The girl indolently disengaged herself from the counter and Elijah
Curtis's transfer, and brought the candle to her father. The screw was
presently found and the last fastening secured. "Supper gettin' cold,
dad," she said, with a slight yawn. Her father sympathetically responded
by stretching himself from his stooping position, and the two passed
through the private door into inner domesticity, leaving the already
forgotten paper lying with other articles of barter on the counter.




CHAPER II.


With the closing of the little door behind them they seemed to have shut
out the turmoil and vibration of the storm. The reason became apparent
when, after a few paces, they descended half a dozen steps to a lower
landing. This disclosed the fact that the dwelling part of the Sidon
General Store was quite below the level of the shop and the road, and
on the slope of the solitary undulation of the Tasajara plain,--a little
ravine that fell away to a brawling stream below. The only arboreous
growth of Tasajara clothed its banks in the shape of willows and alders
that set compactly around the quaint, irregular dwelling which straggled
down the ravine and looked upon a slope of bracken and foliage on either
side. The transition from the black, treeless, storm-swept plain to this
sheltered declivity was striking and suggestive. From the opposite bank
one might fancy that the youthful and original dwelling had ambitiously
mounted the crest, but, appalled at the dreary prospect beyond, had
gone no further; while from the road it seemed as if the fastidious
proprietor had tried to draw a line between the vulgar trading-post,