re. The man
nodded toward the end of the now empty car.

"Who's your new friend?" he asked.

"She's no friend of mine," snapped the girl. "She's another one of them
Dolly Dimples come out to save the world. She's that innocent she wonders
why Tete Jaune ain't a nice place for ladies without escort. I thought I'd
help eggicate her a little an' so I sent her to Bill's place. Oh, my Lord,
I told her it was respectable!"

She doubled over the seat in a fit of merriment, and her companion seized
the opportunity to look out of the window.

The tall, blue-eyed stranger had paused for a moment on the last step of
the car to pin up her veil, fully revealing her face. Then she stepped
lightly to the ground, and found herself facing the sunlight and the
mountains. She drew a slow, deep breath between her parted lips, and turned
wonderingly, for a moment forgetful. It was the first time she had left the
train since entering the mountains, and she understood now why some one in
the coach had spoken of the Miette Plain as Sunshine Pool. Where-ever she
looked the mountains fronted her, with their splendid green slopes reaching
up to their bald caps of gray shale and reddish rock or gleaming summits of
snow. Into this "pool"--this pocket in the mountains--the sun descended in
a wonderful flood. It stirred her blood like a tonic. She breathed more
quickly; a soft glow coloured her cheeks; her eyes grew more deeply violet
as they caught the reflection of the blue sky. A gentle wind fretted the
loose tendrils of brown hair about her face. And the bearded man, staring
through the car window, saw her thus, and for an hour after that the
hollow-cheeked girl wondered at the strange change in him.

The train had stopped at the edge of the big fill overlooking the Flats. It
was a heavy train, and a train that was helping to make history--a
combination of freight, passenger, and "cattle." It had averaged eight
miles an hour on its climb toward Yellowhead Pass and the end of steel. The
"cattle" had already surged from their stifling and foul-smelling cars in a
noisy inundation of curiously mixed humanity. They were of a dozen
different nationalities, and as the girl looked at them it was not with
revulsion or scorn but with a sudden quickening of heartbeat and a little
laugh that had in it something both of wonder and of pride. This was the
Horde, that crude, monstrous thing of primitive strength and passions that
was overturning mountains in