There was a considerable period when events of importance in Glencaid's
history were viewed against the background of the opening of its first
school. This was not entirely on account of the deep interest
manifested in the cause of higher education by the residents, but owing
rather to the personality of the pioneer school-teacher, and the deep,
abiding impress which she made upon the community.
Miss Phoebe Spencer came direct to Glencaid from the far East, her
starting-point some little junction place back in Vermont, although she
proudly named Boston as her home, having once visited in that
metropolis for three delicious weeks. She was of an ardent,
impressionable nature. Her mind was nurtured upon Eastern conceptions
of our common country, her imagination aglow with weird tales of the
frontier, and her bright eyes perceived the vivid coloring of romance
in each prosaic object west of the tawny Missouri. All appeared so
different from that established life to which she had grown
accustomed,--the people, the country, the picturesque language,--while
her brain so teemed with lurid pictures of border experiences and
heroes as to reveal romantic possibilities everywhere. The vast,
mysterious West, with its seemingly boundless prairies, grand, solemn
mountains, and frankly spoken men peculiarly attired and everywhere
bearing the inevitable "gun," was to her a newly discovered world. She
could scarcely comprehend its reality. As the apparently illimitable
plains, barren, desolate, awe-inspiring, rolled away behind, mile after
mile, like a vast sea, and left a measureless expanse of grim desert
between her and the old life, her unfettered imagination seemed to
expand with the fathomless blue of the Western sky. As her eager eyes
traced the serrated peaks of a snow-clad mountain range, her heart
throbbed with anticipation of wonders yet to come. Homesickness was a
thing undreamed of; her active brain responded to each new impression.
She sat comfortably ensconced in the back seat of the old, battered red
coach, surrounded by cushions for protection from continual jouncing,
as the Jehu in charge urged his restive mules down the desolate valley
of the Bear Water. Her cheeks were flushed, her wide-open eyes filled
with questioning, her pale fluffy hair frolicking with the breeze, as
pretty a picture of young womanhood as any one could wish to see. Nor
was she unaware of this fact. During the final stage other long
journey she had found two congenial souls, sufficiently picturesque to
harmonize with her ideas of wild Western romance.
These two men were lolling in the less comfortable seat opposite,
secretly longing for a quiet smoke outside, yet neither willing to
desert this Eastern divinity to his rival. The big fellow, his arm run
carelessly through the leather sling, his bare head projecting half out
of the open window, was Jack Moffat, half-owner of the "Golden Rule,"
and enjoying a well-earned reputation as the most ornate and artistic
liar in the Territory. For two hours he had been exercising his talent
to the full, and merely paused now in search of some fresh inspiration,
holding in supreme and silent contempt the rather feeble imitations of
his less-gifted companion. It is also just to add that Mr. Moffat
personally formed an ideal accompaniment to his vivid narrations of
adventure, and he was fully aware of the fact that Miss Spencer's
appreciative eyes wandered frequently in his direction, noting his
tanned cheeks, his long silky mustache, the somewhat melancholy gleam
of his dark eyes--hiding beyond doubt some mystery of the past, the
nature of which was yet to be revealed. Mr. Moffat, always strong
along this line of feminine sympathy, felt newly inspired by these
evidences of interest in his tales, and by something in Miss Spencer's
face which bespoke admiration.