ever there
any minute. That's all bosh about respect. I respect you more than any
woman I ever met. And it's my business to take care of you."

"No, it's not your business," said the girl bravely, "and I can't let you.
I'm nothing to you, you know."

"You're every--that is--why, you surely know you're a great deal to me.
Why, you saved my life, you know!"

"Yes, and you saved mine. That was beautiful, but that's all."

"Isn't that enough? What are you made of, anyway, to sit there when
there's so much to be done, and those villains on our track, and insist
that you won't be saved?' Respect you! Why, a lion in the wilderness would
have to respect you. You're made of iron and steel and precious stones.
You've the courage of a--a--I was going to say a man but I mean an angel.
You're pure as snow, and true as the heavenly blue, and firm as a rock;
and, if I had never respected you before, I would have to now. I respect,
I honor, I--I--I--pray for you!" he finished fiercely.

He turned his back to hide his emotion.

She lifted her eyes to his when he turned again, and her own were full of
tears.

"Thank you!" She said it very simply. "That makes me--very--glad! But I
cannot go with you."

"Do you mean that?" he asked her desperately.

"Yes," steadily.

"Then I shall have to stay too."

"But you can't! You must go to your mother. I won't be stayed with. And
what would she think? Mothers are--everything!" she finished. "You must go
quick and get ready. What can I do to help?"

He gave her a look which she remembered long years afterward. It seemed to
burn and sear its way into her soul. How was it that a stranger had the
power to scorch her with anguish this way? And she him?

He turned, still with that desperate, half-frantic look in his face, and
accosted two men who stood at the other end of the platform. They were not
in particular need of a horse at present; but they were always ready to
look at a bargain, and they walked speculatively down the uneven boards
of the platform with him to where his horse stood, and inspected it.

The girl watched the whole proceeding with eyes that saw not but into the
future. She put in a word about the worth of the saddle once when she saw
it was going lower than it should. Three other men gathered about before
the bargain was concluded, and the horse and its equipments sold for about
half its value.

That done, the man turned toward the girl and motioned to her to lead her
horse away to a more quiet place, and set him down to plead steadily
against her decision. But the talk and the horse-selling had taken more
time than he realized. The girl was more decided than ever in her
determination not to go with him. She spoke of the lady again. She spoke
of his mother, and mothers in general, and finished by reminding him that
God would take care of her, and of him, too.

Then they heard the whistle of the train, and saw it growing from a speck
to a large black object across the plain. To the girl the sight of this
strange machine, that seemed more like a creature rushing toward her to
snatch all beauty and hope and safety from her, sent a thrill of horror.
To the man it seemed like a dreaded fate that was tearing him asunder. He
had barely time to divest himself of his powder-horn, and a few little
things that might be helpful to the girl in her journey, before the train
was halting at the station. Then he took from his pocket the money that
had been paid him for his horse; and, selecting a five-dollar bill for
himself, he wrapped the rest in an envelope bearing his own name and
address. The envelope was one addressed by the lady at home. It had
contained some gracefully worded refusal of a request. But he did not
notice now what envelope he gave her.

"Take this," he said. "It will help a little. Yes, you must! I cannot
leave you--I _will_ not--unless you do," when he saw that she hesitated
and looked doubtful. "I owe you all and more for saving my life. I can
never repay you. Take it. You may return it sometime when you get plenty
more of your own, if it hurts your pride to keep it. Take it, please. Yes,
I have plenty for myself. You will need it, and you must stop at nice
places overnight. You will be very careful, won't you? My name is on that
envelope. You must write to me and let me know that you are safe."

"Some one is calling you, and that thing is beginning to move again," said
the girl, an awesome wonder in her face. "You will be left behind! O,
hurry! Quick! Your mother!"

He half turned toward the train, and then came back.

"You haven't told me your name!" he gasped. "Tell me quick!"

She caught her breath.

"Elizabeth!" she answered, and waved him from her.

The conductor of the train was shouting to him, and two men shoved him
toward the platform. He swung himself aboard with the accustomed ease of a
man who has travelled; but he stood on the platform, and shouted, "Where
are you going?" as the train swung noisily off.

She did not hear him, but waved her hand, and gave him a bright smile that
was brimming with unshed tears. It seemed like instant, daring suicide in
him to stand on that swaying, clattering house as it moved off
irresponsibly down the plane of vision. She watched him till he was out of
sight, a mere speck on the horizon of the prairie; and then she turned
her horse slowly into the road, and went her way into the world alone.

The man stood on the platform, and watched her as he whirled away--a
little brown girl on a little brown horse, so stanch and firm and stubborn
and good. Her eyes were dear, and her lips as she smiled; and her hand was
beautiful as it waved him good-by. She was dear, dear, dear! Why had he
not known it? Why had he left her? Yet how could he stay? His mother was
dying perhaps. He must not fail her in what might be her last summons.
Life and death were pulling at his heart, tearing him asunder.

The vision of the little brown girl and the little brown horse blurred and
faded. He tried to look, but could not see. He brought his eyes to nearer
vision to fix their focus for another look, and straight before him
whirled a shackly old saloon, rough and tumble, its character apparent
from the men who were grouped about its doorway and from the barrels and
kegs in profusion outside. From the doorway issued four men, wiping their
mouths and shouting hilariously. Four horses stood tied to a fence near
by. They were so instantly passed, and so vaguely seen, that he could not
be sure in the least, but those four men reminded him strongly of the four
who had passed the schoolhouse on Sunday.

He shuddered, and looked back. The little brown horse and the little brown
girl were one with the little brown station so far away, and presently the
saloon and men were blotted out in one blur of green and brown and yellow.

He looked to the ground in his despair. He _must_ go back. He could not
leave her in such peril. She was his to care for by all the rights of
manhood and womanhood. She had been put in his way. It was his duty.

But the ground whirled by under his madness, and showed him plainly that
to jump off would be instant death. Then the thought of his mother came
again, and the girl's words, "I am nothing to you, you know."

The train whirled its way between two mountains and the valley, and the
green and brown and yellow blur were gone from sight. He felt as if he had
just seen the coffin close over the girl's sweet face, and he had done it.

By and by he crawled into the car, pulled his slouch hat down over his
eyes, and settled down in a seat; but all the time he was trying to see
over again that old saloon and those four men, and to make out their
passing identity. Sometimes the agony of thinking it all over, and trying
to make out whether those men had been the pursuers, made him feel
frantic; and it seemed as if he must pull the bell-cord, and make the
train stop, and get off to walk back. Then the utter hopelessness of ever
finding her would come over him, and he would settle back in his seat
again and try to sleep. But the least drowsiness would bring a vision of
the girl galloping alone over the prairie with the four men in full
pursuit behind. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth!" the car-wheels seemed
to say.

Elizabeth--that was all he had of her. He did not know the rest of her
name, nor where she was going. He did not even know where she had come
from, just "Elizabeth" and "Montana." If anything happened lo her, he
would never know. Oh! why had he left her? Why had he not _made_ her go
with him? In a case like that a man should assert his authority. But,
then, it was true he had none, and she had said she would run away. She
would have done it too. O, if it had been anything but sickness and
possible death at the other end--and his mother, his own little mother!
Nothing else would have kept him from staying to protect Elizabeth.

What a fool he had been! There were questions he might have asked, and
plans they might have made, all those beautiful days and those
moon-silvered nights. If any other man had done the same, he would have
thought him lacking mentally. But here he had maundered on, and never
found out the all-important things about her. Yet how did he know then how
important they were to be? It had seemed as if they had all the world
before them in the brilliant sunlight. How could he know that modern
improvements were to seize him in the midst of a prairie waste, and whirl
him off from her when he had just begun to know what she was, and to prize
her company as a most precious gift dropped down from heaven at his feet?

By degrees he came out of his hysterical frenzy, and returned to a
somewhat normal state of mind. He reasoned himself several times into the
belief that those men were not in the least like the men he had seen
Sunday. He knew that one could not recognize one's own brother at that
distance and that rate of passing speed. He tried to think that Elizabeth
would be cared for. She had come through many a danger, and was it likely
that the God in whom she trusted, who had guarded her so many times in her
great peril, would desert her now in her dire need? Would He not raise up
help for her somewhere? Perhaps another man as good as he, and as
trustworthy as he had tried to be, would find her and help her.

But that thought was not pleasant. He put it away impatiently. It cut him.
Why had she talked so much about the lady? The lady! Ah! How was it the
lady came no more into his thoughts? The memory of her haughty face no
more quickened his heart-beats. Was he fickle that he could lose what he
had supposed was a lifelong passion in a few days?

The darkness was creeping on. Where was Elizabeth? Had she found a refuge
for the night? Or was she wandering on an unknown trail, hearing voices
and oaths through the darkness, and seeing the gleaming of wild eyes low
in the bushes ahead? How could he have left her? How could he? He must go
back even yet. He must, he must, _he must_!

And so it went on through the long night.

The train stopped at several places to take on water; but there seemed to
be no human habitation near, or else his eyes were dim with his trouble.
Once, when they stopped longer than the other times, he got up and walked
the length of the car and down the steps to the ground. He even stood
there, and let the train start jerkily on till his car had passed him, and
the steps were just sliding by, and tried to think whether he would not
stay, and go back in some way to find her. Then the impossibility of the
search, and of his getting back in time to do any good, helped him to
spring on board just before it was too late. He walked back to his seat
saying to himself, "Fool! Fool!"

It was not till morning that he remembered his baggage and went in search
of it. There he found a letter from his cousin, with other letters and
telegrams explaining the state of affairs at home. He came back to his
seat laden with a large leather grip and a suitcase. He sat down to read
his letters, and these took his mind away from his troubled thoughts for a
little while. There was a letter from his mother, sweet, graceful, half
wistfully offering her sympathy. He saw she guessed the reason why he had
left her and gone to this far place. Dear little mother! What would she
say if she knew his trouble now? And then would return his heart-frenzy
over Elizabeth's peril. O to know that she was protected, hidden!

Fumbling in his pocket, he came upon a slip of paper, the slip the girl
had given Elizabeth in the schoolhouse on Sunday afternoon. "For in the
time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me."

Ah! God had hidden her then. Why not again? And what was that he had said
to her himself, when searching for a word to cover his emotion? "I pray
for you!" Why could he not pray? She had made him pray in the wilderness.
Should he not pray for her who was in peril now? He leaned back in the
hot, uncomfortable car-seat, pulling his hat down closer over his eyes,
and prayed as he had never prayed before. "Our Father" he stumbled through
as far as he could remember, and tried to think how her sweet voice had
filled in the places where he had not known it the other time. Then, when
he was done, he waited and prayed, "Our Father, care for Elizabeth," and
added, "For Jesus' sake. Amen." Thereafter through the rest of his
journey, and for days and weeks stretching ahead, he prayed that prayer,
and sometimes found in it his only solace from the terrible fear that
possessed him lest some harm had come to the girl, whom it seemed to him
now he had deserted in cold blood.



CHAPTER IX

IN A TRAP


Elizabeth rode straight out to the east, crossing the town as rapidly as
possible, going full gallop where the streets were empty. On the edge of
the town she crossed another trail running back the way that they had
come; but without swerving she turned out toward the world, and soon
passed into a thick growth of trees, around a hill.

Not three minutes elapsed after she had passed the crossing of the trails
before the four men rode across from the other direction, and, pausing,
called to one another, looking this way and that:

"What d'ye think, Bill? Shall we risk the right hand 'r the left?"

"Take the left hand fer luck," answered Bill. "Let's go over to the ranch
and ask. Ef she's been hereabouts, she's likely there. The old woman'll
know. Come on, boys!"

And who shall say that the angel of the Lord did not stand within the
crossing of the ways and turn aside the evil men?

Elizabeth did not stop her fierce ride until about noon. The frenzy of her
fear of pursuit had come upon her with renewed force. Now that she was
alone and desolate she dared not look behind her. She had been strong
enough as she smiled her farewell; but, when the train had dwindled into a
mere speck in the distance, her eyes were dropping tears thick and fast
upon the horse's mane. So in the first heaviness of her loneliness she
rode as if pursued by enemies close at hand.

But the horse must rest if she did not, for he was her only dependence
now. So she sat her down in the shade of a tree, and tried to eat some
dinner. The tears came again as she opened the pack which the man's strong
hands had bound together for her. How little she had thought at
breakfast-time that she would eat the next meal alone!

It was all well enough to tell him he must go, and say she was nothing to
him; but it was different now to face the world without a single friend
when one had learned to know how good a friend could be. Almost it would
have been better if he had never found her, never saved her from the
serpent, never ridden beside her and talked of wonderful new things to
her; for now that he was gone the emptiness and loneliness were so much
harder to bear; and now she was filled with a longing for things that
could not be hers.

It was well he had gone so soon, well she had no longer to grow into the
charm of his society; for he belonged to the lady, and was not hers. Thus
she ate her dinner with the indifference of sorrow.

Then she took out the envelope, and counted over the money. Forty dollars
he had given her. She knew he had kept but five for himself. How wonderful
that he should have done all that for her! It seemed a very great wealth
in her possession. Well, she would use it as sparingly as possible, and
thus be able the sooner to return it all to him. Some she must use, she
supposed, to buy food; but she would do with as little as she could. She
might sometimes shoot a bird, or catch a fish; or there might be berries
fit for food by the way. Nights she must stop by the way at a respectable
house. That she had promised. He had told her of awful things that might
happen to her if she lay down in the wilderness alone. Her lodging would
sometimes cost her something. Yet often they would take her in for
nothing. She would be careful of the money.

She studied the name on the envelope. George Trescott Benedict, 2----
Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Penn. The letters were large and angular, not
easy to read; but she puzzled them out. It did not look like his writing.
She had watched him as he wrote the old woman's address in his little red
book. He wrote small, round letters, slanting backwards, plain as print,
pleasant writing to read. Now the old woman's address would never be of
any use, and her wish that Elizabeth should travel alone was fulfilled.

There was a faint perfume from the envelope like Weldwood flowers. She
breathed it in, and wondered at it. Was it perfume from something he
carried in his pocket, some flower his lady had once given him? But this
was not a pleasant thought. She put the envelope into her bosom after
studying it again carefully until she knew the words by heart.

Then she drew forth the papers of her mother's that she had brought from
home, and for the first time read them over.

The first was the marriage certificate. That she had seen before, and had
studied with awe; but the others had been kept in a box that was never
opened by the children. The mother kept them sacredly, always with the
certificate on the top.

The largest paper she could not understand. It was something about a
mine. There were a great many "herebys" and "whereases" and "agreements"
in it. She put it back into the wrapper as of little account, probably
something belonging to her father, which her mother had treasured for old
time's sake.

Then came a paper which related to the claim where their little log home
had stood, and upon the extreme edge of which the graves were. That, too,
she laid reverently within its wrapper.

Next came a bit of pasteboard whereon was inscribed, "Mrs. Merrill Wilton
Bailey, Rittenhouse Square, Tuesdays." That she knew was her grandmother's
name, though she had never seen the card before--her father's mother. She
looked at the card in wonder. It was almost like a distant view of the
lady in question. What kind of a place might Rittenhouse Square be, and
where was it? There was no telling. It might be near that wonderful Desert
of Sahara that the man had talked about. She laid it down with a sigh.

There was only one paper left, and that was a letter written in pale
pencil lines. It said:

    "_My dear Bessie:_ Your pa died last week. He was killed falling
    from a scaffold. He was buried on Monday with five carriages and
    everything nice. We all got new black dresses, and have enough
    for a stone. If it don't cost too much, we'll have an angle on
    the top. I always thought an angle pointing to heaven was nice.
    We wish you was here. We miss you very much. I hope your husband
    is good to you. Why don't you write to us? You haven't wrote
    since your little girl was born. I s'pose you call her Bessie
    like you. If anything ever happens to you, you can send her to
    me. I'd kind of like her to fill your place. Your sister has
    got a baby girl too. She calls her Lizzie. We couldn't somehow
    have it natural to call her 'Lizabeth, and Nan wanted her called
    for me. I was always Lizzie, you know. Now you must write soon.

                             "Your loving mother,
                                     ELIZABETH BRADY."

There was no date nor address to the letter, but an address had been
pencilled on the outside in her mother's cramped school-girl hand. It was
dim but still readable, "Mrs. Elizabeth Brady, 18---- Flora Street,
Philadelphia."

Elizabeth studied the last word, then drew out the envelope again, and
looked at that. Yes, the two names were the same. How wonderful! Perhaps
she would sometime, sometime, see him again, though of course he belonged
to the lady. But perhaps, if she went to school and learned very fast, she
might sometime meet him at church--he went to church, she was sure--and
then he might smile, and not be ashamed of his friend who had saved his
life. Saved his life! Nonsense! She had not done much. He would not feel
any such ridiculous indebtedness to her when he got back to home and
friends and safety. He had saved her much more than she had saved him.

She put the papers all back in safety, and after having prepared her few
belongings for taking up the journey, she knelt down. She would say the
prayer before she went on. It might be that would keep the terrible
pursuers away.

She said it once, and then with eyes still closed she waited a moment.
Might she say it for him, who was gone away from her? Perhaps it would
help him, and keep him from falling from that terrible machine he was
riding on. Hitherto in her mind prayers had been only for the dead, but
now they seemed also to belong to all who were in danger or trouble. She
said the prayer over once more, slowly, then paused a moment, and added:
"Our Father, hide him from trouble. Hide George Trescott Benedict. And
hide me, please, too."

Then she mounted her horse, and went on her way.

It was a long and weary way. It reached over mountains and through
valleys, across winding, turbulent streams and broad rivers that had few
bridges. The rivers twice led her further south than she meant to go, in
her ignorance. She had always felt that Philadelphia was straight ahead
east, as straight as one could go to the heart of the sun.

Night after night she lay down in strange homes, some poorer and more
forlorn than others; and day after day she took up her lonely travel
again.

Gradually, as the days lengthened, and mountains piled themselves behind
her, and rivers stretched like barriers between, she grew less and less to
dread her pursuers, and more and more to look forward to the future. It
seemed so long a way! Would it never end?

Once she asked a man whether he knew where Philadelphia was. She had been
travelling then for weeks, and thought she must be almost there. But he
said "Philadelphia? O, Philadelphia is in the East. That's a long way off.
I saw a man once who came from there."

She set her firm little chin then, and travelled on. Her clothes were much
worn, and her skin was brown as a berry. The horse plodded on with a
dejected air. He would have liked to stop at a number of places they
passed, and remain for life, what there was left of it; but he obediently
walked on over any kind of an old road that came in his way, and solaced
himself with whatever kind of a bite the roadside afforded. He was
becoming a much-travelled horse. He knew a threshing-machine by sight now,
and considered it no more than a prairie bob-cat.

At one stopping-place a good woman advised Elizabeth to rest on Sundays.
She told her God didn't like people to do the same on His day as on other
days, and it would bring her bad luck if she kept up her incessant riding.
It was bad for the horse too. So, the night being Saturday, Elizabeth
remained with the woman over the Sabbath, and heard read aloud the
fourteenth chapter of John. It was a wonderful revelation to her. She did
not altogether understand it. In fact, the Bible was an unknown book. She
had never known that it was different from other books. She had heard it
spoken of by her mother, but only as a book. She did not know it was a
book of books.

She carried the beautiful thoughts with her on the way, and pondered them.
She wished she might have the book. She remembered the name of it, Bible,
the Book of God. Then God had written a book! Some day she would try to
find it and read it.

"Let not your heart be troubled"; so much of the message drifted into her
lonesome, ignorant soul, and settled down to stay. She said it over nights
when she found a shelter in some unpleasant place or days when the road
was rough or a storm came up and she was compelled to seek shelter by the
roadside under a haystack or in a friendly but deserted shack. She thought
of it the day there was no shelter and she was drenched to the skin. She
wondered afterward when the sun came out and dried her nicely whether God
had really been speaking the words to her troubled heart, "Let not your
heart be troubled."

Every night and every morning she said "Our Father" twice, once for
herself and once for the friend who had gone out into the world, it seemed
about a hundred years ago.

But one day she came across a railroad track. It made her heart beat
wildly. It seemed now that she must be almost there. Railroads were things
belonging to the East and civilization. But the way was lonely still for
days, and then she crossed more railroads, becoming more and more
frequent, and came into the line of towns that stretched along beside the
snake-like tracks.

She fell into the habit of staying overnight in a town, and then riding on
to the next in the morning; but now her clothes were becoming so dirty and
ragged that she felt ashamed to go to nice-looking places lest they should
turn her out; so she sought shelter in barns and small, mean houses. But
the people in these houses were distressingly dirty, and she found no
place to wash.

She had lost track of the weeks or the months when she reached her first
great city, the only one she had come near in her uncharted wanderings.

