A Voice in the Wilderness

garet Earle, hastily gathering up her belongings,

e that neither conductor, brakeman, nor porter had come to help her off the train, when all three had taken the trouble to tell her that hers was the next

platform. Did they not have platforms in this wild Western land, o

ine, and each one evidently carried a lantern. The train was tremendously long. A sudden feeling of isolation took possession of her. Perhaps she ought not to have got out until some one came to help her. Perhaps

but she was standing too near the cars to see over. She tried to move back to look, but the g

out here, away off from the station, at night, in a strange country. If the train started before she could find the conduc

il of the step, she tried to pull herself up, but as she did so the engine gave a long snort and the whole train, as if it were in league against her, lurched forward crazily, shaking off her hold. She slipped to her knees again, the suit-

ed imploring hands to the unresponsive cars as they hurried by her-one, two, three, with bri

tention, a sickening sense of terror and failure, and the last car slat

fter the fast-retreating train, the light on its last car swinging tauntingly, blinking now a

but a short moment before had been so real to her m

-green, smoke-like, hovered over earth darker and more intense than the unfathomable blue of the night sky. It seemed like the secret nesting-place of mysteries wherei

t on the far horizon, where a heavy line of deeper darkness might mean a forest. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the blue, deep, starry d

e and made her painful way toward it, for her knee

ll column with its arm outstretched, and looming darker among the sage-brush the outlines of a water-tank. It was so she reco

the distance, there melted on her frightened eyes a vision of her father and mother sitting around the library lamp at home, as they sat every evening. They were probably reading and talking at this very minute, and trying not to miss her on this her first venture away from t

ne and ten o'clock at night! It seemed incredible that it had really happened! Perhaps she was dreaming! A few moments before in the bright car, surrou

Surely, surely the conductor, or the porter who had been so kind, would discover that she was gone,

here, feeling contented and almost happy about her, and she, their little girl-all her dignity as school-teacher dropped from her like a garment now-she was standing in this empty space alone, with only an engine's water-tank to keep her from dying, and only the barren, desolate track to con

d she been! Coyotes, nor Indians, nor wild cowboy students-nothing had daunted her courage. Besides, she told her mother it was very different going to a town from what it would be if she were a missionary going to the wilds. It was an important school she was to teach, where her Latin a

igh and dark above her. She must get up there somehow. It was not safe to stand here a minute. Besides, from that

down at the foot. Would it be safe to leave it there? She had read how coyotes carried off a hatchet from a camping-party, just to get the leather thong wh

alling in tasseled ends. Swiftly she untied it and knotted one end firmly to the handle of her suit-case, tyi

g her heart beat wildly. She was stiff and bruised from her falls, and weak with fright. The spikes were far apart, and each step of progres

er arm. She was obliged to steady herself where she stood and pull it up before she could go on. Then she managed to

t her breath back again after the climb; but presently the beauty of the night began to cast its spell over her. That wonderful blue of the sky! It hadn't ever before impressed her that skies wer

. She half expected to see a shepherd with his crook and sheep approaching her out of the dim shadows, or a turbaned, white-robed David with his lifted hands of prayer standing off among the depths of purple darkness. It wo

n before. There was no sign of a light or a house anywhere, and not even a freight-train sent its welcome clatter down the track. All was still and wide and lonel

her on her high, narrow seat. She was growing stiff and cramped, yet dared not move much. Would there be no train, nor any h

y. She looked to find it, and thought she saw a shape move out of the sage-brush on the other side of the track, but she could not be sure. It might be but a figment of her brain, a foolish fancy fr

e called; and ag

if it were a beast instead of a human! Terrible fear took possessi

's t

hing but a sob would come to them for a min

p! H

w she could see a horse and rider like a