The Girl from Montana | Page 7

part of the place.
The girl stopped a moment to gain courage in full sight of the graves,
and the horse snorted, and stopped too, with his ears a-quiver, and a
half-fright in his eyes.
She patted his neck and soothed him incoherently, as she buried her
face in his mane for a moment, and let the first tears that had dimmed
her eyes since the blow had fallen come smarting their way out. Then,
leaving the horse to stand curiously watching her, she went down and
stood at the head of the new-heaped mound. She tried to kneel, but a
shudder passed through her. It was as if she were descending into the
place of the dead herself; so she stood up and raised her eyes to the
wide white night and the moon riding so high and far away.
"Our Father," she said in a voice that sounded miles away to herself.
Was there any Father, and could He hear her? And did He care?
"Which art in heaven--" but heaven was so far away and looked so
cruelly serene to her in her desolateness and danger! "hallowed be thy

name. Thy kingdom come--" whatever that might mean. "Thy will be
done in earth, as it is in heaven." It was a long prayer to pray, alone
with the pale moon-rain and the graves, and a distant wolf, but it was
her mother's wish. Her will being done here over the dead--was that
anything like the will of the Father being done in heaven? Her
untrained thoughts hovered on the verge of great questions, and then
slipped back into her pathetic self and its fear, while her tongue hurried
on through the words of the prayer.
Once the horse stirred and breathed a soft protest. He could not
understand why they were stopping so long in this desolate place, for
nothing apparently. He had looked and looked at the shapeless mound
before which the girl was standing; but he saw no sign of his lost
master, and his instincts warned him that there were wild animals about.
Anyhow, this was no place for a horse and a maid to stop in the night.
A few loose stones rattled from the horse's motion. The girl started, and
looked hastily about, listening for a possible pursuer; but everywhere in
the white sea of moonlight there was empty, desolate space. On to the
"Amen" she finished then, and with one last look at the lonely graves
she turned to the horse. Now they might go, for the duty was done, and
there was no time to be lost.
Somewhere over toward the east across that untravelled wilderness of
white light was the trail that started to the great world from the little
cabin she had left. She dared not go back to the cabin to take it, lest she
find herself already followed. She did not know the way across this
lonely plain, and neither did the horse. In fact, there was no way, for it
was all one arid plain so situated that human traveller seldom came
near it, so large and so barren that one might wander for hours and gain
no goal, so dry that nothing would grow.
With another glance back on the way she had come, the girl mounted
the horse and urged him down into the valley. He stepped cautiously
into the sandy plain, as if he were going into a river and must try its
depth. He did not like the going here, but he plodded on with his
burdens. The girl was light; he did not mind her weight; but he felt this
place uncanny, and now and then would start on a little spurt of haste,

to get into a better way. He liked the high mountain trails, where he
could step firmly and hear the twigs crackle under his feet, not this
muffled, velvet way where one made so little progress and had to work
so hard.
The girl's heart sank as they went on, for the sand seemed deep and
drifted in places. She felt she was losing time. The way ahead looked
endless, as if they were but treading sand behind them which only
returned in front to be trodden over again. It was to her like the valley
of the dead, and she longed to get out of it. A great fear lest the moon
should go down and leave her in this low valley alone in the dark took
hold upon her. She felt she must get away, up higher. She turned the
horse a little more to the right, and he paused, and seemed to survey the
new direction and to like it. He stepped up more briskly, with a courage
that could come only from an intelligent