Into the outskirts of Chicago she rode undaunted, her head erect, with the
carriage of a queen. She had passed Indians and cowboys in her journeying;
why should she mind Chicago? Miles and miles of houses and people. There
seemed to be no end to it. Nothing but houses everywhere and
hurried-looking people, many of them working hard. Surely this must be
Philadelphia.

A large, beautiful building attracted her attention. There were handsome
grounds about it, and girls playing some game with a ball and curious
webbed implements across a net of cords. Elizabeth drew her horse to the
side of the road, and watched a few minutes. One girl was skilful, and hit
the ball back every time. Elizabeth almost exclaimed out loud once when a
particularly fine ball was played. She rode reluctantly on when the game
was finished, and saw over the arched gateway the words, "Janeway School
for Girls."

Ah! This was Philadelphia at last, and here was her school. She would go
in at once before she went to her grandmother's. It might be better.

She dismounted, and tied the horse to an iron ring in a post by the
sidewalk. Then she went slowly, shyly up the steps into the charmed
circles of learning. She knew she was shabby, but her long journey would
explain that. Would they be kind to her, and let her study?

She stood some time before the door, with a group of laughing girls not
far away whispering about her. She smiled at them; but they did not return
the salutation, and their actions made her more shy. At last she stepped
into the open door, and a maid in cap and apron came forward. "You must
not come in here, miss," she said imperiously. "This is a school."

"Yes," said Elizabeth gravely, smiling. "I want to see the teacher."

"She's busy. You can't see her," snapped the maid.

"Then I will wait till she is ready. I've come a great many miles, and I
must see her."

The maid retreated at this, and an elegant woman in trailing black silk
and gold-rimmed glasses approached threateningly. This was a new kind of
beggar, of course, and must be dealt with at once.

"What do you want?" she asked frigidly.

"I've come to school," said Elizabeth confidingly. "I know I don't look
very nice, but I've had to come all the way from Montana on horseback. If
you could let me go where I can have some water and a thread and needle, I
can make myself look better."

The woman eyed the girl incredulously.

"You have come to school!" she said; and her voice was large, and
frightened Elizabeth. "You have come all the way from Montana! Impossible!
You must be crazy."

"No, ma'am, I'm not crazy," said Elizabeth. "I just want to go to school."

The woman perceived that this might be an interesting case for
benevolently inclined people. It was nothing but an annoyance to herself.
"My dear girl,"--her tone was bland and disagreeable now,--"are you aware
that it takes money to come to school?"

"Does it?" said Elizabeth. "No, I didn't know it, but I have some money. I
could give you ten dollars right now; and, if that is not enough, I might
work some way, and earn more."

The woman laughed disagreeably.

"It is impossible," she said. "The yearly tuition here is five hundred
dollars. Besides, we do not take girls of your class. This is a finishing
school for young ladies. You will have to inquire further," and the woman
swept away to laugh with her colleagues over the queer character, the new
kind of tramp, she had just been called to interview. The maid came pertly
forward, and said that Elizabeth could not longer stand where she was.

Bewilderment and bitter disappointment in her face, Elizabeth went slowly
down to her horse, the great tears welling up into her eyes. As she rode
away, she kept turning back to the school grounds wistfully. She did not
notice the passers-by, nor know that they were commenting upon her
appearance. She made a striking picture in her rough garments, with her
wealth of hair, her tanned skin, and tear-filled eyes. An artist noticed
it, and watched her down the street, half thinking he would follow and
secure her as a model for his next picture.

A woman, gaudily bedecked in soiled finery, her face giving evidence of
the frequent use of rouge and powder, watched her, and followed,
pondering. At last she called, "My dear, my dear, wait a minute." She had
to speak several times before Elizabeth saw that she was talking to her.
Then the horse was halted by the sidewalk.

"My dear," said the woman, "you look tired and disappointed. Don't you
want to come home with me for a little while, and rest?"

"Thank you," said Elizabeth, "but I am afraid I must go on. I only stop on
Sundays."

"But just come home with me for a little while," coaxed the wheedling
tones. "You look so tired, and I've some girls of my own. I know you would
enjoy resting and talking with them."

The kindness in her tones touched the weary girl. Her pride had been stung
to the quick by the haughty woman in the school. This woman would soothe
her with kindness.

"Do you live far from here?" asked Elizabeth.

"Only two or three blocks," said the woman. "You ride along by the
sidewalk, and we can talk. Where are you going? You look as if you had
come a long distance."

"Yes," said the girl wearily, "from Montana. I am going to school. Is this
Philadelphia?"

"This is Chicago," said the woman. "There are finer schools here than in
Philadelphia. If you like to come and stay at my house awhile, I will see
about getting you into a school."

"Is it hard work to get people into schools?" asked the girl wonderingly.
"I thought they would want people to teach."

"No, it's very hard," said the lying woman; "but I think I know a school
where I can get you in. Where are your folks? Are they in Montana?"

"They are all dead," said Elizabeth, "and I have come away to school."

"Poor child!" said the woman glibly. "Come right home with me, and I'll
take care of you. I know a nice way you can earn your living, and then you
can study if you like. But you're quite big to go to school. It seems to
me you could have a good time without that. You are a very pretty girl; do
you know it? You only need pretty clothes to make you a beauty. If you
come with me, I will let you earn some beautiful new clothes."

"You are very kind," said the girl gravely. "I do need new clothes; and,
if I could earn them, that would be all the better." She did not quite
like the woman; yet of course that was foolish.

After a few more turns they stopped in front of a tall brick building with
a number of windows. It seemed to be a good deal like other buildings; in
fact, as she looked up the street, Elizabeth thought there were miles of
them just alike. She tied her horse in front of the door, and went in with
the woman. The woman told her to sit down a minute until she called the
lady of the house, who would tell her more about the school. There were a
number of pretty girls in the room, and they made very free to speak to
her. They twitted her about her clothes, and in a way reminded Elizabeth
of the girls in the school she had just interviewed.

Suddenly she spoke up to the group. An idea had occurred to her. This was
the school, and the woman had not liked to say so until she spoke to the
teacher about her.

"Is this a school?" she asked shyly.

Her question was met with a shout of derisive laughter.

"School!" cried the boldest, prettiest one. "School for scandal! School
for morals!"

There was one, a thin, pale girl with dark circles under her eyes, a sad
droop to her mouth, and bright scarlet spots in her cheeks. She came over
to Elizabeth, and whispered something to her. Elizabeth started forward,
unspeakable horror in her face.

She fled to the door where she had come in, but found it fastened. Then
she turned as if she had been brought to bay by a pack of lions.



CHAPTER X

PHILADELPHIA AT LAST


"Open this door!" she commanded. "Let me out of here at once."

The pale girl started to do so, but the pretty one held her back. "No,
Nellie; Madam will be angry with us all if you open that door." Then she
turned to Elizabeth, and said:

"Whoever enters that door never goes out again. You are nicely caught, my
dear."

There was a sting of bitterness and self-pity in the taunt at the end of
the words. Elizabeth felt it, as she seized her pistol from her belt, and
pointed it at the astonished group. They were not accustomed to girls with
pistols. "Open that door, or I will shoot you all!" she cried.

Then, as she heard some one descending the stairs, she rushed again into
the room where she remembered the windows were open. They were guarded by
wire screens; but she caught up a chair, and dashed it through one,
plunging out into the street in spite of detaining hands that reached for
her, hands much hindered by the gleam of the pistol and the fear that it
might go off in their midst.

It took but an instant to wrench the bridle from its fastening and mount
her horse; then she rode forward through the city at a pace that only
millionaires and automobiles are allowed to take. She met and passed her
first automobile without a quiver. Her eyes were dilated, her lips set;
angry, frightened tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she urged her
poor horse forward until a policeman here and there thought it his duty to
make a feeble effort to detain her. But nothing impeded her way. She fled
through a maze of wagons, carriages, automobiles, and trolley-cars, until
she passed the whirl of the great city, and at last was free again and out
in the open country.

She came toward evening to a little cottage on the edge of a pretty
suburb. The cottage was covered with roses, and the front yard was full of
great old-fashioned flowers. On the porch sat a plain little old lady in a
rocking-chair, knitting. There was a little gate with a path leading up to
the door, and at the side another open gate with a road leading around to
the back of the cottage.

Elizabeth saw, and murmuring, "O 'our Father,' please hide me!" she dashed
into the driveway, and tore up to the side of the piazza at a full gallop.
She jumped from the horse; and, leaving him standing panting with his nose
to the fence, and a tempting strip of clover in front of him where he
could graze when he should get his breath, she ran up the steps, and flung
herself in a miserable little heap at the feet of the astonished old lady.

"O, please, please, won't you let me stay here a few minutes, and tell me
what to do? I am so tired, and I have had such a dreadful, awful time!"

"Why, dearie me!" said the old lady. "Of course I will. Poor child; sit
right down in this rocking-chair, and have a good cry. I'll get you a
glass of water and something to eat, and then you shall tell me all about
it."

She brought the water, and a tray with nice broad slices of brown bread
and butter, a generous piece of apple pie, some cheese, and a glass
pitcher of creamy milk.

Elizabeth drank the water, but before she could eat she told the terrible
tale of her last adventure. It seemed awful for her to believe, and she
felt she must have help somewhere. She had heard there were bad people in
the world. In fact, she had seen men who were bad, and once a woman had
passed their ranch whose character was said to be questionable. She wore a
hard face, and could drink and swear like the men. But that sin should be
in this form, with pretty girls and pleasant, wheedling women for agents,
she had never dreamed; and this in the great, civilized East! Almost
better would it have been to remain in the desert alone, and risk the
pursuit of that awful man, than to come all this way to find the world
gone wrong.

The old lady was horrified, too. She had heard more than the girl of
licensed evil; but she had read it in the paper as she had read about the
evils of the slave-traffic in Africa, and it had never really seemed true
to her. Now she lifted up her hands in horror, and looked at the beautiful
girl before her with something akin to awe that she had been in one of
those dens of iniquity and escaped. Over and over she made the girl tell
what was said, and how it looked, and how she pointed her pistol, and how
she got out; and then she exclaimed in wonder, and called her escape a
miracle.

They were both weary from excitement when the tale was told. Elizabeth ate
her lunch; then the old lady showed her where to put the horse, and made
her go to bed. It was only a wee little room with a cot-bed white as snow
where she put her; but the roses peeped in at the window, and the box
covered with an old white curtain contained a large pitcher of fresh
water and a bowl and soap and towels. The old lady brought her a clean
white nightgown, coarse and mended in many places, but smelling of rose
leaves; and in the morning she tapped at the door quite early before the
girl was up, and came in with an armful of clothes.

"I had some boarders last summer," she explained, "and, when they went
away, they left these things and said I might put them into the
home-mission box. But I was sick when they sent it off this winter; and,
if you ain't a home mission, then I never saw one. You put 'em on. I guess
they'll fit. They may be a mite large, but she was about your size. I
guess your clothes are about wore out; so you jest leave 'em here fer the
next one, and use these. There's a couple of extra shirt-waists you can
put in a bundle for a change. I guess folks won't dare fool with you if
you have some clean, nice clothes on."

Elizabeth looked at her gratefully, and wrote her down in the list of
saints with the woman who read the fourteenth chapter of John. The old
lady had neglected to mention that from her own meagre wardrobe she had
supplied some under-garments, which were not included in those the
boarders had left.

Bathed and clothed in clean, sweet garments, with a white shirt-waist and
a dark-blue serge skirt and coat, Elizabeth looked a different girl. She
surveyed herself in the little glass over the box-washstand and wondered.
All at once vanity was born within her, and an ambition to be always thus
clothed, with a horrible remembrance of the woman of the day before, who
had promised to show her how to earn some pretty clothes. It flashed
across her mind that pretty clothes might be a snare. Perhaps they had
been to those girls she had seen in that house.

With much good advice and kindly blessings from the old lady, Elizabeth
fared forth upon her journey once more, sadly wise in the wisdom of the
world, and less sweetly credulous than she had been, but better fitted to
fight her way.

The story of her journey from Chicago to Philadelphia would fill a volume
if it were written, but it might pall upon the reader from the very
variety of its experiences. It was made slowly and painfully, with many
haltings and much lessening of the scanty store of money that had seemed
so much when she received it in the wilderness. The horse went lame, and
had to be watched over and petted, and finally, by the advice of a kindly
farmer, taken to a veterinary surgeon, who doctored him for a week before
he finally said it was safe to let him hobble on again. After that the
girl was more careful of the horse. If he should die, what would she do?

One dismal morning, late in November, Elizabeth, wearing the old overcoat
to keep her from freezing, rode into Philadelphia.

Armed with instructions from the old lady in Chicago, she rode boldly up
to a policeman, and showed him the address of the grandmother to whom she
had decided to go first, her mother's mother. He sent her on in the right
direction, and in due time with the help of other policemen she reached
the right number on Flora Street.

It was a narrow street, banked on either side by small, narrow brick
houses of the older type. Here and there gleamed out a scrap of a white
marble door-step, but most of the houses were approached by steps of dull
stone or of painted wood. There was a dejected and dreary air about the
place. The street was swarming with children in various stages of the
soiled condition.

Elizabeth timidly knocked at the door after being assured by the
interested urchins who surrounded her that Mrs. Brady really lived there,
and had not moved away or anything. It did not seem wonderful to the girl,
who had lived her life thus far in a mountain shack, to find her
grandmother still in the place from which she had written fifteen years
before. She did not yet know what a floating population most cities
contain.

Mrs. Brady was washing when the knock sounded through the house. She was a
broad woman, with a face on which the cares and sorrows of the years had
left a not too heavy impress. She still enjoyed life, even though a good
part of it was spent at the wash-tub, washing other people's fine clothes.
She had some fine ones of her own up-stairs in her clothes-press; and,
when she went out, it was in shiny satin, with a bonnet bobbing with jet
and a red rose, though of late years, strictly speaking, the bonnet had
become a hat again, and Mrs. Brady was in style with the other old ladies.

The perspiration was in little beads on her forehead and trickling down
the creases in her well-cushioned neck toward her ample bosom. Her gray
hair was neatly combed, and her calico wrapper was open at the throat even
on this cold day. She wiped on her apron the soap-suds from her plump arms
steaming pink from the hot suds, and went to the door.

She looked with disfavor upon the peculiar person on the door-step attired
in a man's overcoat. She was prepared to refuse the demands of the
Salvation Army for a nickel for Christmas dinners; or to silence the
banana-man, or the fish-man, or the man with shoe-strings and pins and
pencils for sale; or to send the photograph-agent on his way; yes, even
the man who sold albums for post-cards. She had no time to bother with
anybody this morning.

But the young person in the rusty overcoat, with the dark-blue serge Eton
jacket under it, which might have come from Wanamaker's two years ago, who
yet wore a leather belt with gleaming pistols under the Eton jacket, was a
new species. Mrs. Brady was taken off her guard; else Elizabeth might have
found entrance to her grandmother's home as difficult as she had found
entrance to the finishing school of Madame Janeway.

"Are you Mrs. Brady?" asked the girl. She was searching the forbidding
face before her for some sign of likeness to her mother, but found none.
The cares of Elizabeth Brady's daughter had outweighed those of the
mother, or else they sat upon a nature more sensitive.

"I am," said Mrs. Brady, imposingly.

"Grandmother, I am the baby you talked about in that letter," she
announced, handing Mrs. Brady the letter she had written nearly eighteen
years before.

The woman took the envelope gingerly in the wet thumb and finger that
still grasped a bit of the gingham apron. She held it at arm's length, and
squinted up her eyes, trying to read it without her glasses. It was some
new kind of beggar, of course. She hated to touch these dirty envelopes,
and this one looked old and worn. She stepped back to the parlor table
where her glasses were lying, and, adjusting them, began to read the
letter.

"For the land sakes! Where'd you find this?" she said, looking up
suspiciously. "It's against the law to open letters that ain't your own.
Didn't me daughter ever get it? I wrote it to her meself. How come you by
it?"

"Mother read it to me long ago when I was little," answered the girl, the
slow hope fading from her lips as she spoke. Was every one, was even her
grandmother, going to be cold and harsh with her? "Our Father, hide me!"
her heart murmured, because it had become a habit; and her listening
thought caught the answer, "Let not your heart be troubled."

"Well, who are you?" said the uncordial grandmother, still puzzled. "You
ain't Bessie, me Bessie. Fer one thing, you're 'bout as young as she was
when she went off 'n' got married, against me 'dvice, to that drunken,
lazy dude." Her brow was lowering, and she proceeded to finish her letter.

"I am Elizabeth," said the girl with a trembling voice, "the baby you
talked about in that letter. But please don't call father that. He wasn't
ever bad to us. He was always good to mother, even when he was drunk. If
you talk like that about him, I shall have to go away."

"Fer the land sakes! You don't say," said Mrs. Brady, sitting down hard in
astonishment on the biscuit upholstery of her best parlor chair. "Now you
ain't Bessie's child! Well, I _am clear_ beat. And growed up so big! You
look strong, but you're kind of thin. What makes your skin so black? Your
ma never was dark, ner your pa, neither."

"I've been riding a long way in the wind and sun and rain."

"Fer the land sakes!" as she looked through the window to the street. "Not
on a horse?"

"Yes."

"H'm! What was your ma thinkin' about to let you do that?"

"My mother is dead. There was no one left to care what I did. I had to
come. There were dreadful people out there, and I was afraid."

"Fer the land sakes!" That seemed the only remark that the capable Mrs.
Brady could make. She looked at her new granddaughter in bewilderment, as
if a strange sort of creature had suddenly laid claim to relationship.

"Well, I'm right glad to see you," she said stiffly, wiping her hand again
on her apron and putting it out formally for a greeting.

Elizabeth accepted her reception gravely, and sat down. She sat down
suddenly, as if her strength had given way and a great strain was at an
end. As she sat down, she drooped her head back against the wall; and a
gray look spread about her lips.

"You're tired," said the grandmother, energetically. "Come far this
morning?"

"No," said Elizabeth, weakly, "not many miles; but I hadn't any more
bread. I used it all up yesterday, and there wasn't much money left. I
thought I could wait till I got here, but I guess I'm hungry."

"Fer the land sakes!" ejaculated Mrs. Brady as she hustled out to the
kitchen, and clattered the frying-pan onto the stove, shoving the boiler
hastily aside. She came in presently with a steaming cup of tea, and made
the girl drink it hot and strong. Then she established her in the big
rocking-chair in the kitchen with a plate of appetizing things to eat, and
went on with her washing, punctuating every rub with a question.

Elizabeth felt better after her meal, and offered to help, but the
grandmother would not hear to her lifting a finger.

"You must rest first," she said. "It beats me how you ever got here. I'd
sooner crawl on me hands and knees than ride a great, scary horse."

Elizabeth sprang to her feet.

"The horse!" she said. "Poor fellow! He needs something to eat worse than
I did. He hasn't had a bite of grass all this morning. There was nothing
but hard roads and pavements. The grass is all brown, anyway, now. I found
some cornstalks by the road, and once a man dropped a big bundle of hay
out of his load. If it hadn't been for Robin, I'd never have got here; and
here I've sat enjoying my breakfast, and Robin out there hungry!"

"Fer the land sakes!" said the grandmother, taking her arms out of the
suds and looked troubled. "Poor fellow! What would he like? I haven't got
any hay, but there's some mashed potatoes left, and what is there? Why,
there's some excelsior the lamp-shade come packed in. You don't suppose
he'd think it was hay, do you? No, I guess it wouldn't taste very good."

"Where can I put him, grandmother?"

"Fer the land sakes! I don't know," said the grandmother, looking around
the room in alarm. "We haven't any place fer horses. Perhaps you might get
him into the back yard fer a while till we think what to do. There's a
stable, but they charge high to board horses. Lizzie knows one of the
fellers that works there. Mebbe he'll tell us what to do. Anyway, you lead
him round to the alleyway, and we'll see if we can't get him in the little
ash-gate. You don't suppose he'd try to get in the house, do you? I
shouldn't like him to come in the kitchen when I was getting supper."

"O no!" said Elizabeth. "He's very good. Where is the back yard?"

This arrangement was finally made, and the two women stood in the kitchen
door, watching Robin drink a bucketful of water and eat heartily of the
various viands that Mrs. Brady set forth for him, with the exception of
the excelsior, which he snuffed at in disgust.

"Now, ain't he smart?" said Mrs. Brady, watching fearfully from the
door-step, where she might retreat if the animal showed any tendency to
step nearer to the kitchen. "But don't you think he's cold? Wouldn't he
like a--a--shawl or something?"

The girl drew the old coat from her shoulders, and threw it over him, her
grandmother watching her fearless handling of the horse with pride and
awe.

"We're used to sharing this together," said the girl simply.

