The Hunted Woman | Page 2

are new?"
"Quite new--to this."
The words, and the manner in which they were spoken, made the other glance quickly at her companion.
"It is a strange place to go--Tête Jaune," she said. "It is a terrible place for a woman."
"And yet you are going?"
"I have friends there. Have you?"
"No."
The girl stared at her in amazement. Her voice and her eyes were bolder now.
"And without friends you are going--there?" she cried. "You have no husband--no brother----"
"What place is this?" interrupted the other, raising her veil so that she could look steadily into the other's face. "Would you mind telling me?"
"It is Miette," replied the girl, the flush reddening her cheeks again. "There's one of the big camps of the railroad builders down on the Flats. You can see it through the window. That river is the Athabasca."
"Will the train stop here very long?"
The Little Angel shrugged her thin shoulders despairingly.
"Long enough to get me into The Cache mighty late to-night," she complained. "We won't move for two hours."
"I'd be so glad if you could tell me where I can go for a bath and something to eat. I'm not very hungry--but I'm terribly dusty. I want to change some clothes, too. Is there a hotel here?"
Her companion found the question very funny. She had a giggling fit before she answered.
"You're sure new," she explained. "We don't have hotels up here. We have bed-houses, chuck-tents, and bunk-shacks. You ask for Bill's Shack down there on the Flats. It's pretty good. They'll give you a room, plenty of water, and a looking-glass--an' charge you a dollar. I'd go with you, but I'm expecting a friend a little later, and if I move I may lose him. Anybody will tell you where Bill's place is. It's a red an' white striped tent--and it's respectable."
The stranger girl thanked her, and turned for her bag. As she left the car, the Little Angel's eyes followed her with a malicious gleam that gave them the strange glow of candles in a sepulchral cavern. The colours which she unfurled to all seeking eyes were not secret, and yet she was filled with an inward antagonism that this stranger with the wonderful blue eyes had dared to see them and recognize them. She stared after the retreating form--a tall, slim, exquisitely poised figure that filled her with envy and a dull sort of hatred. She did not hear a step behind her. A hand fell familiarly on her shoulder, and a coarse voice laughed something in her ear that made her jump up with an artificial little shriek of pleasure. The man nodded toward the end of the now empty car.
"Who's your new friend?" he asked.
"She's no friend of mine," snapped the girl. "She's another one of them Dolly Dimples come out to save the world. She's that innocent she wonders why Tête Jaune ain't a nice place for ladies without escort. I thought I'd help eggicate her a little an' so I sent her to Bill's place. Oh, my Lord, I told her it was respectable!"
She doubled over the seat in a fit of merriment, and her companion seized the opportunity to look out of the window.
The tall, blue-eyed stranger had paused for a moment on the last step of the car to pin up her veil, fully revealing her face. Then she stepped lightly to the ground, and found herself facing the sunlight and the mountains. She drew a slow, deep breath between her parted lips, and turned wonderingly, for a moment forgetful. It was the first time she had left the train since entering the mountains, and she understood now why some one in the coach had spoken of the Miette Plain as Sunshine Pool. Where-ever she looked the mountains fronted her, with their splendid green slopes reaching up to their bald caps of gray shale and reddish rock or gleaming summits of snow. Into this "pool"--this pocket in the mountains--the sun descended in a wonderful flood. It stirred her blood like a tonic. She breathed more quickly; a soft glow coloured her cheeks; her eyes grew more deeply violet as they caught the reflection of the blue sky. A gentle wind fretted the loose tendrils of brown hair about her face. And the bearded man, staring through the car window, saw her thus, and for an hour after that the hollow-cheeked girl wondered at the strange change in him.
The train had stopped at the edge of the big fill overlooking the Flats. It was a heavy train, and a train that was helping to make history--a combination of freight, passenger, and "cattle." It had averaged eight miles an hour on its climb toward Yellowhead Pass and the end of steel. The "cattle" had already surged from their stifling and foul-smelling cars in a noisy inundation of curiously