“Mary!  In heaven’s name!” The sound of a falling body had caught her ear and she had turned.  “Mary Landor!” The dishes in the cupboard against the wall shook as something heavy met the floor.  “Mary!” A pause and a tongue-tied examination.  “My God!  The woman is dead!”

* * * * *

It was ten minutes before starting time.  The old-fashioned engine, contemptuously relegated to the frontier before going to the junk heap, was puffing at the side of the low sanded station platform.  The rough cottonwood box was already in the baggage car.  How himself had assisted in putting it there, had previously settled for its transportation.  Likewise he had bought the girl’s ticket, and checked her scanty baggage.  The usual crowd of loafers was about the place, and his every action was observed with the deepest interest.  Wherever he moved the spectators followed.  Urchins near at hand fought horrible mimic duels for his benefit; duels which invariably ended in the scalping of the vanquished—­and with expressions of demoniacal exultation playing upon the face of the conqueror.  From far in the rear a war whoop sounded; and when the effort was to all evidence ignored, was repeated intrepidly near at hand.  They put themselves elaborately in his way, to move at his approach with grunts of guttural protestation.  Already, even here on the frontier, the Sioux and his kind were becoming a novelty.  Verily they were rare sportsmen, those mimicking loafers; and for Indians it was ever the open season.  All about sounded the popping of their artillery; to be, when exhausted, as often reloaded and fired again.

But through it all, apparently unseeing, unconscious, the man had gone about his business.  Now as he left the ticket window and approached the single coach, it was nearly starting time.  The girl had already entered and sat motionless in her seat watching him through the dusty window glass.  Craig, his feet wide apart, stood on the platform smoking a last cigarette.  He shrugged in silence as the other passed him and mounted the steps.

Save for the girl, the coach was empty; but, destitute of courtesy, the spectators without stared with redoubled interest.  Without a word the man handed over the ticket and checks.  Still in silence he slipped a roll of bills into her passive hand.  Until that moment the girl had not thought of money; but even now as she accepted it, there never occurred the wonder from whence it had come.  Had she known how those few dollars had been stored up, bit by bit, month by month—­But she did not know.  Unbelievably unsophisticated, unbelievably innocent and helpless, was Elizabeth Landor at this time.  Sitting there that morning on the threshold, she had no more comprehension of the world she was entering, she had entered, than of eternity itself.  She was merely passive, trusting, waiting to be led.  Like a bit of down from the prairie milkweed plant, she was to be the sport of every breath of wind that