"Nan sews in an up-town dressmaker's place," explained Mrs. Brady by and
by, when the wash was hung out in fearsome proximity to the weary horse's
heels, and the two had returned to the warm kitchen to clean up and get
supper. "Nan's your ma's sister, you know, older'n her by two year; and
Lizzie, that's her girl, she's about 's old 's you. She's got a good place
in the ten-cent store. Nan's husband died four years ago, and her and
me've been livin' together ever since. It'll be nice fer you and Lizzie to
be together. She'll make it lively fer you right away. Prob'ly she can get
you a place at the same store. She'll be here at half past six to-night.
This is her week to get out early."

The aunt came in first. She was a tall, thin woman with faded brown hair
and a faint resemblance to Elizabeth's mother. Her shoulders stooped
slightly, and her voice was nasal. Her mouth looked as if it was used to
holding pins in one corner and gossiping out of the other. She was one of
the kind who always get into a rocking-chair to sew if they can, and rock
as they sew. Nevertheless, she was skilful in her way, and commanded good
wages. She welcomed the new niece reluctantly, more excited over her
remarkable appearance among her relatives after so long a silence than
pleased, Elizabeth felt. But after she had satisfied her curiosity she was
kind, beginning to talk about Lizzie, and mentally compared this thin,
brown girl with rough hair and dowdy clothes to her own stylish daughter.
Then Lizzie burst in. They could hear her calling to a young man who had
walked home with her, even before she entered the house.

"It's just fierce out, ma!" she exclaimed. "Grandma, ain't supper ready
yet? I never was so hungry in all my life. I could eat a house afire."

She stopped short at sight of Elizabeth. She had been chewing gum--Lizzie
was always chewing gum--but her jaws ceased action in sheer astonishment.

"This is your cousin Bessie, come all the way from Montana on horseback,
Lizzie. She's your aunt Bessie's child. Her folks is dead now, and she's
come to live with us. You must see ef you can't get her a place in the
ten-cent store 'long with you," said the grandmother.

Lizzie came airily forward, and grasped her cousin's hand in mid-air,
giving it a lateral shake that bewildered Elizabeth.

"Pleased to meet you," she chattered glibly, and set her jaws to work
again. One could not embarrass Lizzie long. But she kept her eyes on the
stranger, and let them wander disapprovingly over her apparel in a pointed
way as she took out the long hat-pins from the cumbersome hat she wore and
adjusted her ponderous pompadour.

"Lizzie'll have to help fix you up," said the aunt noting Lizzie's glance.
"You're all out of style. I suppose they get behind times out in Montana.
Lizzie, can't you show her how to fix her hair pompadour?"

Lizzie brightened. If there was a prospect of changing things, she was not
averse to a cousin of her own age; but she never could take such a
dowdy-looking girl into society, not the society of the ten-cent store.

"O, cert!" answered Lizzie affably. "I'll fix you fine. Don't you worry.
How'd you get so awful tanned? I s'pose riding. You look like you'd been
to the seashore, and lay out on the beach in the sun. But 'tain't the
right time o' year quite. It must be great to ride horseback!"

"I'll teach you how if you want to learn," said Elizabeth, endeavoring to
show a return of the kindly offer.

"Me? What would I ride? Have to ride a counter, I guess. I guess you won't
find much to ride here in the city, 'cept trolley-cars."

"Bessie's got a horse. He's out in the yard now," said the grandmother
with pride.

"A horse! All your own? Gee whiz! Won't the girls stare when I tell them?
Say, we can borrow a rig at the livery some night, and take a ride. Dan'll
go with us, and get the rig for us. Won't that be great?"

Elizabeth smiled. She felt the glow of at last contributing something to
the family pleasure. She did not wish her coming to be so entirely a wet
blanket as it had seemed at first; for, to tell the truth, she had seen
blank dismay on the face of each separate relative as her identity had
been made known. Her heart was lonely, and she hungered for some one who
"belonged" and loved her.

Supper was put on the table, and the two girls began to get a little
acquainted, chattering over clothes and the arrangement of hair.

"Do you know whether there is anything in Philadelphia called 'Christian
Endeavor'?" asked Elizabeth after the supper-table was cleared off.

"O, Chrishun'deavor! Yes, I used t' b'long," answered Lizzie. She had
removed the gum from her mouth while she ate her supper, but now it was
busy again between sentences. "Yes, we have one down to our church. It was
real interesting, too; but I got mad at one of the members, and quit. She
was a stuck-up old maid, anyway. She was always turning round and scowling
at us girls if we just whispered the least little bit, or smiled; and one
night she was leading the meeting, and Jim Forbes got in a corner behind a
post, and made mouths at her behind his book. He looked awful funny. It
was something fierce the way she always screwed her face up when she sang,
and he looked just like her. We girls, Hetty and Em'line and I, got to
laughing, and we just couldn't stop; and didn't that old thing stop the
singing after one verse, and look right at us, and say she thought
Christian Endeavor members should remember whose house they were in, and
that the owner was there, and all that rot. I nearly died, I was so mad.
Everybody looked around, and we girls choked, and got up and went out. I
haven't been down since. The lookout committee came to see us 'bout it;
but I said I wouldn't go back where I'd been insulted, and I've never been
inside the doors since. But she's moved away now. I wouldn't mind going
back if you want to go."

"Whose house did she mean it was? Was it her house?"

"O, no, it wasn't her house," laughed Lizzie. "It was the church. She
meant it was God's house, I s'pose, but she needn't have been so
pernickety. We weren't doing any harm."

"Does God have a house?"

"Why, yes; didn't you know that? Why, you talk like a heathen, Bessie.
Didn't you have churches in Montana?"

"Yes, there was a church fifty miles away. I heard about it once, but I
never saw it," answered Elizabeth. "But what did the woman mean? Who did
she say was there? God? Was God in the church? Did you see Him, and know
He was there when you laughed?"

"O, you silly!" giggled Lizzie. "Wouldn't the girls laugh at you, though,
if they could hear you talk? Why, of course God was there. He's
everywhere, you know," with superior knowledge; "but I didn't see Him. You
can't see God."

"Why not?"

"Why, because you can't!" answered her cousin with final logic. "Say,
haven't you got any other clothes with you at all? I'd take you down with
me in the morning if you was fixed up."



CHAPTER XI

IN FLIGHT AGAIN


When Elizabeth lay down to rest that night, with Lizzie still chattering
by her side, she found that there was one source of intense pleasure in
anticipation, and that was the prospect of going to God's house to
Christian Endeavor. Now perhaps she would be able to find out what it all
had meant, and whether it were true that God took care of people and hid
them in time of trouble. She felt almost certain in her own little
experience that He had cared for her, and she wanted to be quite sure, so
that she might grasp this precious truth to her heart and keep it forever.
No one could be quite alone in the world if there was a God who cared and
loved and hid.

The aunt and the grandmother were up betimes the next morning, looking
over some meagre stores of old clothing, and there was found an old dress
which it was thought could be furbished over for Elizabeth. They were
hard-working people with little money to spare, and everything had to be
utilized; but they made a great deal of appearance, and Lizzie was proud
as a young peacock. She would not take Elizabeth to the store to face the
head man without having her fixed up according to the most approved style.

So the aunt cut and fitted before she went off for the day, and Elizabeth
was ordered to sew while she was gone. The grandmother presided at the
rattling old sewing-machine, and in two or three days Elizabeth was
pronounced to be fixed up enough to do for the present till she could
earn some new clothes. With her fine hair snarled into a cushion and
puffed out into an enormous pompadour that did not suit her face in the
least, and with an old hat and jacket of Lizzie's which did not become her
nor fit her exactly, she started out to make her way in the world as a
saleswoman. Lizzie had already secured her a place if she suited.

The store was a maze of wonder to the girl from the mountains--so many
bright, bewildering things, ribbons and tin pans, glassware and toys,
cheap jewelry and candies. She looked about with the dazed eyes of a
creature from another world.

But the manager looked upon her with eyes of favor. He saw that her eyes
were bright and keen. He was used to judging faces. He saw that she was as
yet unspoiled, with a face of refinement far beyond the general run of the
girls who applied to him for positions. And he was not beyond a friendly
flirtation with a pretty new girl himself; so she was engaged at once, and
put on duty at the notion-counter.

The girls flocked around her during the intervals of custom. Lizzie had
told of her cousin's long ride, embellished, wherever her knowledge
failed, by her extremely wild notions of Western life. She had told how
Elizabeth arrived wearing a belt with two pistols, and this gave Elizabeth
standing at once among all the people in the store. A girl who could
shoot, and who wore pistols in a belt like a real cowboy, had a social
distinction all her own.

The novel-reading, theatre-going girls rallied around her to a girl; and
the young men in the store were not far behind. Elizabeth was popular from
the first. Moreover, as she settled down into the routine of life, and
had three meals every day, her cheeks began to round out just a little;
and it became apparent that she was unusually beautiful in spite of her
dark skin, which whitened gradually under the electric light and
high-pressure life of the store.

They went to Christian Endeavor, Elizabeth and her cousin; and Elizabeth
felt as if heaven had suddenly dropped down about her. She lived from week
to week for that Christian Endeavor.

The store, which had been a surprise and a novelty at first, began to be a
trial to her. It wore upon her nerves. The air was bad, and the crowds
were great. It was coming on toward Christmas time, and the store was
crammed to bursting day after day and night after night, for they kept
open evenings now until Christmas. Elizabeth longed for a breath from the
mountains, and grew whiter and thinner. Sometimes she felt as if she must
break away from it all, and take Robin, and ride into the wilderness
again. If it were not for the Christian Endeavor, she would have done so,
perhaps.

Robin, poor beast, was well housed and well fed; but he worked for his
living as did his mistress. He was a grocer's delivery horse, worked from
Monday morning early till Saturday night at ten o'clock, subject to curses
and kicks from the grocery boy, expected to stand meekly at the
curbstones, snuffing the dusty brick pavements while the boy delivered a
box of goods, and while trolleys and beer-wagons and automobiles slammed
and rumbled and tooted by him, and then to start on the double-quick to
the next stopping-place.

He to be thus under the rod who had trod the plains with a free foot and
snuffed the mountain air! It was a great come-down, and his life became a
weariness to him. But he earned his mistress a dollar a week besides his
board. There would have been some consolation in that to his faithful
heart if he only could have known it. Albeit she would have gladly gone
without the dollar if Robin could have been free and happy.

One day, one dreadful day, the manager of the ten-cent store came to
Elizabeth with a look in his eyes that reminded her of the man in Montana
from whom she had fled. He was smiling, and his words were unduly
pleasant. He wanted her to go with him to the theatre that evening, and he
complimented her on her appearance. He stated that he admired her
exceedingly, and wanted to give her pleasure. But somehow Elizabeth had
fallen into the habit ever since she left the prairies of comparing all
men with George Trescott Benedict; and this man, although he dressed well,
and was every bit as handsome, did not compare well. There was a sinister,
selfish glitter in his eyes that made Elizabeth think of the serpent on
the plain just before she shot it. Therefore Elizabeth declined the
invitation.

It happened that there was a missionary meeting at the church that
evening. All the Christian Endeavorers had been urged to attend. Elizabeth
gave this as an excuse; but the manager quickly swept that away, saying
she could go to church any night, but she could not go to this particular
play with him always. The girl eyed him calmly with much the same attitude
with which she might have pointed her pistol at his head, and said
gravely,

"But I do not want to go with you."

After that the manager hated her. He always hated girls who resisted him.
He hated her, and wanted to do her harm. But he fairly persecuted her to
receive his attentions. He was a young fellow, extremely young to be
occupying so responsible a position. He undoubtedly had business ability.
He showed it in his management of Elizabeth. The girl's life became a
torment to her. In proportion as she appeared to be the manager's favorite
the other girls became jealous of her. They taunted her with the manager's
attentions on every possible occasion. When they found anything wrong,
they charged it upon her; and so she was kept constantly going to the
manager, which was perhaps just what he wanted.

She grew paler and paler, and more and more desperate. She had run away
from one man; she had run away from a woman; but here was a man from whom
she could not run away unless she gave up her position. If it had not been
for her grandmother, she would have done so at once; but, if she gave up
her position, she would be thrown upon her grandmother for support, and
that must not be. She understood from the family talk that they were
having just as much as they could do already to make both ends meet and
keep the all-important god of Fashion satisfied. This god of Fashion had
come to seem to Elizabeth an enemy of the living God. It seemed to occupy
all people's thoughts, and everything else had to be sacrificed to meet
its demands.

She had broached the subject of school one evening soon after she arrived,
but was completely squelched by her aunt and cousin.

"You're too old!" sneered Lizzie. "School is for children."

"Lizzie went through grammar school, and we talked about high for her,"
said the grandmother proudly.

"But I just hated school," grinned Lizzie. "It ain't so nice as it's
cracked up to be. Just sit and study all day long. Why, they were always
keeping me after school for talking or laughing. I was glad enough when I
got through. You may thank your stars you didn't have to go, Bess."

"People who have to earn their bread can't lie around and go to school,"
remarked Aunt Nan dryly, and Elizabeth said no more.

But later she heard of a night-school, and then she took up the subject
once more. Lizzie scoffed at this. She said night-school was only for very
poor people, and it was a sort of disgrace to go. But Elizabeth stuck to
her point, until one day Lizzie came home with a tale about Temple
College. She had heard it was very cheap. You could go for ten cents a
night, or something like that. Things that were ten cents appealed to her.
She was used to bargain-counters.

She heard it was quite respectable to go there, and they had classes in
the evening. You could study gymnastics, and it would make you graceful.
She wanted to be graceful. And she heard they had a course in millinery.
If it was so, she believed she would go herself, and learn to make the new
kind of bows they were having on hats this winter. She could not seem to
get the right twist to the ribbon.

Elizabeth wanted to study geography. At least, that was the study Lizzie
said would tell her where the Desert of Sahara was. She wanted to know
things, all kinds of things; but Lizzie said such things were only for
children, and she didn't believe they taught such baby studies in a
college. But she would inquire. It was silly of Bessie to want to know,
she thought, and she was half ashamed to ask. But she would find out.

It was about this time that Elizabeth's life at the store grew
intolerable.

One morning--it was little more than a week before Christmas--Elizabeth
had been sent to the cellar to get seven little red tin pails and shovels
for a woman who wanted them for Christmas gifts for some Sunday-school
class. She had just counted out the requisite number and turned to go
up-stairs when she heard some one step near her, and, as she looked up in
the dim light, there stood the manager.

"At last I've got you alone, Bessie, my dear!" He said it with suave
triumph in his tones. He caught Elizabeth by the wrists, and before she
could wrench herself away he had kissed her.

With a scream Elizabeth dropped the seven tin pails and the seven tin
shovels, and with one mighty wrench took her hands from his grasp.
Instinctively her hand went to her belt, where were now no pistols. If one
had been there she certainly would have shot him in her horror and fury.
But, as she had no other weapon, she seized a little shovel, and struck
him in the face. Then with the frenzy of the desert back upon her she
rushed up the stairs, out through the crowded store, and into the street,
hatless and coatless in the cold December air. The passers-by made way for
her, thinking she had been sent out on some hurried errand.

She had left her pocketbook, with its pitifully few nickels for car-fare
and lunch, in the cloak-room with her coat and hat. But she did not stop
to think of that. She was fleeing again, this time on foot, from a man.
She half expected he might pursue her, and make her come back to the hated
work in the stifling store with his wicked face moving everywhere above
the crowds. But she turned not to look back. On over the slushy
pavements, under the leaden sky, with a few busy flakes floating about
her.

The day seemed pitiless as the world. Where could she go and what should
she do? There seemed no refuge for her in the wide world. Instinctively
she felt her grandmother would feel that a calamity had befallen them in
losing the patronage of the manager of the ten-cent store. Perhaps Lizzie
would get into trouble. What should she do?

She had reached the corner where she and Lizzie usually took the car for
home. The car was coming now; but she had no hat nor coat, and no money to
pay for a ride. She must walk. She paused not, but fled on in a steady
run, for which her years on the mountain had given her breath. Three miles
it was to Flora Street, and she scarcely slackened her pace after she had
settled into that steady half-run, half-walk. Only at the corner of Flora
Street she paused, and allowed herself to glance back once. No, the
manager had not pursued her. She was safe. She might go in and tell her
grandmother without fearing he would come behind her as soon as her back
was turned.



CHAPTER XII

ELIZABETH'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE


Mrs. Brady was at the wash-tub again when her most uncommon and unexpected
grandchild burst into the room.

She wiped her hands on her apron, and sat down with her usual exclamation,
"Fer the land sakes! What's happened? Bessie, tell me quick. Is anything
the matter with Lizzie? Where is she?"

But Elizabeth was on the floor at her feet in tears. She was shaking with
sobs, and could scarcely manage to stammer out that Lizzie was all right.
Mrs. Brady settled back with a relieved sigh. Lizzie was the first
grandchild, and therefore the idol of her heart. If Lizzie was all right,
she could afford to be patient and find out by degrees.

"It's that awful man, grandmother!" Elizabeth sobbed out.

"What man? That feller in Montana you run away from?" The grandmother sat
up with snapping eyes. She was not afraid of a man, even if he did shoot
people. She would call in the police and protect her own flesh and blood.
Let him come. Mrs. Brady was ready for him.

"No, no, grandmother, the man--man--manager at the ten-cent store," sobbed
the girl; "he kissed me! Oh!" and she shuddered as if the memory was the
most terrible thing that ever came to her.

"Fer the land sakes! Is that all?" said the woman with much relief and a
degree of satisfaction. "Why, that's nothing. You ought to be proud. Many
a girl would go boasting round about that. What are you crying for? He
didn't hurt you, did he? Why, Lizzie seems to think he's fine. I tell you
Lizzie wouldn't cry if he was to kiss her, I'm sure. She'd just laugh, and
ask him fer a holiday. Here, sit up, child, and wash your face, and go
back to your work. You've evidently struck the manager on the right side,
and you're bound to get a rise in your wages. Every girl he takes a notion
to gets up and does well. Perhaps you'll get money enough to go to school.
Goodness knows what you want to go for. I s'pose it's in the blood, though
Bess used to say your pa wa'n't any great at study. But, if you've struck
the manager the right way, no telling what he might do. He might even want
to marry you."

"Grandmother!"

Mrs. Brady was favored with the flashing of the Bailey eyes. She viewed it
in astonishment not unmixed with admiration.

"Well, you certainly have got spirit," she ejaculated. "I don't wonder he
liked you. I didn't know you was so pretty, Bessie; you look like your
mother when she was eighteen; you really do. I never saw the resemblance
before. I believe you'll get on all right. Don't you be afraid. I wish you
had your chance if you're so anxious to go to school. I shouldn't wonder
ef you'd turn out to be something and marry rich. Well, I must be getting
back to me tub. Land sakes, but you did give me a turn. I thought Lizzie
had been run over. I couldn't think what else'd make you run off way here
without your coat. Come, get up, child, and go back to your work. It's
too bad you don't like to be kissed, but don't let that worry you. You'll
have lots worse than that to come up against. When you've lived as long as
I have and worked as hard, you'll be pleased to have some one admire you.
You better wash your face, and eat a bite of lunch, and hustle back. You
needn't be afraid. If he's fond of you, he won't bother about your running
away a little. He'll excuse you ef 'tis busy times, and not dock your pay
neither."

"Grandmother!" said Elizabeth. "Don't! I can never go back to that awful
place and that man. I would rather go back to Montana. I would rather be
dead."

"Hoity-toity!" said the easy-going grandmother, sitting down to her task,
for she perceived some wholesome discipline was necessary. "You can't talk
that way, Bess. You got to go to your work. We ain't got money to keep you
in idleness, and land knows where you'd get another place as good's this
one. Ef you stay home all day, you might make him awful mad; and then it
would be no use goin' back, and you might lose Lizzie her place too."

But, though the grandmother talked and argued and soothed by turns,
Elizabeth was firm. She would not go back. She would never go back. She
would go to Montana if her grandmother said any more about it.

With a sigh at last Mrs. Brady gave up. She had given up once before
nearly twenty years ago. Bessie, her oldest daughter, had a will like
that, and tastes far above her station. Mrs. Brady wondered where she got
them.

"You're fer all the world like yer ma," she said as she thumped the
clothes in the wash-tub. "She was jest that way, when she would marry your
pa. She could 'a' had Jim Stokes, the groceryman, or Lodge, the milkman,
or her choice of three railroad men, all of 'em doing well, and ready to
let her walk over 'em; but she would have your pa, the drunken,
good-for-nothing, slippery dude. The only thing I'm surprised at was that
he ever married her. I never expected it. I s'posed they'd run off, and
he'd leave her when he got tired of her; but it seems he stuck to her.
It's the only good thing he ever done, and I'm not sure but she'd 'a' been
better off ef he hadn't 'a' done that."

"Grandmother!" Elizabeth's face blazed.

