Judith of the Plains

il Of S

was no good and sufficient reason for wearing it out. A similar consideration of economy led her to flirt off flies with her second best pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Dax presided over the gathering with awful severity. Every one truckled to her shamefully,

one of those mottled chargers of the nursery whose flaunting nostrils seem forever on the point of s

ndscape through her all-observant eye, and not detecting him in any of the remote pin-pricks on the ho

h her," said Leander, in the animated manner of a

nspicuously addressed her next remark to the ladies.

h of a poor relation whose surmise had been accepted. But Mrs

gg's stage that you are so frettin' anxious?" she

" inquired Mrs. Dax of the fat lady, as the only one of the party who

ant. "M' son says he's plumb locoed about it-didn't want me to travel by his st

popularly supposed to [pg 061] account for the misdemeanors of the stage-driv

ing the ribbons with the diplomacy necessary to treat with a masked envoy on the road. His luck in these encounters was proverbial, and many were the hair-breadth escape

he prayed to was an old gray woollen stocking, stuffed so full of twenty-dollar gold pieces that it presented the bulbous appearance of the "before treatment" v

nds, the biting dust, and the alkali water. Furthermore, she could "bring about a dried-apple pie" to make a man forget the cooking of his mother. Great was the hav

nly did he fail to take a proper pride in her beauty, but there were dark hints abroad that he had never tasted one of her pies. When delicately questioned on this po

pies regularly once a week on his stage-route, said nothing, but he presented her with a red plush photograph album with oxidized silver clasps, and by this first reckless expenditure of mon

began to work in the veins of Chugg. He presented Mountain Pink with the gray woollen stocking-not extracting

r the divorce and subsequent trousseau, and Chugg continued to drive

orst from the beginning, and as time went on and nothing was heard of either of the wanderers, some of Mountain Pink's most loyal adherents confessed it looked "romancy." But crust

on cottage every time he completed the circuit, they lost caste in Carbon County. Chugg never spoke of the faithlessness of Mountain Pink. His bitterness found vent in tipping over the stage when his passen

took up the thread of the romance. Each time she turned Judith would stop and scan the yellow road, shading her eyes with her hand, and each time she had turned away and resumed her walk. Mary, who gave the postmistress no unstinted s

ng with the brevity of their acquaintance; a freedom from restraint spared them the necessity of

tion came dancing "dust-devils" whirling and gliding through the mazes of their eerie dance. "I thin

. "How do you stand it with

half measures. As for the sea"-Judith shrugged her fine s

the instinctive tendency towards secretiveness that was part of the heritage of her Indian blood;

matter with an abruptness that

Clark's eating-house; will you be good

ely as to the temper of the men at table towards Jim. Did she know if

ad talked to had been Mrs. Clark, whose sympathy had been entirely with Jim. Judith t

e distance, hardly bigger than a doll's carriage, was the long-delayed stage. She spoke to the postmistress, but apparently she did not hear-Judith was watching the nearing stage as if it migh

ing hard from the earth rhythmic notes which presently grew hollow and so

delayed stage-driver. His delinquencies had deflected the course of the travellers, left them stranded in a rem

d Leander, impelled to viole

milton!" excla

rker!" said the fat lady.

entory, while it highly became the slim young giant, added an extra comedy touch to his r?le of whip. He was as dusty as a miller; close-cropped, curly head, features, and clothes were covered with a fine alkali powde

est excursion into oblivion had resulted in a fall from the box. He was not badly hurt, and recuperation was largely a matter of "sleeping it off," concluded Peter Ham

ton, with a sort of stone-age playfulness, "y

er his most winning smile-"but I

ecstasy of delight at finding a man who ha

uine coquetry. "Guess it was rustle

Root range to hunt down her brother? The thought was intolerable. Yet, when he had bade her good-bye some three weeks ago, he had told her that he did not expect to return much before t

uent presence at the post-office had been more voluble than logical. But now he no longer came, and Judith, for all her deli

perishing for a cup of coffee, and I've

ed the gorgon; but she left

than in his parley with Mrs. Dax; it might have implied special devotion, or it might have implied but the passing tribute to a beautiful

g, if not a solution of her troubles, at least some evidence of sustaining sympathy, and was

e matter drop. She was too simple a woman to stoop to oblique measures for the gaining of her own ends. If he was here to hunt down her brother, if he was he

nded her of a letter for Peter that had been bro

n the wall that held the flotsam and jetsam of unclaimed mail, and

his reserve of patience. Tearing open the envelope, he read it voraciously, read it to the exclusion of his surroundings,

ond glance at the postmistress, and presently they saw him galloping off in the opposite direction from whic

demanded, putting the tray down

d got to have the gray mare, saddled

sending her out to make coffee she felt that Peter, whom she regarded in the light o

ck to the kitchen,"

glanced at Judith; the fall

and all-comprehensive tenet of his creed-that his wife was a person to be loved, honored, and obeyed instantly-agreed with his lady by a process of reflex action. The fat lady, who had a commonplace for every occasion, didn't "know what we were all coming to." Miss Carmichael, who was beginning to find her capacity for amazement overstrained, alone accepted this last incident with apathy. Mr. [pg 071] Hamilton might have gone in swift pursuit of

hanged as she withdrew from the group about the door, covertly gaining her vantage-ground inch by inch. The heels of her riding-boots made no sound as she stole across the kitchen floor, toeing in like an Indian tracking an enemy through the forest. The small window at the back of the kitchen commanded a view

ock that [pg 072] grazed in four States. At certain seasons, likewise, despite the fact that the ranch was well into the foot-hill country, t

s well away on this west fork of the road that they lynched Kate Watson-"Cattle Kate"-for the crime of loyalty. It was she, intrepid and reckless, who threatened the horde of masked scoundrels when they came to lynch her man for the iniq

t her brother, their recognized leader-her brother, who was dearer to her than the heart in her breast, the eye in her head, the right hand that held together the shambling, uncertain destiny of her people. Would he turn to the left, Justice, [pg 073] on a pale horse, hunting her brother gallowswar

g