father had made up his mind that the less they had to do with that man the
better. He may have warned mother; and she, left alone with the brute, did
not know the wisdom of hiding her fear and loathing of him. He may have
meant no more than a low kind of teasing, but her suffering was the same.

"Father did not come. She dared not leave the camp. She knew no place to
go to, and in his haste, believing he would soon be with her again, he had
taken all their little stock of funds. But he had left her his gun, and
with this within reach of her hand in the shelter of the wagon hood,
without fire and without cooked food, she kept a sleepless watch.

"The stages came and went; help was within sound of her voice, but she
dared make no sign. The passengers were few at that season, always men, on
the best of terms with the keeper. He had threatened--well, no
matter--such a threat as a more sophisticated woman would have smiled at.
She was simple, but she was not weak. It was a moral battle between them.
There were hours when she held him by the power of her eye alone; she
conquered, but it nearly killed her.

"One morning a man jumped down from the stage whose face she knew. He had
recognized my father's outfit and he came to speak to her, amazed to find
her in that place alone. There was no need to put her worst fear into
words; he knew the keeper. He made the best he could of father's
detention, but he assured her, as she knew too well, that she could not
wait for him there. He was on his way East, and he took us with him as far
as Mountain Home. To this day she believes that if Bud Granger had led the
search, my father would have been found; but he went East to sell his
cattle, the snows set in, and the search party came straggling home. The
man, Granger, had left a letter of explanation, inclosing one from mother
to father, with the keeper. He bribed and frightened him, but for years