"Yes, _gran_'mother!" snapped Mrs. Brady. "It's all true, and you might's
well face it. He met her in church. She used to go reg'lar. Some boys used
to come and set in the back seat behind the girls, and then go home with
them. They was all nice enough boys 'cept him. I never had a bit a use fer
him. He belonged to the swells and the stuck-ups; and he knowed it, and
presumed upon it. He jest thought he could wind Bessie round his finger,
and he did. If he said, 'Go,' she went, no matter what I'd do. So, when
his ma found it out, she was hoppin' mad. She jest came driving round here
to me house, and presumed to talk to me. She said Bessie was a designing
snip, and a bad girl, and a whole lot of things. Said she was leading her
son astray, and would come to no good end, and a whole lot of stuff; and
told me to look after her. It wasn't so. Bess got John Bailey to quit
smoking fer a whole week at a time, and he said if she'd marry him he'd
quit drinking too. His ma couldn't 'a' got him to promise that. She
wouldn't even believe he got drunk. I told her a few things about her
precious son, but she curled her fine, aristocratic lip up, and said,
'Gentlemen never get drunk.' Humph! Gentlemen! That's all she knowed about
it. He got drunk all right, and stayed drunk, too. So after that, when I
tried to keep Bess at home, she slipped away one night; said she was going
to church; and she did too; went to the minister's study in a strange
church, and got married, her and John; and then they up and off West.
John, he'd sold his watch and his fine diamond stud his ma had give him;
and he borrowed some money from some friends of his father's, and he off
with three hundred dollars and Bess; and that's all I ever saw more of me
Bessie."

The poor woman sat down in her chair, and wept into her apron regardless
for once of the soap-suds that rolled down her red, wet arms.

"Is my grandmother living yet?" asked Elizabeth. She was sorry for this
grandmother, but did not know what to say. She was afraid to comfort her
lest she take it for yielding.

"Yes, they say she is," said Mrs. Brady, sitting up with a show of
interest. She was always ready for a bit of gossip. "Her husband's dead,
and her other son's dead, and she's all alone. She lives in a big house on
Rittenhouse Square. If she was any 'count, she'd ought to provide fer you.
I never thought about it. But I don't suppose it would be any use to try.
You might ask her. Perhaps she'd help you go to school. You've got a claim
on her. She ought to give you her son's share of his father's property,
though I've heard she disowned him when he married our Bess. You might fix
up in some of Lizzie's best things, and go up there and try. She might
give you some money."

"I don't want her money," said Elizabeth stiffly. "I guess there's work
somewhere in the world I can do without begging even of grandmothers. But
I think I ought to go and see her. She might want to know about father."

Mrs. Brady looked at her granddaughter wonderingly. This was a view of
things she had never taken.

"Well," said she resignedly, "go your own gait. I don't know where you'll
come up at. All I say is, ef you're going through the world with such high
and mighty fine notions, you'll have a hard time. You can't pick out roses
and cream and a bed of down every day. You have to put up with life as you
find it."

Elizabeth went to her room, the room she shared with Lizzie. She wanted to
get away from her grandmother's disapproval. It lay on her heart like
lead. Was there no refuge in the world? If grandmothers were not refuges,
where should one flee? The old lady in Chicago had understood; why had not
Grandmother Brady?

Then came the sweet old words, "Let not your heart be troubled." "In the
time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me." She knelt down by the bed and said "Our
Father." She was beginning to add some words of her own now. She had heard
them pray so in Christian Endeavor in the sentence prayers. She wished she
knew more about God, and His Book. She had had so little time to ask or
think about it. Life seemed all one rush for clothes and position.

At supper-time Lizzie came home much excited. She had been in hot water
all the afternoon. The girls had said at lunch-time that the manager was
angry with Bessie, and had discharged her. She found her coat and hat, and
had brought them home. The pocketbook was missing. There was only fifteen
cents in it; but Lizzie was much disturbed, and so was the grandmother.
They had a quiet consultation in the kitchen; and, when the aunt came,
there was another whispered conversation among the three.

Elizabeth felt disapproval in the air. Aunt Nan came, and sat down beside
her, and talked very coldly about expenses and being dependent upon one's
relatives, and let her understand thoroughly that she could not sit around
and do nothing; but Elizabeth answered by telling her how the manager had
been treating her. The aunt then gave her a dose of worldly wisdom, which
made the girl shrink into herself. It needed only Lizzie's loud-voiced
exhortations to add to her misery and make her feel ready to do anything.
Supper was a most unpleasant meal. At last the grandmother spoke up.

"Well, Bessie," she said firmly, "we've decided, all of us, that, if you
are going to be stubborn about this, something will have to be done; and I
think the best thing is for you to go to Mrs. Bailey and see what she'll
do for you. It's her business, anyway."

Elizabeth's cheeks were very red. She said nothing. She let them go on
with the arrangements. Lizzie went and got her best hat, and tried it on
Elizabeth to see how she would look, and produced a silk waist from her
store of garments, and a spring jacket. It wasn't very warm, it is true;
but Lizzie explained that the occasion demanded strenuous measures, and
the jacket was undoubtedly stylish, which was the main thing to be
considered. One could afford to be cold if one was stylish.

Lizzie was up early the next morning. She had agreed to put Elizabeth in
battle-array for her visit to Rittenhouse Square. Elizabeth submitted
meekly to her borrowed adornings. Her hair was brushed over her face, and
curled on a hot iron, and brushed backward in a perfect mat, and then
puffed out in a bigger pompadour than usual. The silk waist was put on
with Lizzie's best skirt, and she was adjured not to let that drag. Then
the best hat with the cheap pink plumes was set atop the elaborate
coiffure; the jacket was put on; and a pair of Lizzie's long silk gloves
were struggled into. They were a trite large when on, but to the hands
unaccustomed to gloves they were like being run into a mould.

Elizabeth stood it all until she was pronounced complete. Then she came
and stood in front of the cheap little glass, and surveyed herself. There
were blisters in the glass that twisted her head into a grotesque shape.
The hairpins stuck into her head. Lizzie had tied a spotted veil tight
over her nose and eyes. The collar of the silk waist was frayed, and cut
her neck. The skirt-band was too tight, and the gloves were torture.
Elizabeth turned slowly, and went down-stairs, past the admiring aunt and
grandmother, who exclaimed at the girl's beauty, now that she was attired
to their mind, and encouraged her by saying they were sure her grandmother
would want to do something for so pretty a girl.

Lizzie called out to her not to worry, as she flew for her car. She said
she had heard there was a variety show in town where they wanted a girl
who could shoot. If she didn't succeed with her grandmother, they would
try and get her in at the show. The girls at the store knew a man who had
charge of it. They said he liked pretty girls, and they thought would be
glad to get her. Indeed, Mary James had promised to speak to him last
night, and would let her know to-day about it. It would likely be a job
more suited to her cousin's liking.

Elizabeth shuddered. Another man! Would he be like all the rest?--all the
rest save one!

She walked a few steps in the direction she had been told to go, and then
turned resolutely around, and came back. The watching grandmother felt her
heart sink. What was this headstrong girl going to do next? Rebel again?

"What's the matter, Bessie?" she asked, meeting her anxiously at the door.
"It's bad luck to turn back when you've started."

"I can't go this way," said the girl excitedly. "It's all a cheat. I'm not
like this. It isn't mine, and I'm not going in it. I must have my own
clothes and be myself when I go to see her. If she doesn't like me and
want me, then I can take Robin and go back." And like another David
burdened with Saul's armor she came back to get her little sling and
stones.

She tore off the veil, and the sticky gloves from her cold hands, and all
the finery of silk waist and belt, and donned her old plain blue coat and
skirt in which she had arrived in Philadelphia. They had been frugally
brushed and sponged, and made neat for a working dress. Elizabeth felt
that they belonged to her. Under the jacket, which fortunately was long
enough to hide her waist, she buckled her belt with the two pistols. Then
she took the battered old felt hat from the closet, and tried to fasten it
on; but the pompadour interfered. Relentlessly she pulled down the work of
art that Lizzie had created, and brushed and combed her long, thick hair
into subjection again, and put it in its long braid down her back. Her
grandmother should see her just as she was. She should know what kind of a
girl belonged to her. Then, if she chose to be a real grandmother, well
and good.

Mrs. Brady was much disturbed in mind when Elizabeth came down-stairs. She
exclaimed in horror, and tried to force the girl to go back, telling her
it was a shame and disgrace to go in such garments into the sacred
precincts of Rittenhouse Square; but the girl was not to be turned back.
She would not even wait till her aunt and Lizzie came home. She would go
now, at once.

Mrs. Brady sat down in her rocking-chair in despair for full five minutes
after she had watched the reprehensible girl go down the street. She had
not been so completely beaten since the day when her own Bessie left the
house and went away to a wild West to die in her own time and way. The
grandmother shed a few tears. This girl was like her own Bessie, and she
could not help loving her, though there was a streak of something else
about her that made her seem above them all; and that was hard to bear. It
must be the Bailey streak, of course. Mrs. Brady did not admire the
Baileys, but she was obliged to reverence them.

If she had watched or followed Elizabeth, she would have been still more
horrified. The girl went straight to the corner grocery, and demanded her
own horse, handing back to the man the dollar he had paid her last
Saturday night, and saying she had need of the horse at once. After some
parley, in which she showed her ability to stand her own ground, the boy
unhitched the horse from the wagon, and got her own old saddle for her
from the stable. Then Elizabeth mounted her horse and rode away to
Rittenhouse Square.



CHAPTER XIII

ANOTHER GRANDMOTHER


Elizabeth's idea in taking the horse along with her was to have all her
armor on, as a warrior goes out to meet the foe. If this grandmother
proved impossible, why, then so long as she had life and breath and a
horse she could flee. The world was wide, and the West was still open to
her. She could flee back to the wilderness that gave her breath.

The old horse stopped gravely and disappointedly before the tall,
aristocratic house in Rittenhouse Square. He had hoped that city life was
now to end, and that he and his dear mistress were to travel back to their
beloved prairies. No amount of oats could ever make up to him for his
freedom, and the quiet, and the hills. He had a feeling that he should
like to go back home and die. He had seen enough of the world.

She fastened the halter to a ring in the sidewalk, which surprised him.
The grocer's boy never fastened him. He looked up questioningly at the
house, but saw no reason why his mistress should go in there. It was not
familiar ground. Koffee and Sons never came up this way.

Elizabeth, as she crossed the sidewalk and mounted the steps before the
formidable carved doors, felt that here was the last hope of finding an
earthly habitation. If this failed her, then there was the desert, and
starvation, and a long, long sleep. But while the echo of the cell still
sounded through the high-ceiled hall there came to her the words: "Let not
your heart be troubled.... In my Father's house are many mansions; if it
were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.... I
will come again and receive you." How sweet that was! Then, even if she
died on the desert, there was a home prepared for her. So much she had
learned in Christian Endeavor meeting.

The stately butler let her in. He eyed her questioningly at first, and
said madam was not up yet; but Elizabeth told him she would wait.

"Is she sick?" asked Elizabeth with a strange constriction about her
heart.

"O no, she is not up yet, miss," said the kind old butler; "she never gets
up before this. You're from Mrs. Sands, I suppose." Poor soul, for once
his butler eyes had been mistaken. He thought she was the little
errand-girl from Madam Bailey's modiste.

"No, I'm just Elizabeth," said the girl, smiling. She felt that this man,
whoever he was, was not against her. He was old, and he had a kind look.

He still thought she meant she was not the modiste, just her errand-girl.
Her quaint dress and the long braid down her back made her look like a
child.

"I'll tell her you've come. Be seated," said the butler, and gave her a
chair in the dim hall just opposite the parlor door, where she had a
glimpse of elegance such as she had never dreamed existed. She tried to
think how it must be to live in such a room and walk on velvet. The carpet
was deep and rich. She did not know it was a rug nor that it was woven in
some poor peasant's home and then was brought here years afterward at a
fabulous price. She only knew it was beautiful in its silvery sheen with
gleaming colors through it like jewels in the dew.

On through another open doorway she caught a glimpse of a painting on the
wall. It was a man as large as life, sitting in a chair; and the face and
attitude were her father's--her father at his best. She was fairly
startled. Who was it? Could it be her father? And how had they made this
picture of him? He must be changed in those twenty years he had been gone
from home.

Then the butler came back, and before he could speak she pointed toward
the picture. "Who is it?" she asked.

"That, miss? That's Mr. John, Madam's husband that's dead a good many
years now. But I remember him well."

"Could I look at it? He is so much like my father." She walked rapidly
over the ancient rug, unheeding its beauties, while the wondering butler
followed a trifle anxiously. This was unprecedented. Mrs. Sands's
errand-girls usually knew their place.

"Madam said you was to come right up to her room," said the butler
pointedly. But Elizabeth stood rooted to the ground, studying the picture.
The butler had to repeat the message. She smiled and turned to follow him,
and as she did so saw on a side wall the portraits of two boys.

"Who are they?" she pointed swiftly. They were much like her own two
brothers.

"Them are Mr. John and Mr. James, Madam's two sons. They's both of them
dead now," said the butler. "At least, Mr. James is, I'm sure. He died two
years ago. But you better come right up. Madam will be wondering."

She followed the old man up the velvet-shod stairs that gave back no
sound from footfall, and pondered as she went. Then that was her father,
that boy with the beautiful face and the heavy wavy hair tossed back from
his forehead, and the haughty, imperious, don't-care look. And here was
where he had lived. Here amid all this luxury.

Like a flash came the quick contrast of the home in which he had died, and
a great wave of reverence for her father rolled over her. From such a home
and such surroundings it would not have been strange if he had grown weary
of the rough life out West, and deserted his wife, who was beneath him in
station. But he had not. He had stayed by her all the years. True, he had
not been of much use to her, and much of the time had been but a burden
and anxiety; but he had stayed and loved her--when he was sober. She
forgave him his many trying ways, his faultfindings with her mother's many
little blunders--no wonder, when he came from this place.

The butler tapped on a door at the head of the stairs, and a maid swung it
open.

"Why, you're not the girl Mrs. Sands sent the other day," said a querulous
voice from a mass of lace-ruffled pillows on the great bed.

"I am Elizabeth," said the girl, as if that were full explanation.

"Elizabeth? Elizabeth who? I don't see why she sent another girl. Are you
sure you will understand the directions? They're very particular, for I
want my frock ready for to-night without fail." The woman sat up, leaning
on one elbow. Her lace nightgown and pale-blue silk dressing-sack fell
away from a round white arm that did not look as if it belonged to a very
old lady. Her gray hair was becomingly arranged, and she was extremely
pretty, with small features. Elizabeth looked and marvelled. Like a flash
came the vision of the other grandmother at the wash-tub. The contrast was
startling.

"I am Elizabeth Bailey," said the girl quietly, as if she would break a
piece of hard news gently. "My father was your son John."

"The idea!" said the new grandmother, and promptly fell back upon her
pillows with her hand upon her heart. "John, John, my little John. No one
has mentioned his name to me for years and years. He never writes to me."
She put up a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and sobbed.

"Father died five years ago," said Elizabeth.

"You wicked girl!" said the maid. "Can't you see that Madam can't bear
such talk? Go right out of the room!" The maid rushed up with
smelling-salts and a glass of water, and Elizabeth in distress came and
stood by the bed.

"I'm sorry I made you feel bad, grandmother," she said when she saw that
the fragile, childish creature on the bed was recovering somewhat.

"What right have you to call me that? Grandmother, indeed! I'm not so old
as that. Besides, how do I know you belong to me? If John is dead, your
mother better look after you. I'm sure I'm not responsible for you. It's
her business. She wheedled John away from his home, and carried him off to
that awful West, and never let him write to me. She has done it all, and
now she may bear the consequences. I suppose she has sent you here to beg,
but she has made a mistake. I shall not have a thing to do with her of her
children."

"Grandmother!" Elizabeth's eyes flashed as they had done to the other
grandmother a few hours before. "You must not talk so. I won't hear it. I
wouldn't let Grandmother Brady talk about my father, and you can't talk so
about mother. She was my mother, and I loved her, and so did father love
her; and she worked hard to keep him and take care of him when he drank
years and years, and didn't have any money to help her. Mother was only
eighteen when she married father, and you ought not to blame her. She
didn't have a nice home like this. But she was good and dear, and now she
is dead. Father and mother are both dead, and all the other children. A
man killed my brother, and then as soon as he was buried he came and
wanted me to go with him. He was an awful man, and I was afraid, and took
my brother's horse and ran away. I rode all this long way because I was
afraid of that man, and I wanted to get to some of my own folks, who would
love me, and let me work for them, and let me go to school and learn
something. But I wish now I had stayed out there and died. I could have
lain down in the sage-brush, and a wild beast would have killed me
perhaps, and that would be a great deal better than this; for Grandmother
Brady does not understand, and you do not want me; but in my Father's
house in heaven there are many mansions, and He went to prepare a place
for me; so I guess I will go back to the desert, and perhaps He will send
for me. Good-by, grandmother."

Then before the astonished woman in the bed could recover her senses from
this remarkable speech Elizabeth turned and walked majestically from the
room. She was slight and not very tall, but in the strength of her pride
and purity she looked almost majestic to the awestruck maid and the
bewildered woman.

       *       *       *       *       *

Down the stairs walked the girl, feeling that all the wide world was
against her. She would never again try to get a friend. She had not met a
friend except in the desert. One man had been good to her, and she had let
him go away; but he belonged to another woman, and she might not let him
stay. There was just one thing to be thankful for. She had knowledge of
her Father in heaven, and she knew what Christian Endeavor meant. She
could take that with her out into the desert, and no one could take it
from her. One wish she had, but maybe that was too much to hope for. If
she could have had a Bible of her own! She had no money left. Nothing but
her mother's wedding-ring, the papers, and the envelope that had contained
the money the man had given her when he left. She could not part with
them, unless perhaps some one would take the ring and keep it until she
could buy it back. But she would wait and hope.

She walked by the old butler with her hand on her pistol. She did not
intend to let any one detain her now. He bowed pleasantly, and opened the
door for her, however; and she marched down the steps to her horse. But
just as she was about to mount and ride away into the unknown where no
grandmother, be she Brady or Bailey, would ever be able to search her out,
no matter how hard she tried, the door suddenly opened again, and there
was a great commotion. The maid and the old butler both flew out, and laid
hands upon her. She dropped the bridle, and seized her pistol, covering
them both with its black, forbidding nozzle.

They stopped, trembling, but the butler bravely stood his ground. He did
not know why he was to detain this extraordinary young person, but he felt
sure something was wrong. Probably she was a thief, and had taken some of
Madam's jewels. He could call the police. He opened his mouth to do so
when the maid explained.

"Madam wants you to come back. She didn't understand. She wants to see you
and ask about her son. You must come, or you will kill her. She has heart
trouble, and you must not excite her."

Elizabeth put the pistol back into its holster and, picking up the bridle
again, fastened it in the ring, saying simply, "I will come back."

"What do you want?" she asked abruptly when she returned to the bedroom.

"Don't you know that's a disrespectful way to speak?" asked the woman
querulously. "What did you have to get into a temper for, and go off like
that without telling me anything about my son? Sit down, and tell me all
about it."

"I'm sorry, grandmother," said Elizabeth, sitting down. "I thought you
didn't want me and I better go."

"Well, the next time wait until I send you. What kind of a thing have you
got on, anyway? That's a queer sort of a hat for a girl to wear. Take it
off. You look like a rough boy with that on. You make me think of John
when he had been out disobeying me."

Elizabeth took off the offending headgear, and revealed her smoothly
parted, thick brown hair in its long braid down her back.

"Why, you're rather a pretty girl if you were fixed up," said the old
lady, sitting up with interest now. "I can't remember your mother, but I
don't think she had fine features like that."

"They said I looked like father," said Elizabeth.

"Did they? Well, I believe it's true," with satisfaction. "I couldn't
bear you if you looked like those lowdown ----"

"Grandmother!" Elizabeth stood up, and flashed her Bailey eyes.

"You needn't 'grandmother' me all the time," said the lady petulantly.
"But you look quite handsome when you say it. Take off that ill-fitting
coat. It isn't thick enough for winter, anyway. What in the world have you
got round your waist? A belt? Why, that's a man's belt! And what have you
got in it? Pistols? Horrors! Marie, take them away quick! I shall faint! I
never could bear to be in a room with one. My husband used to have one on
his closet shelf, and I never went near it, and always locked the room
when he was out. You must put them out in the hall. I cannot breathe where
pistols are. Now sit down and tell me all about it, how old you are, and
how you got here."

Elizabeth surrendered her pistols with hesitation. She felt that she must
obey her grandmother, but was not altogether certain whether it was safe
for her to be weaponless until she was sure this was friendly ground.

