ly Aunt Adelaide's due.
Whereupon she began to rap on the door of the office, a scared pianissimo
which naturally had little effect on the operator, who was at home and
asleep some three blocks distant. But the West is the place for woman if
she would be waited upon. No seven-to-one ratio of the sexes has tempered
the chivalry of her sons of the saddle. A loitering something in a
sombrero saw rather than heard the rapping, and, at the sight, went in
quest of the dreaming operator without so much as embarrassing Miss
Carmichael with an offer of his services. And presently the operator,
whose official day did not begin for some two hours yet, appeared, much
dishevelled from running and the cursory nature of his toilet, prepared to
receive a message of life and death.

The wire to Aunt Adelaide ran:

"Practically at end of journey. Take stage to Lost Trail this
morning. Am well. Don't worry about me.

"MARY."

And the telegraph operator, dimly remembering that he had heard Lost Trail
was a "pizen mean country," and that it was tucked some two hundred miles
back in the foot-hills, did not find it very hard to forgive the girl, who
was "practically at end of journey," particularly as the dimple had come
out of hiding, and he had never been called upon to telegraph the word
"practically" before. He was a progressive man and liked to extend his
experiences.

After sending the telegram, Miss Carmichael, quite herself by reason of
the hill air, felt that she was getting along famously as a traveller, but
that it was an expensive business, and she was glad to be "practically" at
the end of her journey. And, drawing from her pocket a square envelope of
heavy Irish linen, a little worn from much reading, but primarily an
envelope that bespoke elegance of taste on the part of her correspondent,
she read:

"LOST TRAIL, WYOMING.

"My Dear Miss Carmichael,--Pray let me assure you of my
gratification that the preliminaries have been so satisfactorily
arranged, and that we are to have you with us by the end of June.
The children are profiting from the very anticipation of it, and
it will be most refreshing to all us isolated ones to be able to
welcome an Eastern girl as a member of our family.

"Although the long journey across the continent is trying,
particularly to one w