Hampshire soul had ever
conceived, and turned panic-stricken back to the train which was already
moving away from the little station. Her first sensation had been one of
relief at feeling solid ground under her feet once more, for this was
the first trip into the world Amelia Ellen had ever made, and the cars
bewildered her. Her second impulse was to get back into that train as
fast as her feet could carry her and get this awful journey done so that
she might earn the right to return to her quiet home and her faithful
lover.

But the train was well under way. She looked after it half in envy. It
could go on with its work and not have to stop in this wild waste.

She gazed about again with the frightened look a child deserted gives
before it puckers its lips and screams.

Hazel was talking composedly with the rough-looking man on the platform,
who wore a wide felt hat and a pistol in his belt. He didn't look even
respectable to Amelia Ellen's provincial eyes. And behind him, horror of
horrors! loomed a real live Indian, long hair, high cheek bones, blanket
and all, just as she had seen them in the geography! Her blood ran cold!
Why, oh why, had she ever been left to do this daring thing--to leave
civilization and come away from her good man and the quiet home awaiting
her to certain death in the desert. All the stories of horrid scalpings
she had ever heard appeared before her excited vision. With a gasp she
turned again to the departing train, which had become a mere speck on
the desert, and even as she looked vanished around a curve and was lost
in the dim foot-hills of a mountain!

Poor Amelia Ellen! Her head reeled and her heart sank. The vast prairie
engulfed her, as it were, and she stood trembling and staring in dazed
expectancy of an attack from earth or air or sky. The very sky and
ground seemed tottering together and threatening to extinguish her, and
she closed her eyes, caught her breath and prayed for Peter. It had been
her habit always in any emergency to pray for Peter Burley.

It was no better when they took her to the eating-house across the
track. She picked her way among the evil-looking men, and surveyed the
long dining table with its burden of coarse food and its board seats
with disdain, declined to take off her hat when she reached the room to
which the slatternly woman showed them because she said there was no
place to lay it down that was fit; scorned the simple bed, refused to
wash her han