Judith of the Plains | Page 3

and it will be most refreshing to all us
isolated ones to be able to welcome an Eastern girl as a member of our
family.
"Although the long journey across the continent is trying, particularly
to one who has not made it before, I hope you may not find it utterly
fatiguing. Please remember that after leaving the train, it will be

necessary to take a stage to Lost Trail. If it is possible, I shall meet you
with the buckboard at one of the stage stations; otherwise, keep to the
stage route, being careful to change at Dax's Ranch.
"Unfortunately, the children vary so in their accomplishments that I
fear I can make no suggestions as to what you may need to bring with
you in the way of text-books. But I think you will find them fairly well
grounded.
"I had a charming letter from Mrs. Kirkland, who said the pleasantest
things possible of you. I am glad the wife of our Senator was able
conscientiously to commend us.
"With our most cordial good wishes for a safe journey, believe me, dear
Miss Carmichael,
"Sincerely yours,
"SARAH YELLETT."
In the mean time, "Town" came yawning to breakfast. It was not so
prankish as it had been the night before, when it accepted the
sheepman's broad-gauge hospitality and made merry till the sun winked
from behind the mountains. It made its way to the low, shedlike
eating-house with a pre-breakfast solemnity bordering on sulkiness.
Not a petticoat was in sight to offset the spurs and sombreros that filed
into breakfast from every point in the compass, prepared to eat
primitively, joke broadly, and quarrel speedily if that sensitive and
often inconsistent something they called honor should be brushed
however lightly.
But the eternal feminine was within, and, discovering it, the temper of
"Town" was changed; it ate self-consciously, made jokes meet for the
ears of ladies, and was more interested in the girl in the sailor-hat than
it was in remembering old feuds or laying the foundations of new.
In its interior aspect, the eating-house conveyed no subtle invitation to
eat, drink, and be merry. On the contrary, its mission seemed to be that

of confounding appetite at every turn. A long, shedlike room it was,
with walls of unpainted pine, still sweating from the axe. Festoons of
scalloped paper, in conflicting shades, hung from the ceiling, a menace
to the taller of the guests. On the rough walls some one, either
prompted by a latent spirit of æstheticism or with an idea of abetting
the town towards merrymaking--an encouragement it hardly
required--had tacked posters of shows, mainly representing the
tank-and-sawmill school of drama.
Miss Carmichael sat at the extreme end of the long, oilcloth-covered
table, on which a straggling army of salt and pepper shakers, catsup
bottles, and divers commercial condiments seemed to pause in a
discouraged march. A plague of flies was on everything, and the food
was a threat to the hardiest appetite. One man summed up the steak
with, "You got to work your jaw so hard to eat it that it ain't fair to the
next meal."
His neighbor heaved a sigh. "This here formation, whatever it be"--and
he turned the meat over for better inspection--"do shore remind me of
an indestructible doll that an old maid aunt of mine giv' my sister when
we was kids. That doll sort of challenged me, settin' round oncapable o'
bein' destroyed, and one day I ups an' has a chaw at her. She war
ondestructible, all right; 'fore that I concluded my speriments I had left
a couple o' teeth in her."
"Well, I discyards the steak and draw to a pair of aces," and the first
man helped himself to a couple of biscuits.
Miss Carmichael knew, by the continual scraping of chairs across the
gritty floor, that the places at the table must be nearly all taken; and
while she anticipated, with an utterly unreasonable terror, any further
invasion of her seclusion at the end of the table, still she could not
persuade herself to raise her eyes to detect the progress of the enemy,
even in the interest of the diary she had kept so conscientiously for the
past three days; which was something of a loss to the diary, as those
untamed, manly faces were well worth looking at. Reckless they were
in many instances, and sometimes the lines of hardship were cruelly
writ across young faces that had not yet lost the down of adolescence,

but there were humor and endurance and the courage that knows how
to make a crony of death and get right good sport from the comradeship.
Their faults were the faults of lusty, red-blooded youth, and their
virtues the open-handed generosity, the ready sympathy of those
uncertain tilters at