At the demand she began back as far as she could remember, and told the
story of her life, pathetically, simply, without a single claim to pity,
yet so earnestly and vividly that the grandmother, lying with her eyes
closed, forgot herself completely, and let the tears trickle unbidden and
unheeded down her well-preserved cheeks.

When Elizabeth came to the graves in the moonlight, she gasped, and
sobbed: "O, Johnny, Johnny, my little Johnny! Why did you always be such a
bad, bad boy?" and when the ride in the desert was described, and the man
from whom she fled, the grandmother held her breath, and said, "O, how
fearful!" Her interest in the girl was growing, and kept at white heat
during the whole of the story.

There was one part of her experience, however, that Elizabeth passed over
lightly, and that was the meeting with George Trescott Benedict.
Instinctively she felt that this experience would not find a sympathetic
listener. She passed it over by merely saying that she had met a kind
gentleman from the East who was lost, and that they had ridden together
for a few miles until they reached a town; and he had telegraphed to his
friends, and gone on his way. She said nothing about the money he had lent
to her, for she shrank from speaking about him more than was necessary.
She felt that her grandmother might feel as the old woman of the ranch had
felt about their travelling together. She left it to be inferred that she
might have had a little money with her from home. At least, the older
woman asked no questions about how she secured provisions for the way.

When Elizabeth came to her Chicago experience, her grandmother clasped her
hands as if a serpent had been mentioned, and said: "How degrading! You
certainly would have been justified in shooting the whole company. I
wonder such places are allowed to exist!" But Marie sat with large eyes of
wonder, and retailed the story over again in the kitchen afterwards for
the benefit of the cook and the butler, so that Elizabeth became
henceforth a heroine among them.

Elizabeth passed on to her Philadelphia experience, and found that here
her grandmother was roused to blazing indignation, but the thing that
roused her was the fact that a Bailey should serve behind a counter in a
ten-cent Store. She lifted her hands, and uttered a moan of real pain,
and went on at such a rate that the smelling-salts had to be brought into
requisition again.

When Elizabeth told of her encounter with the manager in the cellar, the
grandmother said: "How disgusting! The impertinent creature! He ought to
be sued. I will consult the lawyer about the matter. What did you say his
name was? Marie, write that down. And so, dear, you did quite right to
come to me. I've been looking at you while you talked, and I believe
you'll be a pretty girl if you are fixed up. Marie, go to the telephone,
and call up Blandeaux, and tell him to send up a hair-dresser at once. I
want to see how Miss Elizabeth will look with her hair done low in one of
those new coils. I believe it will be becoming. I should have tried it
long ago myself; only it seems a trifle too youthful for hair that is
beginning to turn gray."

Elizabeth watched her grandmother in wonder. Here truly was a new phase of
woman. She did not care about great facts, but only about little things.
Her life was made up of the great pursuit of fashion, just like Lizzie's.
Were people in cities all alike? No, for he, the one man she had met in
the wilderness, had not seemed to care. Maybe, though, when he got back to
the city he did care. She sighed and turned toward the new grandmother.

"Now I have told you everything, grandmother. Shall I go away? I wanted to
go to school; but I see that it costs a great deal of money, and I don't
want to be a burden on any one. I came here, not to ask you to take me in,
because I did not want to trouble you; but I thought before I went away I
ought to see you once because--because you are my grandmother."

"I've never been a grandmother," said the little woman of the world
reflectively, "but I don't know but it would be rather nice. I'd like to
make you into a pretty girl, and take you out into society. That would be
something new to live for. I'm not very pretty myself any more, but I can
see that you will be. Do you wear blue or pink? I used to wear pink
myself, but I believe you could wear either when you get your complexion
in shape. You've tanned it horribly, but it may come out all right. I
think you'll take. You say you want to go to school. Why, certainly, I
suppose that will be necessary; living out in that barbarous, uncivilized
region, of course you don't know much. You seem to speak correctly, but
John always was particular about his speech. He had a tutor when he was
little who tripped him up every mistake he made. That was the only thing
that tutor was good for; he was a linguist. We found out afterwards he was
terribly wild, and drank. He did John more harm than good, Marie, I shall
want Elizabeth to have the rooms next mine. Ring for Martha to see that
everything is in order. Elizabeth, did you ever have your hands manicured?
You have a pretty-shaped hand. I'll have the woman attend to it when she
comes to shampoo your hair and put it up. Did you bring any clothes along?
Of course not. You couldn't on horseback. I suppose you had your trunk
sent by express. No trunk? No express? No railroad? How barbarous! How
John must have suffered, poor fellow! He, so used to every luxury! Well, I
don't see that it was my fault. I gave him everything he wanted except his
wife, and he took her without my leave. Poor fellow, poor fellow!"

Mrs. Bailey in due time sent Elizabeth off to the suite of rooms that she
said were to be hers exclusively, and arose to bedeck herself for another
day. Elizabeth was a new toy, and she anticipated playing with her. It
put new zest into a life that had grown monotonous.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, was surveying her quarters, and wondering what
Lizzie would think if she could see her. According to orders, the coachman
had taken Robin to the stable, and he was already rolling in all the
luxuries of a horse of the aristocracy, and congratulating himself on the
good taste of his mistress to select such a stopping-place. For his part
he was now satisfied not to move further. This was better than the
wilderness any day. Oats like these, and hay such as this, were not to be
found on the plains.

Toward evening the grave butler, with many a deprecatory glance at the
neighborhood, arrived at the door of Mrs. Brady, and delivered himself of
the following message to that astonished lady, backed by her daughter and
her granddaughter, with their ears stretched to the utmost to hear every
syllable:

"Mrs. Merrill Wilton Bailey sends word that her granddaughter, Miss
Elizabeth, has reached her home safely, and will remain with her. Miss
Elizabeth will come sometime to see Mrs. Brady, and thank her for her
kindness during her stay with her."

The butler bowed, and turned away with relief. His dignity and social
standing had not been so taxed by the family demands in years. He was glad
he might shake off the dust of Flora Street forever. He felt for the
coachman. He would probably have to drive the young lady down here
sometime, according to that message.

Mrs. Brady, her daughter, and Lizzie stuck their heads out into the
lamplighted street, and watched the dignified butler out of sight. Then
they went in and sat down in three separate stages of relief and
astonishment.

"Fer the land sakes!" ejaculated the grandmother. "Wall, now, if that
don't beat all!" then after a minute: "The impertinent fellow! And the
impidence of the woman! Thank me fer my kindness to me own grandchild! I'd
thank her to mind her business, but then that's just like her."

"Her nest is certainly well feathered," said Aunt Nan enviously. "I only
wish Lizzie had such a chance."

Said Lizzie: "It's awful queer, her looking like that, too, in that crazy
rig! Well, I'm glad she's gone, fer she was so awful queer it was jest
fierce. She talked religion a lot to the girls, and then they laughed at
her behind her back; and they kep' a telling me I'd be a missionary 'fore
long if she stayed with us. I went to Mr. Wray, the manager, and told him
my cousin was awfully shy, and she sent word she wanted to be excused fer
running away like that. He kind of colored up, and said 'twas all right,
and she might come back and have her old place if she wanted, and he'd say
no more about it. I told him I'd tell her. But I guess her acting up won't
do me a bit of harm. The girls say he'll make up to me now. Wish he would.
I'd have a fine time. It's me turn to have me wages raised, anyway. He
said if Bess and I would come to-morrow ready to stay in the evening, he'd
take us to a show that beat everything he ever saw in Philadelphia. I mean
to make him take me, anyway. I'm just glad she's out of the way. She
wasn't like the rest of us."

Said Mrs. Brady: "It's the Bailey in her. But she said she'd come back and
see me, didn't she?" and the grandmother in her meditated over that fact
for several minutes.



CHAPTER XIV

IN A NEW WORLD


Meantime the panorama of Elizabeth's life passed on into more peaceful
scenes. By means of the telephone and the maid a lot of new and beautiful
garments were provided for her, which fitted perfectly, and which
bewildered her not a little until they were explained by Marie. Elizabeth
had her meals up-stairs until these things had arrived and she had put
them on. The texture of the garments was fine and soft, and they were rich
with embroidery and lace. The flannels were as soft as the down in a
milkweed pod, and everything was of the best. Elizabeth found herself
wishing she might share them with Lizzie,--Lizzie who adored rich and
beautiful things, and who had shared her meagre outfit with her. She
mentioned this wistfully to her grandmother, and in a fit of childish
generosity that lady said: "Certainly, get her what you wish. I'll take
you downtown some day, and you can pick out some nice things for them all.
I hate to be under obligations."

A dozen ready-made dresses had been sent out before the first afternoon
was over, and Elizabeth spent the rest of the day in trying on and walking
back and forth in front of her grandmother. At last two or three were
selected which it was thought would "do" until the dressmaker could be
called in to help, and Elizabeth was clothed and allowed to come down into
the life of the household.

It was not a large household. It consisted of the grandmother, her dog,
and the servants. Elizabeth fitted into it better than she had feared. It
seemed pleasanter to her than the house on Flora Street. There was more
room, and more air, and more quiet. With her mountain breeding she could
not get her breath in a crowd.

She was presently taken in a luxurious carriage, drawn by two beautiful
horses, to a large department store, where she sat by the hour and watched
her grandmother choose things for her. Another girl might have gone half
wild over the delightful experience of being able to have anything in the
shops. Not so Elizabeth. She watched it all apathetically, as if the goods
displayed about had been the leaves upon the trees set forth for her
admiration. She could wear but one dress at once, and one hat. Why were so
many necessary? Her main hope lay in the words her grandmother had spoken
about sending her to school.

The third day of her stay in Rittenhouse Square, Elizabeth had reminded
her of it, and the grandmother had said half impatiently: "Yes, yes,
child; you shall go of course to a finishing school. That will be
necessary. But first I must get you fixed up. You have scarcely anything
to put on." So Elizabeth subsided.

At last there dawned a beautiful Sabbath when, the wardrobe seemingly
complete, Elizabeth was told to array herself for church, as they were
going that morning. With great delight and thanksgiving she put on what
she was told; and, when she looked into the great French plate mirror
after Marie had put on the finishing touches, she was astonished at
herself. It was all true, after all. She was a pretty girl.

She looked down at the beautiful gown of finest broadcloth, with the
exquisite finish that only the best tailors can put on a garment, and
wondered at herself. The very folds of dark-green cloth seemed to bring a
grace into her movements. The green velvet hat with its long curling
plumes of green and cream-color seemed to be resting lovingly above the
beautiful hair that was arranged so naturally and becomingly.

Elizabeth wore her lovely ermine collar and muff without ever knowing they
were costly. They all seemed so fitting and quiet and simple, so much less
obtrusive than Lizzie's pink silk waist and cheap pink plumes. Elizabeth
liked it, and walked to church beside her grandmother with a happy feeling
in her heart.

The church was just across the Square. Its tall brown stone spire and
arched doorways attracted Elizabeth when she first came to the place. Now
she entered with a kind of delight.

It was the first time she had ever been to a Sabbath morning regular
service in church. The Christian Endeavor had been as much as Lizzie had
been able to stand. She said she had to work too hard during the week to
waste so much time on Sunday in church. "The Sabbath was made for man" and
"for rest," she had quoted glibly. For the first time in her life since
she left Montana Elizabeth felt as if she had a real home and was like
other people. She looked around shyly to see whether perchance her friend
of the desert might be sitting near, but no familiar face met her gaze.
Then she settled back, and gave herself up to delight in the service.

The organ was playing softly, low, tender music. She learned afterward
that the music was Handel's "Largo." She did not know that the organ was
one of the finest in the city, nor that the organist was one of the most
skilful to be had; she knew only that the music seemed to take her soul
and lift it up above the earth so that heaven was all around her, and the
very clouds seemed singing to her. Then came the processional, with the
wonderful voices of the choir-boys sounding far off, and then nearer. It
would be impossible for any one who had been accustomed all his life to
these things to know how it affected Elizabeth.

It seemed as though the Lord Himself was leading the girl in a very
special way. At scarcely any other church in a fashionable quarter of the
great city would Elizabeth have heard preaching so exactly suited to her
needs. The minister was one of those rare men who lived with God, and
talked with Him daily. He had one peculiarity which marked him from all
other preachers, Elizabeth heard afterward. He would turn and talk with
God in a gentle, sweet, conversational tone right in the midst of his
sermon. It made the Lord seem very real and very near.

If he had not been the great and brilliant preacher of an old established
church, and revered by all denominations as well as his own, the minister
would have been called eccentric and have been asked to resign, because
his religion was so very personal that it became embarrassing to some.
However, his rare gifts, and his remarkable consecration and independence
in doing what he thought right, had produced a most unusual church for a
fashionable neighborhood.

Most of his church-members were in sympathy with him, and a wonderful work
was going forward right in the heart of Sodom, unhampered by fashion or
form or class distinctions. It is true there were some who, like Madam
Bailey sat calmly in their seats, and let the minister attend to the
preaching end of the service without ever bothering their thoughts as to
what he was saying. It was all one to them whether he prayed three times
or once, so the service got done at the usual hour. But the majority were
being led to see that there is such a thing as a close and intimate walk
with God upon this earth.

Into this church came Elizabeth, the sweet heathen, eager to learn all
that could be learned about the things of the soul. She sat beside her
grandmother, and drank in the sermon, and bowed her lovely, reverent head
when she became aware that God was in the room and was being spoken to by
His servant. After the last echo of the recessional had died away, and the
bowed hush of the congregation had grown into a quiet, well-bred commotion
of the putting on of wraps and the low Sabbath greetings, Elizabeth turned
to her grandmother.

"Grandmother, may I please go and ask that man some questions? He said
just what I have been longing and longing to know, and I must ask him
more. Nobody else ever told me these things. Who is he? How does he know
it is all true?"

The elder woman watched the eager, flushed face of the girl; and her heart
throbbed with pride that this beautiful young thing belonged to her. She
smiled indulgently.

"The rector, you mean? Why, I'll invite him to dinner if you wish to talk
with him. It's perfectly proper that a young girl should understand about
religion. It has a most refining influence, and the Doctor is a charming
man. I'll invite his wife and daughter too. They move in the best circles,
and I have been meaning to ask them for a long time. You might like to be
confirmed. Some do. It's a very pretty service. I was confirmed myself
when I was about your age. My mother thought it a good thing for a girl
before she went into society. Now, just as you are a schoolgirl, is the
proper time. I'll send for him this week. He'll be pleased to know you are
interested in these things. He has some kind of a young people's club that
meets on Sunday. 'Christian Something' he calls it; I don't know just
what, but he talks a great deal about it, and wants every young person to
join. You might pay the dues, whatever they are, anyway. I suppose it's
for charity. It wouldn't be necessary for you to attend the meetings, but
it would please the Doctor."

"Is it Christian Endeavor?" asked Elizabeth, with her eyes sparkling.

"Something like that, I believe. Good morning, Mrs. Schuyler. Lovely day,
isn't it? for December. No, I haven't been very well. No, I haven't been
out for several weeks. Charming service, wasn't it? The Doctor grows more
and more brilliant, I think. Mrs. Schuyler, this is my granddaughter,
Elizabeth. She has just come from the West to live with me and complete
her education. I want her to know your daughter."

Elizabeth passed through the introduction as a necessary interruption to
her train of thought. As soon as they were out upon the street again she
began.

"Grandmother, was God in that church?"

"Dear me, child! What strange questions you do ask! Why, yes, I suppose He
was, in a way. God is everywhere, they say. Elizabeth, you had better wait
until you can talk these things over with a person whose business it is. I
never understood much about such questions. You look very nice in that
shade of green, and your hat is most becoming."

So was the question closed for the time, but not put out of the girl's
thoughts.

The Christmas time had come and passed without much notice on the part of
Elizabeth, to whom it was an unfamiliar festival. Mrs. Bailey had
suggested that she select some gifts for her "relatives on her mother's
side," as she always spoke of the Bradys; and Elizabeth had done so with
alacrity, showing good sense and good taste in her choice of gifts, as
well as deference to the wishes of the one to whom they were to be given.
Lizzie, it is true, was a trifle disappointed that her present was not a
gold watch or a diamond ring; but on the whole she was pleased.

A new world opened before the feet of Elizabeth. School was filled with
wonder and delight. She absorbed knowledge like a sponge in the water, and
rushed eagerly from one study to another, showing marvellous aptitude, and
bringing to every task the enthusiasm of a pleasure-seeker.

Her growing intimacy with Jesus Christ through the influence of the pastor
who knew Him so well caused her joy in life to blossom into loveliness.

The Bible she studied with the zest of a novel-reader, for it was a novel
to her; and daily, as she took her rides in the park on Robin, now groomed
into self-respecting sleekness, and wearing a saddle of the latest
approved style, she marvelled over God's wonderful goodness to her, just a
maid of the wilderness.

So passed three beautiful years in peace and quietness. Every month
Elizabeth went to see her Grandmother Brady, and to take some charming
little gifts; and every summer she and her Grandmother Bailey spent at
some of the fashionable watering-places or in the Catskills, the girl
always dressed in most exquisite taste, and as sweetly indifferent to her
clothes as a bird of the air or a flower of the field.

The first pocket-money she had been given she saved up, and before long
had enough to send the forty dollars to the address the man in the
wilderness had given her. But with it she sent no word. It was like her to
think she had no right.

She went out more and more with her grandmother among the fashionable old
families in Philadelphia society, though as yet she was not supposed to be
"out," being still in school; but in all her goings she neither saw nor
heard of George Trescott Benedict.

Often she looked about upon the beautiful women that came to her
grandmother's house, who smiled and talked to her, and wondered which of
them might be the lady to whom his heart was bound. She fancied she must
be most sweet and lovely in every way, else such as he could not care for
her; so she would pick out this one and that one; and then, as some
disagreeableness or glaring fault would appear, she would drop that one
for another. There were only a few, after all, that she felt were good
enough for the man who had become her ideal.

But sometimes in her dreams he would come and talk with her, and smile as
he used to do when they rode together; and he would lay his hand on the
mane of her horse--there were always the horses in her dreams. She liked
to think of it when she rode in the park, and to think how pleasant it
would be if he could be riding there beside her, and they might talk of a
great many things that had happened since he left her alone. She felt she
would like to tell him of how she had found a friend in Jesus Christ. He
would be glad to know about it, she was sure. He seemed to be one who was
interested in such things, not like other people who were all engaged in
the world.

Sometimes she felt afraid something had happened to him. He might have
been thrown from that terrible train and killed, perhaps; and no one know
anything about it. But as her experience grew wider, and she travelled on
the trains herself, of course this fear grew less. She came to understand
that the world was wide, and many things might have taken him away from
his home.

Perhaps the money she had sent reached him safely, but she had put in no
address. It had not seemed right that she should. It would seem to draw
his attention to her, and she felt "the lady" would not like that. Perhaps
they were married by this time, and had gone far away to some charmed land
to live. Perhaps--a great many things. Only this fact remained; he never
came any more into the horizon of her life; and therefore she must try to
forget him, and be glad that God had given her a friend in him for her
time of need. Some day in the eternal home perhaps she would meet him and
thank him for his kindness to her, and then they might tell each other all
about the journey through the great wilderness of earth after they had
parted. The links in Elizabeth's theology had been well supplied by this
time, and her belief in the hereafter was strong and simple like a
child's.

She had one great longing, however, that he, her friend, who had in a way
been the first to help her toward higher things, and to save her from the
wilderness, might know Jesus Christ as he had not known Him when they were
together. And so in her daily prayer she often talked with her heavenly
Father about him, until she came to have an abiding faith that some day,
somehow, he would learn the truth about his Christ.

During the third season of Elizabeth's life in Philadelphia her
grandmother decided that it was high time to bring out this bud of
promise, who was by this time developing into a more beautiful girl than
even her fondest hopes had pictured.

So Elizabeth "came out," and Grandmother Brady read her doings and sayings
in the society columns with her morning coffee and an air of deep
satisfaction. Aunt Nan listened with her nose in the air. She could never
understand why Elizabeth should have privileges beyond her Lizzie. It was
the Bailey in her, of course, and mother ought not to think well of it.
But Grandmother Brady felt that, while Elizabeth's success was doubtless
due in large part to the Bailey in her, still, she was a Brady, and the
Brady had not hindered her. It was a step upward for the Bradys.

Lizzie listened, and with pride retailed at the ten-cent store the doings
of "my cousin, Elizabeth Bailey," and the other girls listened with awe.

And so it came on to be the springtime of the third year that Elizabeth
had spent in Philadelphia.



CHAPTER XV

AN EVENTFUL PICNIC


It was summer and it was June. There was to be a picnic, and Elizabeth was
going.

