rt, she passed a sleepless night, and early the next morning had
saddled her horse to ride to Lamo, there to await her father's return.

It was late in the afternoon when she reached Lamo; and she had gone
directly to the Eating-House, where she had passed another restless
night--spending most of her time sitting at the window, where she was at
this minute.

Of course it was a three-day trip to Pardo, and she had no reason to
expect Morgan to return until the end of the sixth day, at the very
earliest. And yet some force sent her to the window at frequent
intervals, where she would sit, as now, her chin resting in her hands,
her eyes searching the vast waste land with an anxious light.

An attache of the Eating-House had put her horse away--where, she did
not know; and her meals had been brought to her by a middle-aged
slattern, whose probing, suspicion-laden glances had been full of mocking
significance. She had heard the woman speak of her to other female
employees of the place--and once she had overheard the woman refer to her
as "that stuck-up Morgan heifer."

Their coarse laughter and coarser language had disgusted the girl, and
she had avoided them all as much as possible.

It was the first time she had remained overnight in the Eating-House
lodging-rooms, though she had seen the building many times during her
visits to Lamo. It wasn't what she was accustomed to at the Rancho Seco,
nor was it all that a lodging-house might be--but it provided shelter for
her while she waited.

The girl felt--as she looked--decidedly out of place in the shabby room.
Many times during her vigil she had shuddered when looking at the dirty,
threadbare ingrain carpet on the floor of the room; oftener, when her
gaze went to the one picture that adorned the unpapered walls, she shrank
back, her soul filled with repugnance.

Art, as here represented, was a cheap lithograph in vivid colors, of an
Indian--an Apache, judging from his trappings--scalping a white man. In
the foreground, beside the man, was a woman, her hair disheveled, wild
appeal in her eyes, gazing at the Indian, who was grinning at her.

A cheap bureau, unadorned, with a broken mirror swinging in a rickety
frame; one chair, and the bed in which she had tried to sleep, were the
only articles of furniture in the room.

The girl, arrayed in a neat riding habit; her hair arranged in graceful
coils; her slender, lissom figure denoting youth and vigor; the clear,
smooth