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asinine position. He argued very sensibly that if, after waiting four years for him she could, n't wait one day longer, she must have changed in her feelings very decidedly, and that was a fact it behooved him to find out. Better now than later. I think he has found out.

All she said, upon his departure, was, "It's a long lane that has no turning.»

One might infer that the engagement had been a long lane to her, and that she was glad to have come to the turn at last. Possibly he was nicer four years ago. Men get terribly down at heel, mentally, morally, and mannerly, poking off by themselves in these out-of-the-way places. But she has been seeing people, and steadily making growth, since she gave him her promise at eighteen. The promise itself has helped to develop her. It must have been a knot of perpetual doubt and self-questioning. No one need tell me that she really loves him; if she did, if she had, she could not take his treatment of her like this. Perhaps the family circumstances constrained her. They may have thought Harshaw had a fortune in the future of his ranch, with its river boundary of placer-mines. English girls are obedient, and English mamas are practical, we read.

She is practical, and she is beginning to look her situation in the face.

«I shall want you to help me find some way to return that money,» she said to me later, with an angry blush-«that money which Cecil Harshaw kindly advanced me on my journey. I shall hate every moment of my life till that debt is paid. But for the insult I can never repay him, never!

"We are a large family at home-four girls besides me, and three boys; and boys are so expensive. I cannot ask mama to help me; indeed, I was hoping to help her. I should have gone for a governess if I had not been duped into coming over here. Would there be any one in this town, do you think, who might want a governess for her children? I have a few accomplishments, and though I've not been trained for a teacher, I am used to children, and they like me, when I want them to.» I thought this a good idea for the future; it would take time to work it up. But for the present an inspiration came to me, on the strength of something Tom had said that he wished I could draw or paint, because he could make an artist useful on this trip, he condescended to say, if he could lay his hand on one. All the photographs of the springs, it seems, have the disastrous effect of dwarfing their height and magnitude. There is a lagoon and a weedy island directly beneath them, and

in the camera pictures taken from in front the reeds and willows look gigantic in the foreground, and the springs are insignificant out of all proportion. This would be fatal to our schemers' claims as to the volume of water they are supposed to furnish for an electrical power-plant to supply the Silver City mines, one hundred miles away. Hence the demand of Science for Art, with her point of view.

"Just the thing for her,» I thought. «She can draw and water-color, of course; all English girls do.» And I flew and proposed it to Tom. «Pay her well for her pictures, and she'll make your Thousand Springs look like Ten Thousand.» (That was only my little joke, dear; I am always afraid of your conscience.) But the main thing is settled; we have found a way of inducing Kitty to go. Tom was charmed with my intelligence, and Kitty, poor child, would go anywhere, in any conceivable company, to get even with Cecil Harshaw on that hateful money transaction. When I told her she would have to submit to his presence on the trip, she shrugged her shoulders.

"It's one of life 's little ironies,>» she said.

« And,» I added, «we shall have to pass the ranch that was to have been->

«Oh, well, that is another. I must get used to the humorous side of my situation. One suffers most, perhaps, through thinking how other people will think one suffers. If they would only give one credit for a little common sense, to say nothing of pride!»

You see, she will wear no willows for him. We shall get on beautifully, I 've no doubt, even with the «irony of the situation rubbed in, as it will inevitably be, in the course of this journey.

Tom solemnly assures me that the other Harshaw's name is not Micky, but «Denis »; and he explains his having got into the legislature (quite unnecessarily, so far as I am concerned) on the theory that he is too lazy even to make enemies.

I shall get the governess project started, so it can be working while we are away. If you know of anybody who would be likely to want her, and could pay her decently, and would know how to treat a nursery governess who is every bit a lady, but who is not above her business (I take for granted she is not, though of course I don't know), do, pray, speak a word for her. I'll answer for it that she is bright enough; better not mention that she is pretty. There must be a hundred chances for her there to one in Idaho. We are hardly up to the resident-governess idea as yet. It is thought to be wanting in public spirit for

parents not to patronize the local schools. If they are not good enough for the rich families, the poor families feel injured, and want to know the reason why.