Grandmother Brady had managed it. It seemed to her that, if Elizabeth
could go, her cup of pride would be full to overflowing; so after much
argument, pro and con, with her daughter and Lizzie, she set herself down
to pen the invitation. Aunt Nan was decidedly against it. She did not wish
to have Lizzie outshone. She had been working nights for two weeks on an
elaborate organdie, with pink roses all over it, for Lizzie to wear. It
had yards and yards of cheap lace and insertion, and a whole bolt of pink
ribbons of various widths. The hat was a marvel of impossible roses, just
calculated for the worst kind of a wreck if a thunder-shower should come
up at a Sunday-school picnic. Lizzie's mother was even thinking of getting
her a pink chiffon parasol to carry; but the family treasury was well-nigh
depleted, and it was doubtful whether that would be possible. After all
that, it did not seem pleasant to have Lizzie put in the shade by a
fine-lady cousin in silks and jewels.

But Grandmother Brady had waited long for her triumph. She desired above
all things to walk among her friends, and introduce her granddaughter,
Elizabeth Bailey, and inadvertently remark: "You must have seen me
granddaughter's name in the paper often, Mrs. Babcock. She was giving a
party in Rittenhouse Square the other day."

Elizabeth would likely be married soon, and perhaps go off somewhere away
from Philadelphia--New York or Europe, there was no telling what great
fortune might come to her. Now the time was ripe for triumph if ever, and
when things are ripe they must be picked. Mrs. Brady proceeded to pick.

She gathered together at great pains pen, paper, and ink. A pencil would
be inadequate when the note was going to Rittenhouse Square. She sat down
when Nan and Lizzie had left for their day's work, and constructed her
sentences with great care.

"_Dear Bessie_--" Elizabeth had never asked her not to call her that,
although she fairly detested the name. But still it had been her mother's
name, and was likely dear to her grandmother. It seemed disloyalty to her
mother to suggest that she be called "Elizabeth." So Grandmother Brady
serenely continued to call her "Bessie" to the end of her days. Elizabeth
decided that to care much about such little things, in a world where there
were so many great things, would be as bad as to give one's mind entirely
over to the pursuit of fashion.

The letter proceeded laboriously:

    "Our Sunday school is going to have a picnic out to Willow
    Grove. It's on Tuesday. We're going in the trolley. I'd be
    pleased if you would go 'long with us. We will spend the day,
    and take our dinner and supper along, and wouldn't get home till
    late; so you could stay overnight here with us, and not go back
    home till after breakfast. You needn't bring no lunch; fer we've
    got a lot of things planned, and it ain't worth while. But if
    you wanted to bring some candy, you might. I ain't got time to
    make any, and what you buy at our grocery might not be fine
    enough fer you. I want you to go real bad. I've never took my
    two granddaughters off to anything yet, and your Grandmother
    Bailey has you to things all the time. I hope you can manage to
    come. I am going to pay all the expenses. Your old Christian
    Deaver you used to 'tend is going to be there; so you'll have a
    good time. Lizzie has a new pink organdie, with roses on her
    hat; and we're thinking of getting her a pink umbreller if it
    don't cost too much. The kind with chiffon flounces on it.
    You'll have a good time, fer there's lots of side-shows out to
    Willow Grove, and we're going to see everything there is to see.
    There's going to be some music too. A man with a name that
    sounds like swearing is going to make it. I don't remember it
    just now, but you can see it advertised round on the
    trolley-cars. He comes to Willow Grove every year. Now please
    let me hear if you will go at once, as I want to know how much
    cake to make.

                         "Your loving grandmother,
                                        ELIZABETH BRADY."

Elizabeth laughed and cried over this note. It pleased her to have her
grandmother show kindness to her. She felt that whatever she did for
Grandmother Brady was in a sense showing her love to her own mother; so
she brushed aside several engagements, much to the annoyance of her
Grandmother Bailey, who could not understand why she wanted to go down to
Flora Street for two days and a night just in the beginning of warm
weather. True, there was not much going on just now between seasons, and
Elizabeth could do as she pleased; but she might get a fever in such a
crowded neighborhood. It wasn't in the least wise. However, if she must,
she must. Grandmother Bailey was on the whole lenient. Elizabeth was too
much of a success, and too willing to please her in all things, for her to
care to cross her wishes. So Elizabeth wrote on her fine note-paper
bearing the Bailey crest in silver:

    _"Dear Grandmother:_ I shall be delighted to go to the picnic
    with you, and I'll bring a nice big box of candy, Huyler's best.
    I'm sure you'll think it's the best you ever tasted. Don't get
    Lizzie a parasol; I'm going to bring her one to surprise her.
    I'll be at the house by eight o'clock.

                     "Your loving granddaughter,
                                         ELIZABETH."

Mrs. Brady read this note with satisfaction and handed it over to her
daughter to read with a gleam of triumph in her eyes at the supper-table.
She knew the gift of the pink parasol would go far toward reconciling Aunt
Nan to the addition to their party. Elizabeth never did things by halves,
and the parasol would be all that could possibly be desired without
straining the family pocketbook any further.

So Elizabeth went to the picnic in a cool white dimity, plainly made, with
tiny frills of itself, edged with narrow lace that did not shout to the
unknowing multitude, "I am real!" but was content with being so; and with
a white Panama hat adorned with only a white silken scarf, but whose
texture was possible only at a fabulous price. The shape reminded
Elizabeth of the old felt hat belonging to her brother, which she had worn
on her long trip across the continent. She had put it on in the hat-store
one day; and her grandmother, when she found how exquisite a piece of
weaving the hat was, at once purchased it for her. It was stylish to wear
those soft hats in all sorts of odd shapes. Madam Bailey thought it would
be just the thing for the seashore.

Her hair was worn in a low coil in her neck, making the general appearance
and contour of her head much as it had been three years before. She wore
no jewelry, save the unobtrusive gold buckle at her belt and the plain
gold hatpin which fastened her hat. There was nothing about her which
marked her as one of the "four hundred." She did not even wear her gloves,
but carried them in her hand, and threw them carelessly upon the table
when she arrived in Flora Street. Long, soft white ones, they lay there in
their costly elegance beside Lizzie's post-card album that the
livery-stable man gave her on her birthday, all the long day while
Elizabeth was at Willow Grove, and Lizzie sweltered around under her pink
parasol in long white silk gloves.

Grandmother Brady surveyed Elizabeth with decided disapproval. It seemed
too bad on this her day of triumph, and after she had given a hint, as it
were, about Lizzie's fine clothes, that the girl should be so blind or
stubborn or both as to come around in that plain rig. Just a common white
dress, and an old hat that might have been worn about a livery-stable. It
was mortifying in the extreme. She expected a light silk, and kid gloves,
and a beflowered hat. Why, Lizzie looked a great deal finer. Did Mrs.
Bailey rig her out this way for spite? she wondered.

But, as it was too late to send Elizabeth back for more fitting garments,
the old lady resigned herself to her disappointment. The pink parasol was
lovely, and Lizzie was wild over it. Even Aunt Nan seemed mollified. It
gave her great satisfaction to look the two girls over. Her own outshone
the one from Rittenhouse Square by many counts, so thought the mother; but
all day long, as she walked behind them or viewed them from afar, she
could not understand why it was that the people who passed them always
looked twice at Elizabeth and only once at Lizzie. It seemed, after all,
that clothes did not make the girl. It was disappointing.

The box of candy was all that could possibly be desired. It was ample for
the needs of them all, including the two youths from the livery-stable who
had attached themselves to their party from the early morning. In fact, it
was two boxes, one of the most delectable chocolates of all imaginable
kinds, and the other of mixed candies and candied fruit. Both boxes bore
the magic name "Huyler's" on the covers. Lizzie had often passed Huyler's,
taking her noon walk on Chestnut Street, and looked enviously at the girls
who walked in and out with white square bundles tied with gold cord as if
it were an everyday affair. And now she was actually eating all she
pleased of those renowned candies. It was almost like belonging to the
great élite.

It was a long day and a pleasant one even to Elizabeth. She had never been
to Willow Grove before, and the strange blending of sweet nature and
Vanity Fair charmed her. It was a rest after the winter's round of
monotonous engagements. Even the loud-voiced awkward youths from the
livery-stable did not annoy her extremely. She took them as a part of the
whole, and did not pay much attention to them. They were rather shy of
her, giving the most of their attention to Lizzie, much to the
satisfaction of Aunt Nan.

They mounted the horses in the merry-go-rounds, and tried each one
several times. Elizabeth wondered why anybody desired this sort of
amusement, and after her first trip would have been glad to sit with her
grandmother and watch the others, only that the old lady seemed so much to
desire to have her get on with the rest. She would not do anything to
spoil the pleasure of the others if she could help it; so she obediently
seated herself in a great sea-shell drawn by a soiled plaster nymph, and
whirled on till Lizzie declared it was time to go to something else.

They went into the Old Mill, and down into the Mimic Mine, and sailed
through the painted Venice, eating candy and chewing gum and shouting. All
but Elizabeth. Elizabeth would not chew gum nor talk loud. It was not her
way. But she smiled serenely on the rest, and did not let it worry her
that some one might recognize the popular Miss Bailey in so ill-bred a
crowd. She knew that it was their way, and they could have no other. They
were having a good time, and she was a part of it for to-day. They weighed
one another on the scales with many jokes and much laughter, and went to
see all the moving pictures in the place. They ate their lunch under the
trees, and then at last the music began.

They seated themselves on the outskirts of the company, for Lizzie
declared that was the only pleasant place to be. She did not want to go
"way up front." She had a boy on either side of her, and she kept the seat
shaking with laughter. Now and then a weary guard would look distressedly
down the line, and motion for less noise; but they giggled on. Elizabeth
was glad they were so far back that they might not annoy more people than
was necessary.

But the music was good, and she watched the leader with great
satisfaction. She noticed that there were many people given up to the
pleasure of it. The melody went to her soul, and thrilled through it. She
had not had much good music in her life. The last three years, of course,
she had been occasionally to the Academy of Music; but, though her
grandmother had a box there, she very seldom had time or cared to attend
concerts. Sometimes, when Melba, or Caruso, or some world-renowned
favorite was there, she would take Elizabeth for an hour, usually slipping
out just after the favorite solo with noticeable loftiness, as if the
orchestra were the common dust of the earth, and she only condescended to
come for the soloist. So Elizabeth had scarcely known the delight of a
whole concert of fine orchestral music.

She heard Lizzie talking.

"Yes, that's Walter Damrosch! Ain't that name fierce? Grandma thinks it's
kind of wicked to pernounce it that way. They say he's fine, but I must
say I liked the band they had last year better. It played a whole lot of
lively things, and once they had a rattle-box and a squeaking thing that
cried like a baby right out in the music, and everybody just roared
laughing. I tell you that was great. I don't care much for this here kind
of music myself. Do you?" And Jim and Joe both agreed that they didn't,
either. Elizabeth smiled, and kept on enjoying it.

Peanuts were the order of the day, and their assertive crackle broke in
upon the finest passages. Elizabeth wished her cousin would take a walk;
and by and by she did, politely inviting Elizabeth to go along; but she
declined, and they were left to sit through the remainder of the afternoon
concert.

After supper they watched the lights come out, Elizabeth thinking about
the description of the heavenly city as one after another the buildings
blazed out against the darkening blue of the June night. The music was
about to begin. Indeed, it could be heard already in the distance, and
drew the girl irresistibly. For the first time that day she made a move,
and the others followed, half wearied of their dissipations, and not
knowing exactly what to do next.

They stood the first half of the concert very well, but at the
intermission they wandered out to view the electric fountain with its
many-colored fluctuations, and to take a row on the tiny sheet of water.
Elizabeth remained sitting where she was, and watched the fountain. Even
her grandmother and aunt grew restless, and wanted to walk again. They
said they had had enough music, and did not want to hear any more. They
could hear it well enough, anyway, from further off. They believed they
would have some ice-cream. Didn't Elizabeth want some?

She smiled sweetly. Would grandmother mind if she sat right there and
heard the second part of the concert? She loved music, and this was fine.
She didn't feel like eating another thing to-night. So the two ladies,
thinking the girl queer that she didn't want ice-cream, went off to enjoy
theirs with a clear conscience; and Elizabeth drew a long breath, and sat
back with her eyes closed, to test and breathe in the sweet sounds that
were beginning to float out delicately as if to feel whether the
atmosphere were right for what was to come after.

It was just at the close of this wonderful music, which the programme said
was Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," when Elizabeth looked up to meet the eyes
of some one who stood near in the aisle watching her, and there beside her
stood the man of the wilderness!

He was looking at her face, drinking in the beauty of the profile and
wondering whether he were right. Could it be that this was his little
brown friend, the maid of the wilderness? This girl with the lovely,
refined face, the intellectual brow, the dainty fineness of manner? She
looked like some white angel dropped down into that motley company of
Sunday-school picknickers and city pleasure-seekers. The noise and clatter
of the place seemed far away from her. She was absorbed utterly in the
sweet sounds.

When she looked up and saw him, the smile that flashed out upon her face
was like the sunshine upon a day that has hitherto been still and almost
sad. The eyes said, "You are come at last!" The curve of the lips said, "I
am glad you are here!"

He went to her like one who had been hungry for the sight of her for a
long time, and after he had grasped her hand they stood so for a moment
while the hum and gentle clatter of talk that always starts between
numbers seethed around them and hid the few words they spoke at first.

"O, I have so longed to know if you were safe!" said the man as soon as he
could speak.

Then straightway the girl forgot all her three years of training, and her
success as a débutante, and became the grave, shy thing she had been to
him when he first saw her, looking up with awed delight into the face she
had seen in her dreams for so long, and yet might not long for.

The orchestra began again, and they sat in silence listening. But yet
their souls seemed to speak to each other through the medium of the music,
as if the intervening years were being bridged and brought together in the
space of those few waves of melody.

"I have found out," said Elizabeth, looking up shyly with a great light in
her eyes. "I have found what it all means. Have you? O, I have wanted so
much to know whether you had found out too!"

"Found out what?" he asked half sadly that he did not understand.

"Found out how God hides us. Found what a friend Jesus Christ can be."

"You are just the same," said the man with satisfaction in his eyes. "You
have not been changed nor spoiled. They could not spoil you."

"Have you found out too?" she asked softly. She looked up into his eyes
with wistful longing. She wanted this thing so very much. It had been in
her prayers for so long.

He could not withdraw his own glance. He did not wish to. He longed to be
able to answer what she wished.

"A little, perhaps," he said doubtfully. "Not so much as I would like to.
Will you help me?"

"_He_ will help you. You will find Him if you search for Him with all your
heart," she said earnestly. "It says so in His book."

Then came more music, wistful, searching, tender. Did it speak of the
things of heaven to other souls there than those two?

He stooped down, and said in a low tone that somehow seemed to blend with
the music like the words that fitted it,

"I will try with all my heart if you will help me."

She smiled her answer, brimming back with deep delight.

Into the final lingering notes of an andante from one of Beethoven's
sublime symphonies clashed the loud voice of Lizzie:

"O Bess! Bess! B-es-see! I say, Bessie! Ma says we'll have to go over by
the cars now if we want to get a seat. The concert's most out, and
there'll be a fierce rush. Come on! And grandma says, bring your friend
along with you if you want." This last with a smirking recognition of the
man, who had turned around wonderingly to see who was speaking.

With a quick, searching glance that took in bedraggled organdie, rose hat,
and pink parasol, and set them aside for what they were worth, George
Benedict observed and classified Lizzie.

"Will you excuse yourself, and let me take you home a little later?" he
asked in a low tone. "The crowd will be very great, and I have my
automobile here."

She looked at him gratefully, and assented. She had much to tell him. She
leaned across the seats, and spoke in a clear tone to her cousin.

"I will come a little later," she said, smiling with her Rittenhouse
Square look that always made Lizzie a little afraid of her. "Tell
grandmother I have found an old friend I have not seen for a long time. I
will be there almost as soon as you are."

They waited while Lizzie explained, and the grandmother and aunt nodded a
reluctant assent. Aunt Nan frowned. Elizabeth might have brought her
friend along, and introduced him to Lizzie. Did Elizabeth think Lizzie
wasn't good enough to be introduced?

He wrapped her in a great soft rug that was in the automobile, and tucked
her in beside him; and she felt as if the long, hard days that had passed
since they had met were all forgotten and obliterated in this night of
delight. Not all the attentions of all the fine men she had met in
society had ever been like his, so gentle, so perfect. She had forgotten
the lady as completely as if she had never heard of her. She wanted now to
tell her friend about her heavenly Friend.

He let her talk, and watched her glowing, earnest face by the dim light of
the sky; for the moon had come out to crown the night with beauty, and the
unnatural brilliance of electric blaze, with all the glitter and noise of
Willow Grove, died into the dim, sweet night as those two sped onward
toward the city. The heart of the man kept singing, singing, singing: "I
have found her at last! She is safe!"

"I have prayed for you always," he said in one of the pauses. It was just
as they were coming into Flora Street. The urchins were all out on the
sidewalk yet, for the night was hot; and they gathered about, and ran
hooting after the car as it slowed up at the door. "I am sure He did hide
you safely, and I shall thank Him for answering my prayer. And now I am
coming to see you. May I come to-morrow?"

There was a great gladness in her eyes. "Yes," she said.

The Bradys had arrived from the corner trolley, and were hovering about
the door self-assertively. It was most apparent to an onlooker that this
was a good opportunity for an introduction, but the two young people were
entirely oblivious. The man touched his hat gravely, a look of great
admiration in his eyes, and said, "Good night" like a benediction. Then
the girl turned and went into the plain little home and to her belligerent
relatives with a light in her eyes and a joy in her steps that had not
been there earlier in the day. The dreams that visited her hard pillow
that night were heavenly and sweet.



CHAPTER XVI

ALONE AGAIN


"Now we're goin' to see ef the paper says anythin' about our Bessie," said
Grandmother Brady the next morning, settling her spectacles over her nose
comfortably and crossing one fat gingham knee over the other. "I always
read the society notes, Bess."

Elizabeth smiled, and her grandmother read down, the column:

"Mr. George Trescott Benedict and his mother, Mrs. Vincent Benedict, have
arrived home after an extended tower of Europe," read Mrs. Brady. "Mrs.
Benedict is much improved in health. It is rumored they will spend the
summer at their country seat on Wissahickon Heights."

"My!" interrupted Lizzie with her mouth full of fried potatoes. "That's
that fellow that was engaged to that Miss What's-her-Name Loring. Don't
you 'member? They had his picture in the papers, and her; and then all at
once she threw him over for some dook or something, and this feller went
off. I heard about it from Mame. Her sister works in a department-store,
and she knows Miss Loring. She says she's an awfully handsome girl, and
George Benedict was just gone on her. He had a fearful case. Mame says
Miss Loring--what is her name?--O, Geraldine--Geraldine Loring bought some
lace of her. She heard her say it was for the gown she was going to wear
at the horse-show. They had her picture in the paper just after the
horse-show, and it was all over lace, I saw it. It cost a whole lot. I
forget how many dollars a yard. But there was something the matter with
the dook. She didn't marry him, after all. In her picture she was driving
four horses. Don't you remember it, grandma? She sat up tall and high on a
seat, holding a whole lot of ribbons and whips and things. She has an
elegant figger. I guess mebbe the dook wasn't rich enough. She hasn't been
engaged to anybody else, and I shouldn't wonder now but she'd take George
Benedict back. He was so awful stuck on her!"

Lizzie rattled on, and the grandmother read more society notes, but
Elizabeth heard no more. Her hear had suddenly frozen, and dropped down
like lead into her being. She felt as if she never would be able to raise
it again. The lady! Surely she had forgotten the lady. But Geraldine
Loring! Of all women! Could it be possible? Geraldine Loring was
almost--well, fast, at least, as nearly so as one who was really of a fine
old family, and still held her own in society, could be. She was beautiful
as a picture; but her face, to Elizabeth's mind, was lacking in fine
feeling and intellect. A great pity went out from her heart to the man
whose fate was in that doll-girl's hands. True, she had heard that Miss
Loring's family were unquestionable, and she knew her mother was a most
charming woman. Perhaps she had misjudged her. She must have done so if he
cared for her, for it could not be otherwise.

The joy had gone out of the morning when Elizabeth went home. She went up
to her Grandmother Bailey at once, and after she had read her letters for
her, and performed the little services that were her habit, she said:

"Grandmother, I'm expecting a man to call upon me to-day. I thought I had
better tell you."

"A man!" said Madam Bailey, alarmed at once. She wanted to look over and
portion out the right man when the time came. "What man?"

"Why, a man I met in Montana," said Elizabeth, wondering how much she
ought to tell.

"A man you met in Montana! Horrors!" exclaimed the now thoroughly aroused
grandmother. "Not that dreadful creature you ran away from?"

"O no!" said Elizabeth, smiling. "Not that man. A man who was very kind to
me, and whom I like very much."

So much the worse. Immediate action was necessary.

