olding her
weapon, she developed quickly from a stage of dangerous uncertainty
in her gunnery to one of almost expert accuracy. Then she made of the
rifle a companion on her horseback excursions, to the destruction of
gophers, rabbits, and even a badger and a coyote. It was a brave day
when she rode into the corral with a coyote strung across her saddle.

The river near by teemed with trout, and the girl soon caught the
fascination of the angler. Mrs. Arthurs had a pair of high rubber
boots, which she used when she herself went whipping the blue water,
and, anchored in these as far out as she dared go into the
gravel-bottomed stream, the girl laced the cold current back and
forth. And the wild exultation of her first bite! The fish darted up
and down stream, pulling out line faster than she could reel it in,
and Beulah, in her excitement, waded deeper into the stream as she
followed the quivering line. But mountain streams are treacherous;
one step too far plunged her into twenty feet of water, and the next
moment she was spinning round and round in the current. She had
learned to swim a few strokes in the creek on her father's farm, and
her meagre skill now stood her in good stead, for she was able to
keep afloat until the current threw her against a gravel bar that
jutted into the river. She dragged herself ashore, very wet, and of a
sudden, very frightened, and sat down on the warm stones. It was here
that she recorded another resolution; she would learn to swim--not a
feeble stroke or two, but to be master of this river which had so
nearly mastered her. "I will do it," she said. "I will swim it across
and back, if it takes till December, and--bur-r-r-rh--it's cold
enough now." Then it occurred to her that there was no better time to
start than the present. She looked out a place where the current was
not too strong, and where there were no treacherous rock-splits in
the bottom, spread her wet clothing to dry in the sun, and for an
hour fought the cold current at its own game.

It is not recorded how it came about, but Arthurs passed the word
among the ranch hands that a certain stretch of river bank was sacred
from all intrusion.

But it was in the life of the home, even more than in the joyous
freedom of the out-of-doors, that Beulah found her great delight. The
Arthurs, she knew, were wealthy--many times richer than her father,
who passed as a wealthy man among the farmers of Plainville. But with
the Arthurs w