To return to these Harshaws. Does it not strike you that the English are more original, not to say queer, than we are; more indifferent to the opinions of others-certain others? They don't hesitate to do a thing because on the face of it it 's perfectly insane. Witness the lengths they go, these young fellows out here, for anything on earth they happen to set their crazy hearts upon. The young fancy bloods, I mean, who have the love of sport developed through generations of tough old hard-riding, high-playing, deep-drinking ancestors; the younger sons,» who have inherited the sense of having the ball at their feet, without having inherited the ball. They are certainly great fun, but I should hate to be responsible for them.

I note what you say about my tendency to slang, and how it seems to grow upon me.»> It seems » to, alas! for the simple reason, doubtless, that it does. I can remember when I used carefully to corral all my slang words in apologetic quote-marks, as if they were range-cattle to be fenced out from the home herd-our mother-tongue which we brought with us from the East, and which you have preserved in all its conscientious purity. But I give it up. I hardly know any longer, in regard to my own speech, which are my native expressions and which are the wild and woolly ones I have adopted off the range. It will serve all human purposes of a woman irretrievably married into the West. If the worst come to the worst, I can make a virtue of necessity and become a member of the «American Dialect Society»-a member in good standing.

THIS is the morning of our glorious start. I am snatching a few words with you while the men are packing the wagon, which stands before the door. What a sensation it would make drawn up in front of-Mrs. Percifer's door, for instance, in Park Avenue! Here no one turns the head to look at it.

I told Tom he need make no concessions to the fact that he is to have two fairly welldressed women along. We will go as they go, without any fuss, or they may leave us at home. I despise those condescending, makebelieve-rough-it trips, with which men flatter women into thinking themselves genuine campaigners. Consequently our outfit is a big, bony ranch-team and a Shuttler wagon with the double-sides in; spring seats, of

course, and the bottom well bedded down with tents and rolls of blankets. We don't go out of our way to be uncomfortable; that is the pet weakness of the tenderfoot. The «kitchen-box » and the «grub-box » sit shoulder to shoulder in the back of the wagon. The stovepipe, tied with rope, in sections, keeps up a lively clatter in concert with the jiggling of the tinware and the thumps and bumps of the camp-stove, which has swallowed its own feet, and, by the internal sounds, does n't seem to have digested them.

I spent last evening covering the canteens with canvas. The maiden was quite cheerful, sorting her drawing-materials and packing her colors and sketch-blocks. She laughs at everything Tom says, whether she sees the point or not, and most when there is none to see. Tom will be cook, because he prefers his own messing to any of ours, and we can't spare room in the wagon for a regular camp chef. Mr. Harshaw is the «swamper,» because he makes himself useful doing things my lord does n't like to do. And Kitty is not Miss Co-myn, as we called it, but Miss «Cummin,» as they call it,-«the Comin' woman,» Tom calls her. Mr. Billings, the teamster, completes our party.

SEPT.

Never mind the date. This is tomorrow morning, and we are at Walter's Ferry. It seems a week since we left Bisuka. We started yesterday on the flank of a duststorm, and soon were with the main column, the wind pursuing us, and hurling the sweepings of the road into the backs of our necks. The double-sides raised us out of the worst of the dust, else I think we should have been smothered. It was a test of our young lady's traveling manners. She kept her head down and her mouth shut; but when I shrieked at her to ask how she was standing it, she plucked her dusty veil from between her lips and smiled for answer.

We two sat on the back seat, Tom in front with Billings, and the "swamper» sat anywhere on the lumps and bumps which our baggage made, covered by the canvas wagonsheet. He might have ridden his horseeverybody supposed he would; but that would have separated him from the object of his existence; the object sternly ignoring him, and riding for miles with her face turned away, her hand to her hat, which the wind persistently snatched at. It was her wide-brimmed sketching-hat-rather a daring creation, but monstrously becoming, and I had persuaded her to wear it, the morning being delusively clear, thinking we were to have one of our

midsummer scorchers, that would have burned her fair English face to a blister.

