er she had turned the key in the lock, set
her face to the south cheerfully. There was something of the missionary
in her, and she had long burned with a desire to help the red people.

They got off at a squalid little cow-town called "Riddell" about noon of
the second day, and Curtis, after a swift glance around him, said: "Sis,
our chances for dinner are poor."

The hotel, a squat, battlemented wooden building, was trimmed with
loafing cowboys on the outside and speckled with flies on the inside,
but the landlord was unexpectedly attractive, a smiling, courteous host,
to whom flies and cowboys were matters of course. It was plain he had
slipped down to his present low level by insensible declinations.

"The food is not so bad if it were only served decently," said Jennie,
as they sat at the table eying the heavy china chipped and maimed in the
savage process of washing.

"I hope you won't be sorry we've left the army, sis."

"I would, if we had to live with these people," she replied, decisively,
looking about the room, which was filled with uncouth types of men,
keen-eyed, slouchy, and loud-voiced. The presence of a pretty woman had
subdued most of them into something like decorum, but they were not
pleasant to look at. They were the unattached males of the town, a mob
of barkeepers, hostlers, clerks, and railway hands, intermixed with a
half-dozen cowboys who had ridden in to "loaf away a day or two in
town."

"The ragged edge of the cloth of gold," said Curtis, as he glanced round
at them. "Civilization has its seamy side."

"This makes the dear old Fort seem beautiful, doesn't it?" the girl
sighed. "We'll see no more green grass and well-groomed men."

An hour later, with a half-breed Indian boy for a guide, they rode away
over the hills towards the east, glad to shake the dust of Riddell off
their feet.

The day was one of flooding sunlight, warm and golden. Winter seemed far
away, and only the dry grass made it possible to say, "This is autumn."
The air was without dust or moisture--crystalline, crisp, and
deliciously invigorating.

The girl turned to her brother with radiant face. "This is living! Isn't
it good to escape that horrid little town?"

"You'd suppose in an air like this all life would be clean and sweet,"
he replied. "But it isn't. The trouble is, these people have no inner
resource. They lop down when their accustomed props are removed. They
come from defective stock."

The half-bree