The Girl from Montana

n. The almost unearthly beauty of the scene grew upon them. They had none of the loneliness

hen 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 hab

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

ained. Such and such stars were so many miles from the earth. He told their names, and a bit of mythology conne

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 ques

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

a speech so free from grammatical errors. She was apparently deeply ignorant, and yet with

ot 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. Thei

pencil to say that her mother's father had died. He had been killed in an accident of some sort, working in the

on the mountain where

o, 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 g

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

y, "not that way. I take a glass of wi

d men were different from women. They had to drink. She said they all did it. Only

, 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

to do so he did not know, only that all at once it was very necessary that he sh

d, turning to look in his f

se I will. I tell you it's nothing to me. I only took a glass at the club occasionally when the oth

drinking was what her brothers did; and so she sighed, and said: "Yes, you may promise, but I know you wo

won't drink. I promise you solemnly here under God's sky that I'll never dri

nd she put her own into it with a

glad ring in her voice. "That must be why I wasn't so very mu

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 forgo

a temperance pledge in her life, had never joined a woman's temperance society, and knew nothing about wome

in a wild, exhilarating skim across the plain. Talking was impossible. The man reflected that he was making great strides in experience, first a

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

dy 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

ran growling up with ruffled fur; but the girl's quick shot soon put it to flight, and they

d the sun lift its rosy head from the mist of mountain and valley

ips. "Awful things happen on Su

trove to turn her thoughts in other directions. Evident

. The daylight has come, and nothing can hurt us. Here is a good place, and shelter

d 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, alth

ciety 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

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 g

o, 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 c

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

about as he lay there, too weary with the u

f 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 h

ts; but they came and went, and he listened, and by and by heard no more. The horses breathed heavily behind their sage-brush stable, an

comfortable, and moreover an uneasy sense of something wrong pervaded his mind. Had he or had he not, heard a strange, low, sibil

hing 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

is eyes about, but the thick growth of sage-brush everywhere prevented his seeing much. He stepped to the r

uneasiness grew upo

early. He ventured the question again, but it seemed to go no further than the gray-green foliage in fr

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