But youth was stronger than the man's half-crazy will, and when she

was seventeen, Joan ran away.

She found her way easily enough to the town, for she was wise in the

tracks of a wild country, and John's trail townwards, though so rarely

used, was to her eyes plain enough; and very coolly she walked into

the hotel, past the group of loungers around the stove, and asked at

the desk, where Mrs. Upper sat, if she could get a job. Mrs. Upper and

the loungers stared, for there were few women in this frontier country

and those few were well known. This great, strong girl, heavily

graceful in her heavily awkward clothes, bareheaded, shod like a man,

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her face and throat purely classic, her eyes gray and wide and as

secret in expression as an untamed beast's--no one had ever seen the

like of her before.

"What's yer name?" asked Mrs. Upper suspiciously. It was Mormon Day in

the town; there were celebrations and her house was full; she needed

extra hands, but where this wild creature was concerned she was

doubtful.

"Joan. I'm John Carver's daughter," answered the girl.

At once comprehension dawned; heads were nodded, then craned for a

better look. Yes, the town, the whole country even, had heard of John

Carver's imprisoned daughter. Sober and drunk, he had boasted of her

and of how there was to be "no man" in her life. It was like dangling

ripe fruit above the mouths of hungry boys to make such a boast in such

a land. But they were lazy. It was a country of lazy, slow-thinking,

slow-moving, and slow-talking adventurers--you will notice this

ponderous, inevitable quality of rolling stones--and though men talked

with humor not too fine of "travelin' up Lone River for John's gel,"

not a man had got there. Perhaps the men knew John Carver for a coward,

that most dangerous animal to meet in his own lair.

Now here stood the "gel," the mysterious secret goal of desire, a

splendid creature, virginal, savage, as certainly designed for man as

Eve. The men's eyes fastened upon her, moved and dropped.

"Your father sent you down here fer a job?" asked Mrs. Upper

incredulously.

"No. I come." Joan's grave gaze was unchanging. "I'm tired of it up

there. I ain't a-goin' back. I'm most eighteen now an' I kinder want a

change."

She had not meant to be funny, but a gust of laughter rattled the

room. She shrank back. It was more terrifying to her than any cruelty

she had fancied meeting her in the town. These were the men her father

had forbidden, these loud-laughing, crinkled faces. She had turned to

brave them, a great surge of color in her brows.




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