Part 1 (2/2)
The Little Angel shrugged her thin shoulders despairingly
”Long enough to get ht,” she colad if you could tellto eat I'e some clothes, too Is there a hotel here?”
Her co fit before she answered
”You're sure new,” she explained ”We don't have hotels up here We have bed-houses, chuck-tents, and bunk-shacks You ask for Bill's Shack down there on the Flats It's pretty good They'll give you a rooe you a dollar I'd go with you, but I' a friend a little later, and if I move I may lose him
Anybody will tell you where Bill's place is It's a red an' white striped tent--and it's respectable”
The stranger girl thanked her, and turned for her bag As she left the car, the Little Angel's eyes followed her with a low of candles in a sepulchral cavern The colours which she unfurled to all seeking eyes were not secret, and yet she was filled with an inward antagoniser with the wonderful blue eyes had dared to see the forure that filled her with envy and a dull sort of hatred She did not hear a step behind her A hand fell fahed so in her ear that made her jump up with an artificial little shriek of pleasure The man nodded toward the end of the now empty car
”Who's your new friend?” he asked
”She's no friend of irl ”She's another one of them Dolly Dimples come out to save the world She's that innocent she wonders why Tete Jaune ain't a nice place for ladies without escort I thought I'd help eggicate her a little an' so I sent her to Bill's place Oh, my Lord, I told her it was respectable!”
She doubled over the seat in a fit of merriment, and her companion seized the opportunity to look out of the
The tall, blue-eyed stranger had paused for a moment on the last step of the car to pin up her veil, fully revealing her face Then she stepped lightly to the ground, and found herself facing the sunlight and the mountains She drew a slow, deep breath between her parted lips, and turned wonderingly, for a etful It was the first ti the mountains, and she understood nohy some one in the coach had spoken of the Miette Plain as Sunshi+ne Pool Where-ever she looked the reen slopes reaching up to their bald caps of gray shale and reddish rock or glea summits of snow Into this ”pool”--this pocket in the mountains--the sun descended in a wonderful flood It stirred her blood like a tonic She breathed rew ht the reflection of the blue sky A gentle wind fretted the loose tendrils of brown hair about her face And the bearded h the carher thus, and for an hour after that the hollow-cheeked girl wondered at the strange change in hi fill overlooking the Flats It was a heavy train, and a train that was helping to er, and ”cattle” It had averaged eight miles an hour on its climb toward Yellowhead Pass and the end of steel The ”cattle” had already surged fro cars in a noisy inundation of curiously mixed humanity They were of a dozen different nationalities, and as the girl looked at them it was not with revulsion or scorn but with a sudden quickening of heartbeat and a little laugh that had in it so both of wonder and of pride This was the Horde, that crude, th and passions that was overturning ht to link the new Grand Trunk Pacific with the seaport on the Pacific In that Horde, gathered in little groups, shi+fting, sweeping slowly toward her and past her, she saw so as omnipotent as the mountains themselves They could not know defeat She sensed it without ever having seen them before For her the Horde now had a heart and a soul These were the builders of empire--the man-beasts who made it possible for Civilization to creep warily and without peril into new places and neorlds With a curious shock she thought of the half-dozen lonely little wooden crosses she had seen through the carat odd places along the line of rail
And now she sought her way toward the Flats To do this she had to cli for ballast A car shunted past her, and on its side she saw the big, warning red placards--Dynamite That one word seey that was expending itself all about her From farther on in the mountains caiant” that had been ruain, like the thunderous voice of theout in protest and defiance And each time she felt a curious thrill under her feet and the palpitant touch of soentle breath in her ears She found another track on her way, and other cars slipped past her crunchingly Beyond this second track she caan to descend
[Illustration: A tall, sliure ”Another o' theht I'd help eggicate her a little, an' so I sent her to Bill's place Oh, my Lord, I told her it was respectable!”]
Tents shone through the trees on the bottorew hter of voices and the jargon of a phonograph At the bottoon to pass The wagon was loaded with boxes that rattled and crashed about as the wheels bumped over stones and roots The driver of the teaht; his eyes bulged a little; he eating, in his face was a coirl s boxes and the smile froze into a look of horror On it was painted that o behind her
”Six horses, a wagon an' old Fritz--blown to hell an' not a splinter left to tell the story,” one of the ”I was there threeor a horsehair left
This dyna for athan Joe--drivin' down this hill a dozen tiain, and the two men stared at her as they were about to pass The explosion of Joe's dynamite could not have startled them more than the beauty of the face that was turned to the for a place called--Bill's Shack,” she said, speaking the Little Sister's words hesitatingly ”Can you direct er of the twoThe other, old enough to regard feminine beauty as a trap and an illusion, turned aside to empty his mouth of a quid of tobacco, bent over, and pointed under the trees
”Can't ht, with canvas striped like a barber-pole That phonnygraff you hear is at Bill's”
”Thank you”
She went on
Behind her, the two men stood where she had left theer asped then ”I've a notion to tell her I can't believe----”