Judith of the Plains | Page 2

penetrated the very marrow of their
train existence, they had come to refer to it by the monosyllable, as in
certain nether circles the head of the house receives his superlative
distinction in "He."
Again the locomotive shrieked, again the girl mechanically clutched the
suit-case, as presenting the most difficult item in the problem of
transportation, and this time the shriek was not an idle formality. The
train slowed down; the uneasy sleepers behind the green-striped
curtains stirred restlessly with the lessening motion of their uncouth
cradle. The porter came to help her, with the chastened mien of one
whose hopes of largess are small, the lady with the barnacles called
after her redundant farewells, and a moment later Miss Carmichael was
standing on the station platform looking helplessly after the train that
toiled and puffed, yet seemed, in that crystalline atmosphere, still
within arm's-reach. She watched it till its floating pennant of smoke
was nothing but a gray feather blowing farther and farther out of sight

on the flat prairie.
The town--it would be unkind to mention its name--had made merry
the night before at the comprehensive invitation of a sheepman who
had just disposed of his wool-clip, and who said, by way of general
summons, "What's the use of temptin' the bank?" "Town," therefore,
when Mary Carmichael first made its acquaintance, was still sleeping
the sleep of the unjust. Those among last night's roisterers who had had
to make an early start for their camps were well into the foot-hills by
this time, and would remember with exhilaration the cracked tinkle of
the dance-hall piano as inspiring music when the lonesomeness of the
desert menaced and the young blood again clamored for its own.
"Town"--it contained in all some two dozen buildings--was very
unlovely in slumber. It sprawled in the lap of the prairies, a
grimy-faced urchin, with the lines of dismal sophistication writ deep.
Yet where in all the "health resorts" of the East did air sweep from the
clean hill-country with such revivifying power? It seemed a glad world
of abiding youth. Surely "Town" was but a dreary illusion, a mirage
that hung in the unmapped spaces of this new world that God had made
and called good; an omen of the abominations that men would make
when they grew blind to the beauty of God's world.
Mary Carmichael, with much the feelings of a cat in a strange garret,
wandered about the sluggard town; and presently the blue-and-white
sign of a telegraph office, with the mythological figure of a hastening
messenger, suggested to her that a reassuring telegram was only Aunt
Adelaide's due. Whereupon she began to rap on the door of the office, a
scared pianissimo which naturally had little effect on the operator, who
was at home and asleep some three blocks distant. But the West is the
place for woman if she would be waited upon. No seven-to-one ratio of
the sexes has tempered the chivalry of her sons of the saddle. A
loitering something in a sombrero saw rather than heard the rapping,
and, at the sight, went in quest of the dreaming operator without so
much as embarrassing Miss Carmichael with an offer of his services.
And presently the operator, whose official day did not begin for some
two hours yet, appeared, much dishevelled from running and the

cursory nature of his toilet, prepared to receive a message of life and
death.
The wire to Aunt Adelaide ran:
"Practically at end of journey. Take stage to Lost Trail this morning.
Am well. Don't worry about me.
"MARY."
And the telegraph operator, dimly remembering that he had heard Lost
Trail was a "pizen mean country," and that it was tucked some two
hundred miles back in the foot-hills, did not find it very hard to forgive
the girl, who was "practically at end of journey," particularly as the
dimple had come out of hiding, and he had never been called upon to
telegraph the word "practically" before. He was a progressive man and
liked to extend his experiences.
After sending the telegram, Miss Carmichael, quite herself by reason of
the hill air, felt that she was getting along famously as a traveller, but
that it was an expensive business, and she was glad to be "practically"
at the end of her journey. And, drawing from her pocket a square
envelope of heavy Irish linen, a little worn from much reading, but
primarily an envelope that bespoke elegance of taste on the part of her
correspondent, she read:
"LOST TRAIL, WYOMING.
"My Dear Miss Carmichael,--Pray let me assure you of my gratification
that the preliminaries have been so satisfactorily arranged, and that we
are to have you with us by the end of June. The children are profiting
from the very anticipation of it,