n world--thus it was when she came to mine. On the way
down from the North, the conductor's voice changed from a command to
a request when he asked for her ticket. The jacketed lord of the
dining-car saw her from afar and advanced to show her to a seat--that
she might ride forward, sit next to a shaded window and be free from the
glare of the sun on the other side. Two porters made a rush for her bag
when she got off the car, and the proprietor of the little hotel in the
little town where we had to wait several hours for the train into the
mountains gave her the bridal chamber for an afternoon nap. From this
little town to "The Gap" is the worst sixty-mile ride, perhaps, in the
world. She sat in a dirty day-coach; the smoke rolled in at the windows
and doors; the cars shook and swayed and lumbered around curves and
down and up gorges; there were about her rough men, crying children,
slatternly women, tobacco juice, peanuts, popcorn and apple cores, but
dainty, serene and as merry as ever, she sat through that ride with a
radiant smile, her keen black eyes noting everything unlovely within and
the glory of hill, tree and chasm without. Next morning at home, where
we rise early, no one was allowed to waken her and she had breakfast in
bed--for the Blight's gentle tyranny was established on sight and varied
not at the Gap.

When she went down the street that day everybody stared surreptitiously
and with perfect respect, as her dainty black plumed figure passed; the
post-office clerk could barely bring himself to say that there was no
letter for her. The soda-fountain boy nearly filled her glass with syrup
before he saw that he was not strictly minding his own business; the
clerk, when I bought chocolate for her, unblushingly added extra weight
and, as we went back, she met them both--Marston, the young engineer
from the North, crossing the street and, at the same moment, a drunken
young tough with an infuriated face reeling in a run around the corner
ahead of us as though he were being pursued. Now we have a volunteer
police guard some forty strong at the Gap--and from habit, I started
for him, but the Blight caught my arm tight. The young engineer in three
strides had reached the curb-stone and all he sternly said was:

"Here! Here!"

The drunken youth wheeled and his right hand shot toward his hip pocket.
The engineer was belted with a pistol, but with one lightning movement
and an incredibly long reach, his right fist