The Lilac Girl | Page 2

pipe. Craig drew an ember from the edge of the
fire with calloused fingers, held it to his bowl and passed it on to Wade.
Then with grunts of contentment they settled back against the sagging
canvas of their tent and puffed wreaths of acrid smoke into the twilight.
The shadows were creeping up the mountain side. Overhead the wide

sweep of sky began to glitter with white stars. A little chill breeze
sprang up in the west and fanned the fire, sending a fairy shower of tiny
lemon-yellow sparks into the air. And borne on the breeze came a
hoarse pounding and drumming that grew momentarily louder and
reverberated from wall to wall. The ground trembled and the grazing
burros lifted their shaggy heads inquiringly.
"She's almost up," said Wade. Craig nodded and replaced his pipe
between his teeth. The noise became multisonous. With the clangor of
the pounding wheels came the stertorous gasping of the engines, the
creak and clatter of protesting metal. The uproar filled the pass
deafeningly.
"She's making hard work of it," shouted Craig.
"Probably a heavy train," Wade answered.
Then a path of pale light swept around the elbow of the mountain and
the wheezing, puffing monsters reached the head of the grade. The
watchers could almost hear the sighs of relief from the two big
mountain-climbers as they found the level track beneath them. Their
breathing grew easier, quieter as they clanged slowly across the pass a
few rods below the camp. The burros, having satisfied their curiosity,
went back to supper. The firemen in the cab windows raised their hands
in greeting and the campers waved back. Behind the engines came a
baggage and express car, then a day coach, a diner and a sleeper.
Slower and slower moved the train and finally, with a rasping of brakes
and the hissing of released steam, it stopped.
"What's up?" asked Wade.
"Hot-box on the diner; see it?"
"Yes, and smell it. Let's go down."
But Craig shook his head lazily, and Wade, cinching his loosened belt,
limped with aching legs down the slope. The trainmen were already
pulling the smouldering, evil-smelling waste from the box, and after

watching a minute he loitered along the track beside the car. Several of
the shades were raised and the sight of the gleaming white napery and
silver brought a wistful gleam to his eyes. But there was worse to come.
At the last table a belated diner was still eating. He was a large man
with a double chin, under which he had tucked a corner of his napkin.
He ate leisurely, but with gusto.
"Hot roast beef," groaned Wade, "and asparagus and little green beans!
Oh Lord!"
He suddenly felt very empty, and mechanically tightened his leather
belt another inch. It came over him all at once that he was frightfully
hungry. For the last two days he and his partner had been travelling on
short rations, and to-day they had been on the go since before sun-up.
For a moment the wild idea came to him of jumping on the train and
riding down to Aroya just so he could take a seat in the dining-car and
eat his fill.
"They wouldn't make much out of me at a dollar a throw," he reflected,
with a grin. But it wouldn't be fair to Craig, and he abandoned the idea
in the next breath. He couldn't stand there any longer, though, and see
that man eat. He addressed himself to the closed window before he
turned away.
"I hope it chokes you," he muttered, venomously.
Some of the passengers had descended from the day coach to stretch
their limbs, and with a desire to avoid them Wade walked toward the
rear of the train. Daylight dies hard up here in the mountains, but at last
twilight held the world, a clear, starlit twilight. Overhead the vault of
heaven was hung with deep blue velvet, pricked out with a million
diamonds. Up the slope the camp-fire glowed ruddily. In the west the
smouldering sunset embers had cooled to ashes of dove-gray and steel,
against which Sierra Blanca crouched, a grim, black giant. Wade had
reached the observation platform at the end of the sleeping-car. With a
tired sigh he turned toward the slope and the beckoning fire. But the
sound of a closing door brought his head around and the fire no longer
beckoned.

On the platform, one hand on the knob of the car door as though
meditating retreat, stood the straight, slim figure of a girl. She wore a
light skirt and a white waist, and a bunch of flowers drooped from her
breast. Her head was uncovered and the soft brown hair waved
lustrously away from a face of ivory. The eyes that looked down into