The Quirt | Page 7

man's eyes. She met it with impatient disfavor founded
chiefly upon the young man's need of a decent hair-cut, a less flowery
tie and a tailored suit. When he confessed that he did not know Mr.
Britton Hunter by sight he ceased to exist so far as Lorraine was

concerned. She decided that he also was new to the place and therefore
perfectly useless to her.
The postmaster himself--Lorraine was cheered by his spectacles, his
shirt sleeves, and his chin whiskers, which made him look the part--was
better informed. He, too, eyed her curiously when she said "My father,
Mr. Britton Hunter," but he made no comment on the relationship. He
gave her a telegram and a letter from the General Delivery. The
telegram, she suspected, was the one she had sent to her dad
announcing the date of her arrival. The postmaster advised her to get a
"livery rig" and drive out to the ranch, since it might be a week or two
before any one came in from the Quirt. Lorraine thanked him
graciously and departed for the livery stable.
The man in charge there chewed tobacco meditatively and told her that
his teams were all out. If she was a mind to wait over a day or two, he
said, he might maybe be able to make the trip. Lorraine took a long
look at the structure which he indicated as the hotel.
"I think I'll walk," she said calmly.
"Walk?" The stableman stopped chewing and stared at her. "It's some
consider'ble of a walk. It's all of eighteen mile--I dunno but twenty,
time y'get to the house."
"I have frequently walked twenty-five or thirty miles. I am a member of
the Sierra Club in Los Angeles. We seldom take hikes of less than
twenty miles. If you will kindly tell me which road I must take----"
"There she is," the man stated flatly, and pointed across the railroad
track to where a sandy road drew a yellowish line through the sage,
evidently making for the hills showing hazily violet in the distance.
Those hills formed the only break in the monotonous gray landscape,
and Lorraine was glad that her journey would take her close to them.
"Thank you so much," she said coldly and returned to the station. In the
small lavatory of the depot waiting room she exchanged her slippers for
a pair of moderately low-heeled shoes which she had at the last minute

of packing tucked into her suitcase, put a few extra articles into her
rather smart traveling bag, left the suitcase in the telegraph office and
started. Not another question would she ask of Echo, Idaho, which was
flatter and more insipid than the drinking water in the tin "cooler" in the
waiting room. The station agent stood with his hands on his hips and
watched her cross the track and start down the road, pardonably
astonished to see a young woman walk down a road that led only to the
hills twenty miles away, carrying her luggage exactly as if her trip was
a matter of a block or two at most.
The bag was rather heavy and as she went on it became heavier. She
meant to carry it slung across her shoulder on a stick as soon as she was
well away from the prying eyes of Echo's inhabitants. Later, if she felt
tired, she could easily hide it behind a bush along the road and send one
of her father's cowboys after it. The road was very dusty and carried the
wind-blown traces of automobile tires. Some one would surely
overtake her and give her a ride before she walked very far.
For the first half hour she believed that she was walking on level
ground, but when she looked back there was no sign of any town
behind her. Echo had disappeared as completely as if it had been
swallowed. Even the unseemly bay-windowed houses on the hill had
gone under. She walked for another half hour and saw only the gray
sage stretching all around her. The hills looked farther away than when
she started. Still, that beaten road must lead somewhere. Two hours
later she began to wonder why this particular road should be so
unending and so empty. Never in her life before had she walked for two
hours without seeming to get anywhere, or without seeing any living
human.
Both shoulders were sore from the weight of the bag on the stick, but
the sagebushes looked so exactly alike that she feared she could not
describe the particular spot where the cowboys would find her bag,
wherefore she carried it still. She was beginning to change hands very
often when the wind came.
Just where or how that wind sprang up she did not know.