The Lilac Girl

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The Lilac Girl

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lilac Girl, by Ralph Henry Barbour,
Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood
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Title: The Lilac Girl
Author: Ralph Henry Barbour
Release Date: July 8, 2004 [eBook #12858]
Language: English
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THE LILAC GIRL
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
Author of "Kitty of the Roses," "An Orchard Princess," "A Maid in
Arcady," "Holly," "My Lady of the Fog," etc.
With Illustrations in Color by CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD
and Decorations by EDWARD STRATTON HOLLOWAY
1909

[Illustration: OVER THE TIPS OF THE SPRAYS SHE SHOT A
GLANCE AT WADE]

To L.D.K.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
OVER THE TIPS OF THE SPRAYS SHE SHOT A GLANCE AT
WADE
"OH, NO, SIR," REPLIED ZEPHANIA, WITH A SHOCKED,
PITYING EXPRESSION
"YOUR HOUSE? THEN--THEN WHERE IS MINE, PLEASE?"

"STERN IN HER ANGER, MR. HERRICK, BUT OF AN AMIABLE
AND FORGIVING DISPOSITION"
"NOW WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY?" HE DEMANDED

THE LILAC GIRL
I.
Two men were sitting beside a camp-fire at Saddle Pass, a shallow
notch in the lower end of the Sangre de Cristo Range in southern
Colorado. Although it was the middle of June and summer had come to
the valleys below, up here in the mountains the evenings were still chill,
and the warmth of the crackling fire felt grateful to tired bodies.
Daylight yet held, although it was fast deepening toward dusk. The sun
had been gone some little time behind the purple grandeur of Sierra
Blanca, but eastward the snowy tips of the Spanish Peaks were still
flushed with the afterglow.
Nearby three ragged burros were cropping the scanty growth. Behind
them the sharp elbow of the mountain ascended, scarred and furrowed
and littered with rocky debris. Before them the hill sloped for a few
rods and levelled into a narrow plateau, across which, eastward and
westward, the railway, tired from its long twisting climb up the
mountain, seemed to pause for a moment and gasp for breath before
beginning its descent. Beyond the tracks a fringe of stunted trees held
precarious foothold on the lower slope of a smaller peak, which reared
its bare cone against the evening sky. There were no buildings at
Saddle Pass save a snow-shed which began where the rails slipped
downward toward the east and, dropping from sight, followed for a
quarter of a mile around the long face of the mountain. It was very still
up here on the Pass, so still that when the Western Slope Limited, two
hours and more late at Eagle Cliff, whistled for the tunnel four miles
below the sound came echoing about them startlingly clear.
"Train coming up from the west," said the elder of the two men. "Must

be the Limited." The other nodded as he drained the last drop in his tin
cup and looked speculatively at the battered coffee pot.
"Any more of the Arbuckle nectar, Ed?" he asked.
"Not a drop, but I can make some."
"No, I've had enough, I reckon. That's the trouble with dining late, Ed;
you have too much appetite."
"We'll have to get some more grub before long," was the reply, "or it'll
be appetite and nothing else with us. I can eat bacon with the next man,
but I don't want to feast on it six days running. What we need, Wade, is
variety."
"And plenty of it," sighed the other, stretching his tired legs and finding
a new position. "The fact is, even after this banquet I feel a little
hollow."
"Same here, but I figure we'd better go a little short till we get nearer
town. We ought to strike Bosa Grande to-morrow night."
"Why not hop the train and go down to Aroya? We can find some real
grub there."
"Couldn't get back before to-morrow afternoon. What's the good of
wasting a whole day?"
"Looks to me like we'd wasted about twenty of them already, Ed."
Craig made no reply. He fished a corn-cob pipe and a little sack of
tobacco from his pocket and began to fill the bowl. Wade watched for a
moment in silence. Then, with a protesting groan, he rolled over until
he could get at his own