f innumerable stock raisers
bringing the results of months and years of patient effort to the great
stock market of the west. As she looked listlessly at the dark
silhouette of tanks and towers, skyscrapers and gable roofs, at
countless threads of smoke going straight up in the still air from the
great hive of industry and life, she wondered at her apathy, at the fact
that there was no anticipation in her mind.

Her face darkened. Had Prouty, along with other things, robbed her of
the capacity for enjoyment? Had it crushed out of her the last remnant
of the spirit of youth? Was she old, already hopelessly old at heart?

Her feeling toward the town gradually had crystallized into a cold
animus, silent and unwavering, but now, as she suddenly whirled about
and looked into the red winter sunset where, back there, beyond the
Beyond, Prouty lay, a wave of hatred surged over her, to make her tingle
to the finger tips.

Usually Prouty was personified in her mind as a hulking coward, bullying
the weak, fawning upon the strong, with no guiding principle in life
save self-interest, but to-night, as she visualized it across the
intervening miles, snow-bound, wind-swept, desolate, it was in the guise
of a shivering pauper, miserable in his present, fearful of his future.

Her grip tightened on the rail of the swaying caboose and all the
envenomed bitterness of her nature was in her choking voice as she said
between her teeth:

"Curse you and curse you and curse you! I hate you! You've robbed me of
the happiness that belonged to my youth. You've destroyed my faith in
human kind. Whatever of sweetness there was in my nature you have
turned to gall. When my Day comes I'll strike you without mercy--I'll
beat you to the earth if it's in my power!"

It was fully night before they were able to get right-of-way into the
yards, and Kate drew a deep breath of relief when the grinding wheels
finally stopped. She and Bowers swung down together from the high step
to the cinder path which lay between their own cars and a train of
cattle bawling on a parallel track. As they stumbled along in the
darkness toward the engine they heard brisk footsteps coming from that
direction.

"Low bridge!" Bowers warned jocularly as they drew close.

In stepping aside to avoid Bowers the pedestrian bumped into Kate.

"I beg your pardon!" The voice was pleasant--deep.

Kate murmured a commonplace.

At the instant a brakeman hung out from the handrail