Mr. Harshaw seemed to think she would be tired, wearing her hand continually in the air, and suggested various mechanical substitutes-a string attached to the hat-trimming, a scarf tied over her head; but a snubbing was all the reward he got for his sympathy. "When this hand is tired I take the other one,» she said airily.

We lunched at Ten Mile, by the railroad track. Do you remember that desolate place? The Oregon Short Line used to leave us there at a little station called Kuna. There is no Kuna now; the station-house is gone; the station-keeper's little children are buried between four stakes on the bare hill-diphtheria, I think it was. Miss Kitty asked what the stakes were there for. Tom did n't like to tell her, so he said some traveler had made a cache» there of something he could n't carry with him, and the stakes were to mark the spot till his return.

And will nobody disturb the cache?» asked Miss Kitty. I could n't bear to hear them. They are graves,» I whispered. «Two little children-the station-keeper's-all they had.» And she asked no more questions.

Mr. Harshaw had got possession of the canteen, and so was able to serve the maiden, both when she drank and when she held out her rosy fingers to be sprinkled, he tilting a little water on them slowly-with such provoking slowness that she chid him; then he let it come in gulps, and she chid him more, for spattering her shoes. She could play my Lady Disdain very prettily, only she is something too much in earnest at present for the game to be a pretty one to watch. I feel like calling her down from her pedestal of virgin wrath, if only for the sake of us peaceful old folks, who don't care to be made the stamping-ground for their little differences.

The horses were longer at their lunch than we, and Miss Kitty requested her traveling-bag. And now,» she said, «I will get rid of this fiend of a hat,» whereas, she had steadily protested for miles that she did n't mind it in the least. She took out of her bag a steamer-cap, and when she had put it on I could see that poor Harshaw dared not trust himself to look at her, her fair face exposed, and so very fair, in its tender, soft coloring, against that grim, wind-beaten waste of dust

and sage.

I shall skip the scenery on the road to Walter's Ferry, partly because we could n't see it for the dust; and if we had seen it, I

would not waste it upon you, an army woman. But Walter's Ferry was a hard-looking place when we crawled in last night out of the howling, dirt-throwing wind.

The little hand-raised poplars about the ferry-house were shivering and tugging and straining their thin necks in the gale, the windows so loaded with dust that we could barely see if there were lights inside. We hooted and we howled, -the men did, -and the ferrykeeper came out and stared at us in blank amazement that we should be wanting supper and beds. As if we could have wanted anything else at that place except to cross the river, which we don't do. We go up on this side. We came down the hill merely to sleep at the ferry-house, the night being too bad for a road camp.

The one guest-room at the Ferry that could be called private was given to Kitty and me; but we used it as a sitting-room till bedtime, there being nowhere else to go but into the common room where the teamsters congregate.

We stood and looked at each other, in our common disguise of dust, and tried to find our feet and other members that came awake gradually after the long stupor of the ride. There was a heap of sage-brush on the hearth laid ready for lighting. I touched a match to it, and Kitty dropped on her knees in front of its riotous warmth and glow. Suddenly she sprang up, and stared about her, sniffing and catching her breath. I had noticed it too; it fairly took one by the throat, the gruesome odor.

<<What is this beastly smell? » She spoke right out, as our beloved English do. Tom came in at that moment, and she turned upon him as though he were the author of our misery.

« What has happened in this horrid room? We can't stay here, you know!» The proposition admitted of no argument. She refused to draw another breath except through her pocket-handkerchief.

By this time I had recognized the smell. «It 's nothing but sage-brush,» I cried; «the cleanest, sterilest thing that grows!»

<«<It may be clean,» said Kitty, «but it smells like the bottomless pit. I must have a breath of fresh air.» The only window in the room was a four-pane sash fixed solid in the top of the outside door. Tom said we should have the sweepings of the Snake River valley in there in one second if we opened that door. But we did, and the wind played havoc with our fire, and half the country blew in, as he said, and with it came Cecil, his head bent low, his arms full of rugs and dust-cloaks.

«You angel!» I cried, «have you been shaking those things?»

