enjoying herself meanwhile amid a new environment, and no doubt she
would encounter some of her father's army friends who would help
entertain her pleasantly. Miss McDonald was somewhat impulsive, and,
her interest once aroused, impatient of restraint.

As a result of this earlier departure she reached Ripley some two days
in advance of the prearranged schedule, and in spite of her young
strength and enthusiasm, most thoroughly tired out by the strain of
continuous travel. Her one remaining desire upon arrival was for a
bed, and actuated by this necessity, when she learned that the army
post was fully two miles from the town, she accepted proffered guidance
to the famous Gilsey House and promptly fell asleep. The light of a
new day gave her a first real glimpse of the surrounding dreariness as
she stood looking out through the grimy glass of her single window,
depressed and heartsick. The low, rolling hills, bare and desolate,
stretched to the horizon, the grass already burned brown by the sun.
The town itself consisted of but one short, crooked street, flanked by
rough, ramshackle frame structures, two-thirds of these apparently
saloons, with dirty, flapping tents sandwiched between, and huge piles
of tin cans and other rubbish stored away behind. The street was
rutted and dusty, and the ceaseless wind swirled the dirt about in
continuous, suffocating clouds. The hotel itself, a little, squatty,
two-storied affair, groaned to the blast, threatening to collapse.
Nothing moved except a wagon down the long ribbon of road, and a dog
digging for a bone behind a near-by tent. It was so squalid and ugly
she turned away in speechless disgust.

The interior, however, offered even smaller comfort. A rude bedstead,
one leg considerably short and propped up by a half brick, stood
against the board wall; a single wooden chair was opposite, and a