like painted shadows from view, stray cow-boys galloped into
town, slid from their saddles and clanked with dragging rowels
into the nearest saloon, or the post-office. Between whiles the
town cuddled luxuriously down in the deep little valley and
slept while the river, undisturbed by pompous steamers, murmured
a lullaby.

It was not the Fort Benton he had come far to see, so that on
the second day he went away up the long hill that shut out the
world and, until the east-bound train came from over the
prairies, paced the depot platform impatiently with never a
vision to keep him company.

For a long time the gaze of Thurston clung fascinated to the
wide prairie land, feeling again the stir in his blood. Then,
when a deep cut shut from him the sight of the wilderness, he
chanced to turn his head, and looked straight into the clear,
blue-gray eyes of a girl across the aisle. Thurston considered
himself immune from blue-gray --or any other-eyes, so that he
permitted himself to regard her calmly and judicially, his mind
reverting to the fact that he would need a heroine to be
kidnapped, and wondering if she would do. She was a Western
girl, he could tell that by the tan and by her various little
departures from the Eastern styles--such as doing her hair low
rather than high. Where he had been used to seeing the hair of
woman piled high and skewered with many pins, hers was brushed
smoothly back-smoothly save for little, irresponsible waves here
and there. Thurston decided that the style was becoming to her.
He wondered if the fellow beside her were her brother; and then
reminded himself sagely that brothers do not, as a rule, devote