The Girl from Montana | Page 2

been brought home mortally
hurt--an encounter with wild cattle, a fall from his horse in a
treacherous place--and had never roused to consciousness again.
At all these funerals there had been a solemn service, conducted by a
travelling preacher when one happened to be within reach, and, when
there was none, by the trembling, determined, untaught lips of the
white-faced mother. The mother had always insisted upon it, especially
upon a prayer. It had seemed like a charm to help the departed one into
some kind of a pitiful heaven.
And when, a few months after the father, the mother had drooped and
grown whiter and whiter, till one day she clutched at her heart and lay
down gasping, and said: "Good-by, Bess! Mother's good girl! Don't

forget!" and was gone from her life of burden and disappointment
forever, the girl had prepared the funeral with the assistance of the one
brother left. The girl's voice had uttered the prayer, "Our Father," just
as her mother had taught her, because there was no one else to do it;
and she was afraid to send the wild young brother off after a preacher,
lest he should not return in time.
It was six months now since the sad funeral train had wound its way
among sage-brush and greasewood, and the body of the mother had
been laid to rest beside her husband. For six months the girl had kept
the cabin in order, and held as far as possible the wayward brother to
his work and home. But within the last few weeks he had more and
more left her alone, for a day, and sometimes more, and had come
home in a sad condition and with bold, merry companions who made
her life a constant terror. And now, but two short days ago, they had
brought home his body lying across his own faithful horse, with two
shots through his heart. It was a drunken quarrel, they told her; and all
were sorry, but no one seemed responsible.
They had been kind in their rough way, those companions of her
brother. They had stayed and done all that was necessary, had dug the
grave, and stood about their comrade in good-natured grimness,
marching in order about him to give the last look; but, when the sister
tried to utter the prayer she knew her mother would have spoken, her
throat refused to make a sound, and her tongue cleaved to the roof of
her mouth. She had taken sudden refuge in the little shed that was her
own room, and there had stayed till the rough companions had taken
away the still form of the only one left in the family circle.
In silence the funeral train wound its way to the spot where the others
were buried. They respected her tearless grief, these great, passionate,
uncontrolled young men. They held in the rude jokes with which they
would have taken the awesomeness from the occasion for themselves,
and for the most part kept the way silently and gravely, now and then
looking back with admiration to the slim girl with the stony face and
unblinking eyes who followed them mechanically. They had felt that
some one ought to do something; but no one knew exactly what, and so

they walked silently.
Only one, the hardest and boldest, the ringleader of the company,
ventured back to ask whether there was anything he could do for her,
anything she would like to have done; but she answered him coldly
with a "No!" that cut him to the quick. It had been a good deal for him
to do, this touch of gentleness he had forced himself into. He turned
from her with a wicked gleam of intent in his eyes, but she did not see
it.
When the rude ceremony was over, the last clod was heaped upon the
pitiful mound, and the relentless words, "dust to dust," had been
murmured by one more daring than the rest, they turned and looked at
the girl, who had all the time stood upon a mound of earth and watched
them, as a statue of Misery might look down upon the world. They
could not make her out, this silent, marble girl. They hoped now she
would change. It was over. They felt an untold relief themselves from
the fact that their reckless, gay comrade was no longer lying cold and
still among them. They were done with him. They had paid their last
tribute, and wished to forget. He must settle his own account with the
hereafter now; they had enough in their own lives without the burden of
his.
Then there had swept up into the girl's face one gleam of life that made
her beautiful for the instant, and she had bowed