"Well, Elizabeth," said Madam Bailey in her stiffest tones, "I really do
not care to have any of your Montana friends visit you. You will have to
excuse yourself. It will lead to embarrassing entanglements. You do not in
the least realize your position in society. It is all well enough to
please your relatives, although I think you often overdo that. You could
just as well send them a present now and then, and please them more than
to go yourself. But as for any outsiders, it is impossible. I draw the
line there."

"But grandmother----"

"Don't interrupt me, Elizabeth; I have something more to say. I had word
this morning from the steamship company. They can give us our staterooms
on the Deutschland on Saturday, and I have decided to take them. I have
telegraphed, and we shall leave here to-day for New York. I have one or
two matters of business I wish to attend to in New York. We shall go to
the Waldorf for a few days, and you will have more opportunity to see New
York than you have had yet. It will not be too warm to enjoy going about a
little, I fancy; and a number of our friends are going to be at the
Waldorf, too. The Craigs sail on Saturday with us. You will have young
company on the voyage."

Elizabeth's heart sank lower than she had known it could go, and she grew
white to the lips. The observant grandmother decided that she had done
well to be so prompt. The man from Montana was by no means to be admitted.
She gave orders to that effect, unknown to Elizabeth.

The girl went slowly to her room. All at once it had dawned upon her that
she had not given her address to the man the night before, nor told him by
so much as a word what were her circumstances. An hour's meditation
brought her to the unpleasant decision that perhaps even now in this hard
spot God was only hiding her from worse trouble. Mr. George Benedict
belonged to Geraldine Loring. He had declared as much when he was in
Montana. It would not be well for her to renew the acquaintance. Her heart
told her by its great ache that she would be crushed under a friendship
that could not be lasting.

Very sadly she sat down to write a note.

    "_My dear Friend_," she wrote on plain paper with no crest. It
    was like her to choose that. She would not flaunt her good
    fortune in his face. She was a plain Montana girl to him, and so
    she would remain.

    "My grandmother has been very ill, and is obliged to go away for
    her health. Unexpectedly I find that we are to go to-day. I
    supposed it would not be for a week yet. I am so sorry not to
    see you again, but I send you a little book that has helped me
    to get acquainted with Jesus Christ. Perhaps it will help you
    too. It is called 'My Best Friend.' I shall not forget to pray
    always that you may find Him. He is so precious to me! I must
    thank you in words, though I never can say it as it should be
    said, for your very great kindness to me when I was in trouble.
    God sent you to me, I am sure. Always gratefully your friend,

                                    "ELIZABETH."

That was all, no date, no address. He was not hers, and she would hang out
no clues for him to find her, even if he wished. It was better so.

She sent the note and the little book to his address on Walnut Street; and
then after writing a note to her Grandmother Brady, saying that she was
going away for a long trip with Grandmother Bailey, she gave herself into
the hands of the future like a submissive but weary child.

The noon train to New York carried in its drawing-room-car Madam Bailey,
her granddaughter, her maid, and her dog, bound for Europe. The society
columns so stated; and so read Grandmother Brady a few days afterward. So
also read George Benedict, but it meant nothing to him.

When he received the note, his mind was almost as much excited as when he
saw the little brown girl and the little brown horse vanishing behind the
little brown station on the prairie. He went to the telephone, and
reflected that he knew no names. He called up his automobile, and tore up
to Flora Street; but in his bewilderment of the night before he had not
noticed which block the house was in, nor which number. He thought he knew
where to find it, but in broad daylight the houses were all alike for
three blocks, and for the life of him he could not remember whether he
had turned up to the right or the left when he came to Flora Street. He
tried both, but saw no sign of the people he had but casually noticed at
Willow Grove.

He could not ask where she lived, for he did not know her name. Nothing
but Elizabeth, and they had called her Bessie. He could not go from house
to house asking for a girl named Bessie. They would think him a fool, as
he was, for not finding out her name, her precious name, at once. How
could he let her slip from him again when he had just found her?

At last he hit upon a bright idea. He asked some children along the street
whether they knew of any young woman named Bessie or Elizabeth living
there, but they all with one accord shook their heads, though one
volunteered the information that "Lizzie Smith lives there." It was most
distracting and unsatisfying. There was nothing for it but for him to go
home and wait in patience for her return. She would come back sometime
probably. She had not said so, but she had not said she would not. He had
found her once; he might find her again. And he could pray. She had found
comfort in that; so would he. He would learn what her secret was. He would
get acquainted with her "best Friend." Diligently did he study that little
book, and then he went and hunted up the man of God who had written it,
and who had been the one to lead Elizabeth into the path of light by his
earnest preaching every Sabbath, though this fact he did not know.

The days passed, and the Saturday came. Elizabeth, heavy-hearted, stood on
the deck of the Deutschland, and watched her native land disappear from
view. So again George Benedict had lost her from sight.

It struck Elizabeth, as she stood straining her eyes to see the last of
the shore through tears that would burn to the surface and fall down her
white cheeks, that again she was running away from a man, only this time
not of her own free will. She was being taken away. But perhaps it was
better.

And it never once entered her mind that, if she had told her grandmother
who the friend in Montana was, and where he lived in Philadelphia, it
would have made all the difference in the world.

From the first of the voyage Grandmother Bailey grew steadily worse, and
when they landed on the other side they went from one place to another
seeking health. Carlsbad waters did not agree with her, and they went to
the south of France to try the climate. At each move the little old lady
grew weaker and more querulous. She finally made no further resistance,
and gave up to the rôle of invalid. Then Elizabeth must be in constant
attendance. Madam Bailey demanded reading, and no voice was so soothing as
Elizabeth's.

Gradually Elizabeth substituted books of her own choice as her grandmother
seemed not to mind, and now and then she would read a page of some book
that told of the best Friend. At first because it was written by the dear
pastor at home it commanded her attention, and finally because some
dormant chord in her heart had been touched, she allowed Elizabeth to
speak of these things. But it was not until they had been away from home
for three months, and she had been growing daily weaker and weaker, that
she allowed Elizabeth to read in the Bible.

The girl chose the fourteenth chapter of John, and over and over again,
whenever the restless nerves tormented their victim, she would read those
words, "Let not your heart be troubled" until the selfish soul, who had
lived all her life to please the world and do her own pleasure, came at
last to hear the words, and feel that perhaps she did believe in God, and
might accept that invitation, "Believe also in me."

One day Elizabeth had been reading a psalm, and thought her grandmother
was asleep. She was sitting back with weary heart, thinking what would
happen if her grandmother should not get well. The old lady opened her
eyes.

"Elizabeth," she said abruptly, just as when she was well, "you've been a
good girl. I'm glad you came. I couldn't have died right without you. I
never thought much about these things before, but it really is worth
while. In my Father's house. He is my Father, Elizabeth."

She went to sleep then, and Elizabeth tiptoed out and left her with the
nurse. By and by Marie came crying in, and told her that the Madam was
dead.

Elizabeth was used to having people die. She was not shocked; only it
seemed lonely again to find herself facing the world, in a foreign land.
And when she came to face the arrangements that had to be made, which,
after all, money and servants made easy, she found herself dreading her
own land. What must she do after her grandmother was laid to rest? She
could not live in the great house in Rittenhouse Square, and neither could
she very well go and live in Flora Street. O, well, her Father would hide
her. She need not plan; He would plan for her. The mansions on the earth
were His too, as well as those in heaven.

And so resting she passed through the weary voyage and the day when the
body was laid to rest in the Bailey lot in the cemetery, and she went back
to the empty house alone. It was not until after the funeral that she went
to see Grandmother Brady. She had not thought it wise or fitting to invite
the hostile grandmother to the other one's funeral. She had thought
Grandmother Bailey would not like it.

She rode to Flora Street in the carriage. She felt too weary to walk or go
in the trolley. She was taking account of stock in the way of friends,
thinking over whom she cared to see. One of the first bits of news she had
heard on arriving in this country had been that Miss Loring's wedding was
to come off in a few days. It seemed to strike her like a thunderbolt, and
she was trying to arraign herself for this as she rode along. It was
therefore not helpful to her state of mind to have her grandmother remark
grimly:

"That feller o' yours 'n his oughtymobble has been goin' up an' down this
street, day in, day out, this whole blessed summer. Ain't been a day he
didn't pass, sometimes once, sometimes twicet. I felt sorry fer him
sometimes. Ef he hadn't been so high an' mighty stuck up that he couldn't
recognize me, I'd 'a' spoke to him. It was plain ez the nose on your face
he was lookin' fer you. Don't he know where you live?"

"I don't believe he does," said Elizabeth languidly. "Say, grandmother,
would you care to come up to Rittenhouse Square and live?"

"Me? In Rittenhouse Square? Fer the land sakes, child, no. That's flat.
I've lived me days out in me own sp'ere, and I don't intend to change now
at me time o' life. Ef you want to do somethin' nice fer me, child, now
you've got all that money, I'd like real well to live in a house that hed
white marble steps. It's been me one aim all me life. There's some round
on the next street that don't come high. There'd be plenty room fer us
all, an' a nice place fer Lizzie to get married when the time comes. The
parlor's real big, and you would send her some roses, couldn't you?"

"All right, grandmother. You shall have it," said Elizabeth with a
relieved sigh, and in a few minutes she went home. Some day pretty soon
she must think what to do, but there was no immediate hurry. She was glad
that Grandmother Brady did not want to come to Rittenhouse Square. Things
would be more congenial without her.

But the house seemed great and empty when she entered, and she was glad to
hear the friendly telephone bell ringing. It was the wife of her pastor,
asking her to come to them for a quiet dinner.

This was the one home in the great city where she felt like going in her
loneliness. There would be no form nor ceremony. Just a friend with them.
It was good. The doctor would give her some helpful words. She was glad
they had asked her.



CHAPTER XVII

A FINAL FLIGHT AND PURSUIT


"George," said Mrs. Vincent Benedict, "I want you to do something for me."

"Certainly, mother, anything I can."

"Well, it's only to go to dinner with me to-night. Our pastor's wife has
telephoned me that she wants us very much. She especially emphasized you.
She said she absolutely needed you. It was a case of charity, and she
would be so grateful to you if you would come. She has a young friend with
her who is very sad, and she wants to cheer her up. Now don't frown. I
won't bother you again this week. I know you hate dinners and girls. But
really, George, this is an unusual case. The girl is just home from
Europe, and buried her grandmother yesterday. She hasn't a soul in the
world belonging to her that can be with her, and the pastor's wife has
asked her over to dinner quietly. Of course she isn't going out. She must
be in mourning. And you know you're fond of the doctor."

"Yes, I'm fond of the doctor," said George, frowning discouragedly; "but
I'd rather take him alone, and not with a girl flung at me everlastingly.
I'm tired of it. I didn't think it of Christian people, though; I thought
she was above such things."

"Now, George," said his mother severely, "that's a real insult to the
girl, and to our friend too. She hasn't an idea of doing any such thing.
It seems this girl is quite unusual, very religious, and our friend
thought you would be just the one to cheer her. She apologized several
times for presuming to ask you to help her. You really will have to go."

"Well, who is this paragon, anyway? Any one I know? I s'pose I've got to
go."

"Why, she's a Miss Bailey," said the mother, relieved. "Mrs. Wilton
Merrill Bailey's granddaughter. Did you ever happen to meet her? I never
did."

"Never heard of her," growled George. "Wish I hadn't now."

"George!"

"Well, mother, go on. I'll be good. What does she do? Dance, and play
bridge, and sing?"

"I haven't heard anything that she does," said his mother, laughing.

"Well, of course she's a paragon; they all are, mother. I'll be ready in
half an hour. Let's go and get it done. We can come home early, can't we?"

Mrs. Benedict sighed. If only George would settle down on some suitable
girl of good family! But he was so queer and restless. She was afraid for
him. Ever since she had taken him away to Europe, when she was so ill, she
had been afraid for him. He seemed so moody and absent-minded then and
afterwards. Now this Miss Bailey was said to be as beautiful as she was
good. If only George would take a notion to her!

Elizabeth was sitting in a great arm-chair by the open fire when he
entered the room. He had not expected to find any one there. He heard
voices up-stairs, and supposed Miss Bailey was talking with her hostess.
His mother followed the servant to remove her wraps, and he entered the
drawing-room alone. She stirred, looked up, and saw him.

"Elizabeth!" he said, and came forward to grasp her hand. "I have found
you again. How came you here?"

But she had no opportunity to answer, for the ladies entered almost at
once, and there stood the two smiling at each other.

"Why, you have met before!" exclaimed the hostess. "How delighted I am! I
knew you two would enjoy meeting. Elizabeth, child, you never told me you
knew George."

George Benedict kept looking around for Miss Bailey to enter the room; but
to his relief she did not come, and, when they went out to the
dining-room, there was no place set for her. She must have preferred to
remain at home. He forgot her, and settled down to the joy of having
Elizabeth by his side. His mother, opposite, watched his face blossom into
the old-time joy as he handed this new girl the olives, and had eyes for
no one else.

It was to Elizabeth a blessed evening. They held sweet converse one with
another as children of the King. For a little time under the old influence
of the restful, helpful talk she forgot "the lady," and all the perplexing
questions that had vexed her soul. She knew only that she had entered into
an atmosphere of peace and love and joy.

It was not until the evening was over, and the guests were about to leave,
that Mrs. Benedict addressed Elizabeth as Miss Bailey. Up to that moment
it had not entered her son's mind that Miss Bailey was present at all. He
turned with a start, and looked into Elizabeth's eyes; and she smiled back
to him as if to acknowledge the name. Could she read his thoughts? he
wondered.

It was only a few steps across the Square, and Mrs. Benedict and her son
walked to Elizabeth's door with her. He had no opportunity to speak to
Elizabeth alone, but he said as he bade her good-night, "I shall see you
to-morrow, then, in the morning?"

The inflection was almost a question; but Elizabeth only said, "Good
night," and vanished into the house.

"Then you have met her before, George?" asked his mother wonderingly.

"Yes," he answered hurriedly, as if to stop her further question. "Yes, I
have met her before. She is very beautiful, mother."

And because the mother was afraid she might say too much she assented, and
held her peace. It was the first time in years that George had called a
girl beautiful.

Meantime Elizabeth had gone to her own room and locked the door. She
hardly knew what to think, her heart was so happy. Yet beneath it all was
the troubled thought of the lady, the haunting lady for whom they had
prayed together on the prairie. And as if to add to the thought she found
a bit of newspaper lying on the floor beside her dressing-table. Marie
must have dropped it as she came in to turn up the lights. It was nothing
but the corner torn from a newspaper, and should be consigned to the
waste-basket; yet her eye caught the words in large head-lines as she
picked it up idly, "Miss Geraldine Loring's Wedding to Be an Elaborate
Affair." There was nothing more readable. The paper was torn in a zigzag
line just beneath. Yet that was enough. It reminded her of her duty.

Down beside the bed she knelt, and prayed: "O my Father, hide me now; hide
me! I am in trouble; hide me!" Over and over she prayed till her heart
grew calm and she could think.

Then she sat down quietly, and put the matter before her.

This man whom she loved with her whole soul was to be married in a few
days. The world of society would be at the wedding. He was pledged to
another, and he was not hers. Yet he was her old friend, and was coming to
see her. If he came and looked into her face with those clear eyes of his,
he might read in hers that she loved him. How dreadful that would be!

Yes, she must search yet deeper. She had heard the glad ring in his voice
when he met her, and said, "Elizabeth!" She had seen his eyes. He was in
danger himself. She knew it; she might not hide it from herself. She must
help him to be true to the woman to whom he was pledged, whom now he would
have to marry.

She must go away from it all. She would run away, now at once. It seemed
that she was always running away from some one. She would go back to the
mountains where she had started. She was not afraid now of the man from
whom she had fled. Culture and education had done their work. Religion had
set her upon a rock. She could go back with the protection that her money
would put about her, with the companionship of some good, elderly woman,
and be safe from harm in that way; but she could not stay here and meet
George Benedict in the morning, nor face Geraldine Loring on her
wedding-day. It would be all the same the facing whether she were in the
wedding-party or not. Her days of mourning for her grandmother would of
course protect her from this public facing. It was the thought she could
not bear. She must get away from it all forever.

Her lawyers should arrange the business. They would purchase the house
that Grandmother Brady desired, and then give her her money to build a
church. She would go back, and teach among the lonely wastes of mountain
and prairie what Jesus Christ longed to be to the people made in His
image. She would go back and place above the graves of her father and
mother and brothers stones that should bear the words of life to all who
should pass by in that desolate region. And that should be her excuse to
the world for going, if she needed any excuse--she had gone to see about
placing a monument over her father's grave. But the monument should be a
church somewhere where it was most needed. She was resolved upon that.

That was a busy night. Marie was called upon to pack a few things for a
hurried journey. The telephone rang, and the sleepy night-operator
answered crossly. But Elizabeth found out all she wanted to know about the
early Chicago trains, and then lay down to rest.

Early the next morning George Benedict telephoned for some flowers from
the florist; and, when they arrived, he pleased himself by taking them to
Elizabeth's door.

He did not expect to find her up, but it would be a pleasure to have them
reach her by his own hand. They would be sent up to her room, and she
would know in her first waking thought that he remembered her. He smiled
as he touched the bell and stood waiting.

The old butler opened the door. He looked as if he had not fully finished
his night's sleep. He listened mechanically to the message, "For Miss
Bailey with Mr. Benedict's good-morning," and then his face took on a
deprecatory expression.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Benedict," he said, as if in the matter he were personally
to blame; "but she's just gone. Miss Elizabeth's mighty quick in her ways,
and last night after she come home she decided to go to Chicago on the
early train. She's just gone to the station not ten minutes ago. They was
late, and had to hurry. I'm expecting the footman back every minute."

"Gone?" said George Benedict, standing blankly on the door-step and
looking down the street as if that should bring her. "Gone? To Chicago,
did you say?"

"Yes, sir, she's gone to Chicago. That is, she's going further, but she
took the Chicago Limited. She's gone to see about a monument for Madam's
son John, Miss 'Lizabuth's father. She said she must go at once, and she
went."

"What time does that train leave?" asked the young man. It was a thread of
hope. He was stung into a superhuman effort as he had been on the prairie
when he had caught the flying vision of the girl and horse, and he had
shouted, and she would not stop for him.

"Nine-fifty, sir," said the butler. He wished this excited young man would
go after her. She needed some one. His heart had often stirred against
fate that this pearl among young mistresses should have no intimate friend
or lover now in her loneliness.

"Nine-fifty!" He looked at his watch. No chance! "Broad Street?" he asked
sharply.

"Yes, sir."

Would there be a chance if he had his automobile? Possibly, but hardly
unless the train was late. There would be a trifle more chance of catching
the train at West Philadelphia. O for his automobile! He turned to the
butler in despair.

"Telephone her!" he said. "Stop her if you possibly can on board the
train, and I will try to get there. I must see her. It is important." He
started down the steps, his mind in a whirl of trouble. How should he go?
The trolley would be the only available way, and yet the trolley would be
useless; it would take too long. Nevertheless, he sped down toward
Chestnut Street blindly, and now in his despair his new habit came to him.
"O my Father, help me! Help me! Save her for me!"

Up Walnut Street at a breakneck pace came a flaming red automobile,
sounding its taunting menace, "Honk-honk! Honk-honk!" but George Benedict
stopped not for automobiles. Straight into the jaws of death he rushed,
and was saved only by the timely grasp of a policeman, who rolled him over
on the ground. The machine came to a halt, and a familiar voice shouted:
"Conscience alive, George, is that you? What are you trying to do? Say,
but that was a close shave! Where you going in such a hurry, anyway?
Hustle in, and I'll take you there."

The young man sprang into the seat, and gasped: "West Philadelphia
station, Chicago Limited! Hurry! Train leaves Broad Street station at
nine-fifty. Get me there if you can, Billy. I'll be your friend forever."

By this time they were speeding fast. Neither of the two had time to
consider which station was the easier to make; and, as the machine was
headed toward West Philadelphia, on they went, regardless of laws or
vainly shouting policemen.

George Benedict sprang from the car before it had stopped, and nearly fell
again. His nerves were not steady from his other fall yet. He tore into
the station and out through the passageway past the beckoning hand of the
ticket-man who sat in the booth at the staircase, and strode up three
steps at a time. The guard shouted: "Hurry! You may get it; she's just
starting!" and a friendly hand reached out, and hauled him up on the
platform of the last car.

For an instant after he was safely in the car he was too dazed to think.
It seemed as if he must keep on blindly rushing through that train all the
way to Chicago, or she would get away from him. He sat down in an empty
seat for a minute to get his senses. He was actually on the train! It had
not gone without him!

Now the next question was, Was she on it herself, or had she in some way
slipped from his grasp even yet? The old butler might have caught her by
telephone. He doubted it. He knew her stubborn determination, and all at
once he began to suspect that she was with intention running away from
him, and perhaps had been doing so before! It was an astonishing thought
and a grave one, yet, if it were true, what had meant that welcoming smile
in her eyes that had been like dear sunshine to his heart?

