Early the next morning the girl awoke.  The woman by her side was already stirring.  There was breakfast to get for the men.  The woman asked her a few questions about her journey.

“He’s your brother, ain’t he, dearie?” asked the woman as she was about to leave the room.

“No,” said the girl.

“O,” said the woman, puzzled, “then you and he’s goin’ to be married in the town.”

“O, no!” said the girl with scarlet cheeks, thinking of the lady in the automobile.

“Not goin’ to be married, dearie?  Now that’s too bad.  Ain’t he any kind of relation to you?  Not an uncle nor cousin nor nothin’?”

“No.”

“Then how be’s you travellin’ lone with him?  It don’t seem just right.  You’s a sweet, good girl; an’ he’s a fine man.  But harm’s come to more’n one.  Where’d you take up with each other?  Be he a neighbor?  He looks like a man from way off, not hereabouts.  You sure he ain’t deceivin’ you, dearie?”

The girl flashed her eyes in answer.

“Yes, I’m sure.  He’s a good man.  He prays to our Father.  No, he’s not a neighbor, nor an uncle, nor a cousin.  He’s just a man that got lost.  We were both lost on the prairie in the night; and he’s from the East, and got lost from his party of hunters.  He had nothing to eat, but I had; so I gave him some.  Then he saved my life when a snake almost stung me.  He’s been good to me.”

The woman looked relieved.

“And where you goin’, dearie, all ‘lone?  What your folks thinkin’ ’bout to let you go ’lone this way?”

“They’re dead,” said the girl with great tears in her eyes.

“Dearie me!  And you so young!  Say, dearie, s’pose you stay here with me.  I’m lonesome, an’ there’s no women near by here.  You could help me and be comp’ny.  The men would like to have a girl round.  There’s plenty likely men on this ranch could make a good home fer a girl sometime.  Stay here with me, dearie.”

Had this refuge been offered the girl during her first flight in the wilderness, with what joy and thankfulness she would have accepted!  Now it suddenly seemed a great impossibility for her to stay.  She must go on.  She had a pleasant ride before her, and delightful companionship; and she was going to school.  The world was wide, and she had entered it.  She had no mind to pause thus on the threshold, and never see further than Montana.  Moreover, the closing words of the woman did not please her.

“I cannot stay,” she said decidedly.  “I’m going to school.  And I do not want a man.  I have just run away from a man, a dreadful one.  I am going to school in the East.  I have some relations there, and perhaps I can find them.”