«He's given himself the hay-fever,» said Tom, heartlessly watching him while he sneezed and sneezed, and wept dust into his handkerchief.

«Does n't the man do those things?» Miss Kitty whispered.

«What, our next Populist governor? Not much!» Tom replied. Kitty of course did not understand; it was hopeless to begin upon that theme of our labor aristocracy; so we sent the men away, and made ourselves as presentable as we could for supper.

I need not dwell upon it; it was the usual Walter's Ferry supper. The little woman who cooked it-the third she had cooked that evening-served it as well, plodding back and forth from the kitchen stove to the diningroom table, a little white-headed toddler clinging to her skirts, and whining to be put to bed. Out of regard for her look of general discouragement we ate what we could of the food without yielding to the temptation to joke about it, which was a cross to Tom at least.

«Do you know how the farmers sow their seed in the Snake River valley?» he asked Miss Kitty. She raised eyes of confiding inquiry to his face.

«They prepare the land in the usual way; then they go about five miles to windward of the plowed field and let fly their seed; the wind does the rest. It would be of no use, you see, to sow it on the spot where it 's meant to lie; they would have to go into the next county to look for their crop, top-soil and all.»

Now whenever Tom makes a statement Miss Kitty looks first at me to see how I am taking it.

It is a fair, pale morning, as still as a picture, after last night's orgy of wind and dust. The maiden is making her first sketch on American soil of the rope-ferry, with the boat on this side. She is seated in perfect unconsciousness on an inverted pine box-empty, I trust -which bears the startling announcement, in legible lettering on its side, that it holds «500 smokeless nitro-powder cartridges.» Now she looks up disgusted, to see the boat swing off and slowly warp over to the other side. The picturesque blocks and cables in the foreground have hopelessly changed position, and continue changing; but she consoles herself by making marginal notes of the passengers returning by the boat-a six-horse freightteam from Silver City, and a band of horses driven by two realistic cow-boys from anywhere. The driver of the freight-team has a

young wildcat aboard, half starved, haggard, and crazed with captivity. He stops, and pulls out his wretched pet. The cow-boys stop; everybody stops; they make a ring, while the dogs of the ferry-house are invited to step up and examine for themselves. The little cat spits and rages at the end of its blood-stained rope. It is not a pretty show, and I am provoked with our men for not turning their backs upon it.

SUNDAY, at Broadlands. From Walter's Ferry, day before yesterday, we climbed back upon the main road, which crosses the plateau of the Snake, cutting off a great bend of the river, to see it again far below in the bottom of the Grand Cañon.

The alkali growth is monotonous here; but there was a world of beauty and caprice in the forms of the seed-pods dried upon their stalks. Most of these pretty little purses were empty. Their treasure went, like the savings of a maiden aunt, when the idle wind got hold of it. There is an almost humorous ingenuity in the pains Nature has taken to secure the propagation of some of the meanest of her plant-children. The most worthless little vagabond seeds have wings or fans to fly with, or self-acting bomb-receptacles that burst and empty their contents (which nobody wants) upon the liberal air, or claws or prickers to catch on with to anything that goes. And once they have caught on, they are harder to get rid of than a Canadian quarter.

«And do you call this a desert? » cries Miss Kitty. «Why, millions of creatures live here! Look at the footprints of all the little beasties. They must eat and drink.»

«That is the cheek of us humans,» said Tom. «We call our forests solitudes because we have never shown up there before. Precious little we were missed. This desert subsisted its own population, and asked no favors of irrigation, till man came and overstocked it, and upset its domestic economies. When the sheep-men and the cattle-men came with their foreign mouths to fill, the natives had to scatter and forage for food, and trot back and forth to the river for drink. They have to travel miles now to one they went before. Hence all these desert thoroughfares.>>

And he showed us in the dust the track of a lizard, a kangaroo-mouse, and a horned toad. We could see for ourselves Bre'r Jack-rabbit and Sis' Gopher skipping away in the greasewood. The horses and cattle had their own broad-beaten roads converging from far away toward an occasional break

in the cañon wall, where the thirsty tracks went down.

