filled that half of the room.  A few heavy dishes, the part of a loaf of bread, and several slices of indifferently fried bacon were on the table, between the lamp and a bucket containing a little water.  Presently, still holding her skirts, she crossed the grimy floor and stood inspecting with a mingled fascination and dread those ancient beds.  Both were destitute of linen, but one was supplied with a tumbled heap of coarse, brown blankets.  In the other, beneath a frayed comforter, two small boys were sleeping.  Their sun-baked faces were overhung with thatches of streaked blond hair, and one restless arm, throwing off the sodden cover, partly exposed the child’s day attire, an unclean denim blouse tucked into overalls.  She turned in sudden panic and hurried back to the porch.

In a little while she noticed her suitcase, opened it, and found her cologne; with this she drenched a fresh handkerchief and began to bathe her face and hands.  Then she drew one of the bench chairs through the doorway and, seating herself with her back to the room, kept on dabbing her lips and her cheeks with the cool, delicately pungent perfume, and so gathered up the remnants of her scattered fortitude.  Finally, when the lantern glimmered again, and she was able to distinguish the two returning figures, she had laid aside her hat and coat, and she was ready to smile, if not radiantly at least encouragingly, at Tisdale as he came up the steps.

The woman went in to shake out and spread the blankets with a pretence at making the bed, and he followed to the threshold, where he took a swift and closer inventory of the room.  Its resources were even more meager than he had supposed.  He swung around and looked up through the darkness towards that sheltered cleft they had left near the Pass.  He did not say anything, but the girl watching him answered his thought.  “I wish it had been possible.  It would have been delightful—­the ground was like a carpet, clean and soft and fragrant—­under those pines.”

“I wish we had even had the forethought to bring down an armful of those boughs.  But, after all, it might have been worse.  At least you need not go hungry, with that lunch of Lighter’s and your apples, to say nothing of the sandwiches I asked the steward to make before I left the train.  And to-morrow, when you are safe with your friends at Wenatchee, you are going to forget this miserable experience like an unpleasant dream.”

“I am not ungrateful,” she said quickly.  “I enjoyed every moment of that drive.  And besides the apples, I have tea.  I always tuck a little in my suitcase when we are touring with Mrs. Feversham, because she uses a different blend.”

She bent as she spoke, to find the tea, which she produced together with a small kettle and alcohol burner.  Her evident desire to contribute her share, the fine show of courage that accepted and made the best of the inevitable, went straight to Tisdale’s heart.  “Tea,” he repeated mellowly, “tea and all the outfit.  Well, that was mighty thoughtful of you.  I won’t even have to make a fire.  But wait a minute; I am going to lift that table out here where it is cooler.”