But there was no time to consider such questions now. He had started on
this quest, and he must continue it until he found her. Then she should be
made to explain once and for all most fully. He would live through no more
torturing agonies of separation without a full understanding of the
matter. He got upon his shaking feet, and started to hunt for Elizabeth.

Then all at once he became aware that he was still carrying the box of
flowers. Battered and out of shape it was, but he was holding it as if it
held the very hope of life for him. He smiled grimly as he tottered
shakily down the aisle, grasping his floral offering with determination.
This was not exactly the morning call he had planned, nor the way he had
expected to present his flowers; but it seemed to be the best he could do.
Then, at last, in the very furthest car from the end, in the drawing-room
he found her, sitting gray and sorrowful, looking at the fast-flying
landscape.

"Elizabeth!" He stood in the open door and called to her; and she started
as from a deep sleep, her face blazing into glad sunshine at sight of him.
She put her hand to her heart, and smiled.

"I have brought you some flowers," he said grimly. "I am afraid there
isn't much left of them now; but, such as they are, they are here. I hope
you will accept them."

"Oh!" gasped Elizabeth, reaching out for the poor crushed roses as if they
had been a little child in danger. She drew them from the battered box and
to her arms with a delicious movement of caressing, as if she would make
up to them for all they had come through. He watched her, half pleased,
half savagely. Why should all that tenderness be wasted on mere fading
flowers?

At last he spoke, interrupting her brooding over his roses.

"You are running away from me!" he charged.

"Well, and what if I am?" She looked at him with a loving defiance in her
eyes.

"Don't you know I love you?" he asked, sitting down beside her and talking
low and almost fiercely. "Don't you know I've been torn away from you, or
you from me, twice before now, and that I cannot stand it any more? Say,
don't you know it? Answer, please," The demand was kind, but peremptory.

"I was afraid so," she murmured with drooping eyes, and cheeks from which
all color had fled.

"Well, why do you do it? Why did you run away? Don't you care for me? Tell
me that. If you can't ever love me, you are excusable; but I must know it
all now."

"Yes, I care as much as you," she faltered, "but----"

"But what?" sharply.

"But you are going to be married this week," she said in desperation,
raising her miserable eyes to his.

He looked at her in astonishment.

"Am I?" said he. "Well, that's news to me; but it's the best news I've
heard in a long time. When does the ceremony come off? I wish it was this
morning. Make it this morning, will you? Let's stop this blessed old train
and go back to the Doctor. He'll fix it so we can't ever run away from
each other again. Elizabeth, look at me!"

But Elizabeth hid her eyes now. They were full of tears.

"But the lady--" she gasped out, struggling with the sobs. She was so
weary, and the thought of what he had suggested was so precious.

"What lady? There is no lady but you, Elizabeth, and never has been.
Haven't you known that for a long time? I have. That was all a
hallucination of my foolish brain. I had to go out on the plains to get
rid of it, but I left it there forever. She was nothing to me after I saw
you."

"But--but people said--and it was in the paper, I saw it. You cannot
desert her now; it would be dishonorable."

"Thunder!" ejaculated the distracted young man. "In the paper! What lady?"

"Why, Miss Loring! Geraldine Loring. I saw that the preparations were all
made for her wedding, and I was told she was to marry you."

In sheer relief he began to laugh.

At last he stopped, as the old hurt look spread over her face.

"Excuse me, dear," he said gently, "There was a little acquaintance
between Miss Loring and myself. It only amounted to a flirtation on her
part, one of many. It was a great distress to my mother, and I went out
West, as you know, to get away from her. I knew she would only bring me
unhappiness, and she was not willing to give up some of her ways that were
impossible. I am glad and thankful that God saved me from her. I believe
she is going to marry a distant relative of mine by the name of Benedict,
but I thank the kind Father that I am not going to marry her. There is
only one woman in the whole wide world that I am willing to marry, or ever
will be; and she is sitting beside me now."

The train was going rapidly now. It would not be long before the conductor
would reach them. The man leaned over, and clasped the little gloved hand
that lay in the girl's lap; and Elizabeth felt the great joy that had
tantalized her for these three years in dreams and visions settle down
about her in beautiful reality. She was his now forever. She need never
run away again.

The conductor was not long in coming to them, and the matter-of-fact world
had to be faced once more. The young man produced his card, and said a few
words to the conductor, mentioning the name of his uncle, who, by the way,
happened to be a director of the road; and then he explained the
situation. It was very necessary that the young lady be recalled at once
to her home because of a change in the circumstances. He had caught the
train at West Philadelphia by automobile, coming as he was in his morning
clothes, without baggage and with little money. Would the conductor be so
kind as to put them off that they might return to the city by the shortest
possible route?

The conductor glared and scolded, and said people "didn't know their own
minds," and "wanted to move the earth." Then he eyed Elizabeth, and she
smiled. He let a grim glimmer of what might have been a sour smile years
ago peep out for an instant, and--he let them off.

They wandered delightedly about from one trolley to another until they
found an automobile garage, and soon were speeding back to Philadelphia.

They waited for no ceremony, these two who had met and loved by the way in
the wilderness. They went straight to Mrs. Benedict for her blessing, and
then to the minister to arrange for his services; and within the week a
quiet wedding-party entered the arched doors of the placid brown church
with the lofty spire, and Elizabeth Bailey and George Benedict were united
in the sacred bonds of matrimony.

There were present Mrs. Benedict and one or two intimate friends of the
family, besides Grandmother Brady, Aunt Nan, and Lizzie.

Lizzie brought a dozen bread-and-butter-plates from the ten-cent store.
They were adorned with cupids and roses and much gilt. But Lizzie was
disappointed. No display, no pomp and ceremony. Just a simple white dress
and white veil. Lizzie did not understand that the veil had been in the
Bailey family for generations, and that the dress was an heirloom also. It
was worn because Grandmother Bailey had given it to her, and told her she
wanted her to wear it on her wedding-day. Sweet and beautiful she looked
as she turned to walk down the aisle on her husband's arm, and she smiled
at Grandmother Brady in a way that filled the grandmother's heart with
pride and triumph. Elizabeth was not ashamed of the Bradys even among her
fine friends. But Lizzie grumbled all the way home at the plainness of the
ceremony, and the lack of bridesmaids and fuss and feathers.

The social column of the daily papers stated that young Mr. and Mrs.
George Benedict were spending their honeymoon in an extended tour of the
West, and Grandmother Brady so read it aloud at the breakfast table to the
admiring family. Only Lizzie looked discontented:

"She just wore a dark blue tricotine one-piece dress and a little plain
dark hat. She ain't got a bit of taste. Oh _Boy_! If I just had her pocket
book wouldn't I show the world? But anyhow I'm glad she went in a private
car. There was a _little_ class to her, though if t'had been mine I'd uv
preferred ridin' in the parlor coach an' havin' folks see me and my fine
husband. He's some looker, George Benedict is! Everybody turns to watch
'em as they go by, and they just sail along and never seem to notice. It's
all perfectly throwed away on 'em. Gosh! I'd hate to be such a nut!"

"Now, Lizzie, you know you hadn't oughtta talk like that!" reproved her
grandmother, "After her giving you all that money fer your own wedding. A
thousand dollars just to spend as you please on your cloes and a blow out,
and house linens. Jest because she don't care for gewgaws like you do, you
think she's a fool. But she's no fool. She's got a good head on her, and
she'll get more in the long run out of life than you will. She's been real
loving and kind to us all, and she didn't have any reason to neither. We
never did much fer her. And look at how nice and common she's been with us
all, not a bit high headed. I declare, Lizzie, I should think you'd be
ashamed!"

"Oh, well," said Lizzie shrugging her shoulders indifferently, "She's all
right in her way, only 'taint my way. And I'm thankful t'goodness that I
had the nerve to speak up when she offered to give me my trousseau. She
askt me would I druther hav her buy it for me, or have the money and pick
it out m'self, and I spoke up right quick and says, 'Oh, cousin Bessie, I
wouldn't _think_ of givin' ya all that trouble. I'd take the _money_ ef
it's all the same t'you,' and she jest smiled and said all right, she
expected I knew what I wanted better'n she did. So yes'teddy when I went
down to the station to see her off she handed me a bank book. And--Oh,
say, I fergot! She said there was a good-bye note inside. I ain't had time
to look at it since. I went right to the movies on the dead run to get
there 'fore the first show begun, and it's in my coat pocket. Wait 'till I
get it. I spose it's some of her old _religion_! She's always preaching at
me. It ain't that she says so much as that she's always _meanin'_ it
underneath, everything, that gets my goat! It's sorta like having a piece
of God round with you all the time watching you. You kinda hate to be
enjoyin' yerself fer fear she won't think yer doin' it accordin' to the
Bible."

Lizzie hurtled into the hall and brought back her coat, fumbling in the
pocket.

"Yes, here 'tis ma! Wanta see the figgers? You never had a whole thousand
dollars in the bank t'woncet yerself, did ya?"

Mrs. Brady put on her spectacles and reached for the book, while Lizzie's
mother got up and came behind her mother's chair to look over at the magic
figures. Lizzie stooped for the little white note that had fluttered to
her feet as she opened the book, but she had little interest to see what
it said. She was more intent upon the new bank book.

It was Grandmother Brady that discovered it:

"Why, Lizzie! It ain't _one_ thousand, it's _five_ thousand, the book
says! You don't 'spose she's made a mistake, do you?"

Lizzie seized the book and gazed, her jaw dropping open in amaze. "Let me
have it!" demanded Lizzie's mother, reaching for the book.

"Where's yer note, Lizzie, mebbe it'll explain," said the excited
Grandmother.

Lizzie recovered the note which again had fluttered to the floor in the
confusion and opening it began to read:

    "_Dear Lizzie_," it read

    "I've made it five thousand so you will have some over for
    furnishing your home, and if you still think you want the little
    bungalow out on the Pike you will find the deed at my lawyer's,
    all made out in your name. It's my wedding gift to you, so you
    can go to work and buy your furniture at once, and not wait till
    Dan gets a raise. And here's wishing you a great deal of
    happiness,

                           "Your loving cousin,
                                      ELIZABETH."

"There!" said Grandmother Brady sitting back with satisfaction and holding
her hands composedly, "Whadd' I tell ya?"

"Mercy!" said Lizzie's mother, "Let me see that note! The idea of her
_giving_ all that money when she didn't have to!"

But Lizzie's face was a picture of joy. For once she lost her hard little
worldly screwed-up expression and was wreathed in smiles of genuine
eagerness:

"Oh _Boy_!" she exclaimed delightedly, dancing around the room, "Now we
can have a victrola, an' a player-piano, and Dan'll get a Ford, one o'
those limousine-kind! Won't I be some swell? What'll the girls at the
store think now?"

"H'm! You'd much better get a washing machine and a 'lectric iron!"
grumbled Grandmother Brady practically.

"Well, all I got to say about it is, she was an awful fool to trust _you_
with so much money," said Lizzie's mother discontentedly, albeit with a
pleased pride as she watched her giddy daughter fling on hat and coat to
go down and tell Dan.

"I sh'll work in the store fer the rest of the week, jest to 'commodate
'em," she announced putting her head back in the door as she went out,
"but not a day longer. I got a lot t'do. Say, won't I be some lady in the
five-an'-ten the rest o' the week? Oh _Boy! I'll tell the world!_"

Meantime in their own private car the bride and groom were whirled on
their way to the west, but they saw little of the scenery, being engaged
in the all-absorbing story of each other's lives since they had parted.

And one bright morning, they stepped down from the train at Malta and
gazed about them.

The sun was shining clear and wonderful, and the little brown station
stood drearily against the brightness of the day like a picture that has
long hung on the wall of one's memory and is suddenly brought out and the
dust wiped away.

They purchased a couple of horses, and with camp accoutrements following
began their real wedding trip, over the road they had come together when
they first met. Elizabeth had to show her husband where she had hidden
while the men went by, and he drew her close in his arms and thanked God
that she had escaped so miraculously.

It seemed so wonderful to be in the same places again, for nothing out
here in the wilderness seemed much to have changed, and yet they two were
so changed that the people they met did not seem to recognize them as ever
having been that way before.

They dined sumptuously in the same coulee, and recalled little things they
had said and done, and Elizabeth now worldly wise, laughed at her own
former ignorance as her husband reminded her of some questions she had
asked him on that memorable journey. And ever through the beautiful
journey he was telling her how wonderful she seemed to him, both then and
now.

Not however, till they reached the old ranchhouse, where the woman had
tried to persuade her to stay, did they stop for long.

Elizabeth had a tender feeling in her heart for that motherly woman who
had sought to protect her, and felt a longing to let her know how safely
she had been kept through the long journey and how good the Lord had been
to her through the years. Also they both desired to reward these kind
people for their hospitality in the time of need. So, in the early evening
they rode up just as they did before to the little old log house. But no
friendly door flung open wide as they came near, and at first they thought
the cabin deserted, till a candle flare suddenly shone forth in the
bedroom, and then Benedict dismounted and knocked.

After some waiting the old man came to the door holding a candle high
above his head. His face was haggard and worn, and the whole place looked
dishevelled. His eyes had a weary look as he peered into the night and it
was evident that he had no thought of ever having seen them before:

"I can't do much fer ya, strangers," he said, his voice sounding tired and
discouraged. "If it's a woman ye have with ye, ye better ride on to the
next ranch. My woman is sick. Very sick. There's nobody here with her but
me, and I have all I can tend to. The house ain't kept very tidy. It's six
weeks since she took to bed."

Elizabeth had sprung lightly to the ground and was now at the threshold:

"Oh, is she sick? I'm so sorry? Couldn't I do something for her? She was
good to me once several years ago!"

The old man peered at her blinkingly, noting her slender beauty, the
exquisite eager face, the dress that showed her of another world--and
shook his head:

"I guess you made a mistake, lady. I don't remember ever seeing you
before--"

"But I remember you," she said eagerly stepping into the room, "Won't you
please let me go to her?"

"Why, shore, lady, go right in ef you want to. She's layin' there in the
bed. She ain't likely to get out of it again' I'm feared. The doctor says
nothin' but a 'noperation will ever get her up, and we can't pay fer
'noperations. It's a long ways to the hospital in Chicago where he wants
her sent, and M'ria and I, we ain't allowin' to part. It can't be many
years--"

But Elizabeth was not waiting to hear. She had slipped into the old
bedroom that she remembered now so well and was kneeling beside the bed
talking to the white faced woman on the thin pillow:

"Don't you remember me," she asked, "I'm the girl you tried to get to stay
with you once. The girl that came here with a man she had met in the
wilderness. You told me things that I didn't know, and you were kind and
wanted me to stay here with you? Don't you remember me? I'm Elizabeth!"

The woman reached out a bony hand and touched the fair young face that she
could see but dimly in the flare of the candle that the old man now
brought into the room:

"Why, yes, I remember," the woman said, her voice sounded alive yet in
spite of her illness, "Yes, I remember you. You were a dear little girl,
and I was so worried about you. I would have kept you for my own--but you
wouldn't stay. And he was a nice looking young man, but I was afraid for
you--You can't always tell about them--You _mostly_ can't--!"

"But he was all right Mother!" Elizabeth's voice rang joyously through the
cabin, "He took care of me and got me safely started toward my people, and
now he's my husband. I want you to see him. George come here!"

The old woman half raised herself from the pillow and looked toward the
young man in the doorway:

"You don't say! He's your _husband_! Well, now isn't that grand! Well, I
certainly am glad! I was that worried--!"

They sat around the bed talking, Elizabeth telling briefly of her own
experiences and her wedding trip which they were taking back over the old
trail, and the old man and woman speaking of their trouble, the woman's
breakdown and how the doctor at Malta said there was a chance she could
get well if she went to a great doctor in Chicago, but how they had no
money unless they sold the ranch and that nobody wanted to buy it.

"Oh, but we have money," laughed Elizabeth joyously, "and it is our turn
now to help you. You helped us when we were in trouble. How soon can you
start? I'm going to play you are my own father and mother. We can send
them both, can't we George?"

It was a long time before they settled themselves to sleep that night
because there was so much planning to be done, and then Elizabeth and her
husband had to get out their stores and cook a good supper for the two old
people who had been living mostly on corn meal mush, for several weeks.

And after the others were all asleep the old woman lay praying and
thanking God for the two angels who had dropped down to help them in their
distress.

The next morning George Benedict with one of the men who looked after
their camping outfit went to Malta and got in touch with the Chicago
doctor and hospital, and before he came back to the ranch that night
everything was arranged for the immediate start of the two old people He
had even planned for an automobile and the Malta doctor to be in
attendance in a couple of days to get the invalid to the station.

Meantime Elizabeth had been going over the old woman's wardrobe which was
scanty and coarse, and selecting garments from her own baggage that would
do for the journey.

The old woman looked glorified as she touched the delicate white garments
with their embroidery and ribbons:

"Oh, dear child! Why, I couldn't wear a thing like that on my old worn-out
body. Those look like angels' clothes." She put a work-worn finger on the
delicate tracery of embroidery and smoothed a pink satin ribbon bow.

But Elizabeth overruled her. It was nothing but a plain little garment
she had bought for the trip. If the friend thought it was pretty she was
glad, but nothing was too pretty for the woman who had taken her in in her
distress and tried to help her and keep her safe.

The invalid was thin with her illness, and it was found that she could
easily wear the girl's simple dress of dark blue with a white collar, and
little dark hat, and Elizabeth donned a khaki skirt and brown cap and
sweater herself and gladly arrayed her old friend in her own bridal
travelling gown for her journey. She had not brought a lot of things for
her journey because she did not want to be bothered, but she could easily
get more when she got to a large city, and what was money for but to cloth
the naked and feed the hungry? She rejoiced in her ability to help this
woman of the wilderness.

On the third day, garbed in Elizabeth's clothes, her husband fitted out
for the east in some of George Benedict's extra things, they started. They
carried a bag containing some necessary changes, and some wonderful toilet
accessories with silver monograms, enough to puzzle the most snobbish
nurse, also there was a luscious silk kimona of Elizabeth's in the bag.
The two old people were settled in the Benedict private car, and in due
time hitched on to the Chicago express and hurried on their way. Before
the younger pair went back to their pilgrimage they sent a series of
telegrams arranging for every detail of the journey for the old couple, so
that they would be met with cars and nurses and looked after most
carefully.

And the thanksgiving and praise of the old people seemed to follow them
like music as they rode happily on their way.

They paused at the little old school house where they had attended the
Christian Endeavor meeting, and Elizabeth looked half fearfully up the
road where her evil pursuers had ridden by, and rode closer to her
husband's side. So they passed on the way as nearly as Elizabeth could
remember every step back as she had come, telling her husband all the
details of the journey.

That night they camped in the little shelter where Benedict had come upon
the girl that first time they met, and under the clear stars that seemed
so near they knelt together and thanked God for His leading.

They went to the lonely cabin on the mountain, shut up and going to ruin
now, and Benedict gazing at the surroundings and then looking at the
delicate face of his lovely wife was reminded of a white flower he had
once seen growing out of the blackness down in a coal mine, pure and clean
without a smirch of soil.

They visited the seven graves in the wilderness, and standing reverently
beside the sand-blown mounds she told him much of her early life that she
had not told him before, and introduced him to her family, telling a bit
about each that would make him see the loveable side of them. And then
they planned for seven simple white stones to be set up, bearing words
from the book they both loved. Over the care worn mother was to be written
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
rest."

It was on that trip that they planned what came to pass in due time. The
little cabin was made over into a simple, pretty home, with vines planted
about the garden, and a garage with a sturdy little car; and not far away
a church nestled into the side of the hill, built out of the stones that
were native, with many sunny windows and a belfry in which bells rang out
to the whole region round.

At first it had seemed impractical to put a church out there away from the
town, but Elizabeth said that it was centrally located, and high up where
it could be seen from the settlements in the valleys, and was moreover on
a main trail that was much travelled. She longed to have some such spot in
the wilderness that could be a refuge for any who longed for better
things.

When they went back they sent out two consecrated missionaries to occupy
the new house and use the sturdy little car. They were to ring the bells,
preach the gospel and play the organ and piano in the little church.

Over the pulpit there was a beautiful window bearing a picture of Christ,
the Good Shepherd, and in clear letters above were the words: "And thou
shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty
years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what
was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments, or no."

And underneath the picture were the words:

"'In the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret
of his tabernacle shall he hide me.' In memory of His hidings,

    "George and Elizabeth Benedict."

But in the beautiful home in Philadelphia, in an inner intimate room these
words are exquisitely graven on the wall, "Let not your heart be
troubled."





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Girl from Montana" ***

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