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,
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.