We plodded along, and having with much deliberation taken the wrong road, we found ourselves about nightfall at the bottom of the cañon, in a perfect cul-de-sac. The bluffs ahead of us crowded close to the river, stretching their rocky knees straight down into deep water, and making no lap at all for our wagon to go over. And now, with this sweet prospect before us, it came on steadily to rain. The men made camp in the slippery darkness, while we sat in the wagon, warm and dry, and thanked our stars there were still a few things left that men could do without our aid or competition. Presently a lantern flashed out, and spots of light shifted over them as they slaved -pounding tent-pegs, and scraping stones away from places where our blankets were to be spread, hacking and hewing among the wet willows, and grappling with stovepipes and tent-poles; and the harder they worked the better their spirits seemed to be.

I wish some of the people who used to know Cecil Harshaw in England could see him now," said Kitty.

"What did he do in England?» I asked. "Well, he did n't hammer stovepipes and carry kitchen-boxes and cut fire-wood, you know.»

Don't you like to see men use their muscle?» I asked her. «Very few of them are reflective to any purpose at his age.»

«Why, how old, or how young, do you take him to be?»>

"I think you spoke of him as a boy, if I remember.>>

"If I called him a boy, it was out of charity for his behavior. He's within six months of my own age.»

And you don't call yourself a girl any longer? I laughed.

It's always girls) and (men,>» she said. "If Cecil Harshaw is not a man now, he never will be.»

I did n't know, I said, what the point at issue was between us. I thought Cecil Harshaw was very much a man, as men go, and I saw nothing, frankly, so very far amiss with his behavior.

It's very kind of you, Mrs. Daly, to defend him, I am sure. I suppose he could do no less than propose to me, after he had brought me out to marry a man who did n't seem to be quite ready; and if it had to be done, it was best to do it quickly.»>

So that was what she had been threshing out between whiles! I might have tried to answer her, but now the little tent among the

willows began to glow with fire and candlelight, and a dark shape loomed against it. It was Cecil Harshaw, bareheaded, with an umbrella, coming to escort us in to supper.

I never saw such a pair of roses as Kitty wore in her cheeks that night, nor the girl herself in such a gale. Tom gave me a triumphant glance across the table, as if to say, See how the medicine works! It was either the beginning of the cure, or else it was a feverish reaction.

I shall have to hurry over our little incidents: how the wagon could n't go on by way of the shore, and had to flounder back over the rocks, and crawl out of the cañon to the upper road; how Kitty and I set out vaingloriously to walk to Broadlands by the rivertrail, and Harshaw set out to walk with us; and how Kitty made it difficult for him to walk with both of us by staving on ahead, with the step of a young Atalanta. I was so provoked with her that I let her take her pace and I took mine. Fancy a woman of my age racing a girl of her build and constitution seven miles to Broadlands! Poor Harshaw was cruelly torn between us, but he manfully stuck to his duty. He would not abandon the old lady even for the pleasure of running after the young one, though I absolved him many times, and implored him to leave me to my fate. I take pride in recording his faithfulness, and I see now why I have always liked him. He wears well, particularly when things are most harassing.

It certainly was hard upon him when I gave out completely, toiling through the sand, and sat down to rest on the door-stone of a placer-miner's cabin (cabin closed and miner gone), and nowhere through the hot morning stillness could we catch a sound or a sight of the runaway. I could almost hear his heart beat, and his eyes and ears and all his keen young senses were on a stretch after that ridiculous girl. But he kept up a show of interest in my remarks, and paid every patient attention to my feeble wants, without an idea of how long it might be my pleasure to sit there. It was not long, however it may have seemed to him, before we heard the wagonwheels booming down a little side-cañon between the hills. The team had managed to drag it up through a scrubby gulch that looked like no thoroughfare, but which opened into a very fair way out of our difficulties.

« When we had come within sight of Broadlands Ferry, all aboard except Kitty, and still not a sign or a sound of her, our hearts began to soften toward that wilful girl.

Tom requested Harshaw to jump out and

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