The Lure of the Dim Trails

ns crawling slowly, like giant brown worms, up and down the long hill; of many high-piled bales of buffalo hides upon the river bank, and clamorous little steamers ch

isily out of town and disappeared in an elusive dust-cloud; for the gay-blanketed Indians slipping like painted shadows from view, stray cow-boys galloped into town, slid from their saddles and clanked with drag

up the long hill that shut out the world and, until the east-bound train came from over

nd 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-smoot

hem, the train, grinding protest in every joint, came, with a final heavy jar, to a dead stop. Thurston thought it was a wreck, until out ahead came

n and a man-a giant, he seemed to Thurston-stopped just inside, glared down the lengt

bling hands, so that he did not feel ashamed of his own. The man behind him put up his hands with the other-but one of them held a revolver that barked savagely and unexpectedly close against the car of Thurston. Thurston ducked. There was an echo from the front, and the man behind, who risk

le, pitiless form in the door, and the limp, dead body at his feet in the aisle. He did not even remember that here was the savage local color h

s eyes and saw that the girl, her eyes staring straight before her, her slim, brown hands uplifted, was

e to shoot for the seat in front. Get the

mploringly. In truth, he had never f

commanded impatiently. Her straight eyebrows drew together imperiously. Then, when he me

ood was creeping toward him. Already it had reached his foot, and his shoe w

tuously again, and a splotch of ang

life, fired a gun. And without looking he could see that horrible, red stream creeping toward him like some monster in a nightmare. His flesh crimpled with physical repuls

e; caught the dead man's pistol from the floor and fired, seemingly with one movement. Then he sprang up, still firing as fast as the trigger co

like a curtain blown upward in the wind. The tawny-haired young fellow was walking coolly down the aisle, the smoki

il-clerks with Winchesters, ran down the length of the train calling out that there was no danger. The thud of their running feet, and the wholes

him alive. Think uh the nerve uh that Wagner bunch! to go up against a train in broad daylight. M

with a cloth and wiped up the red pool, and Thurston pressed his lips tightly together and turned away his head; he could not remember when the sight of anything had made him so deathly sick. Once he glanced slyly at the girl oppos

the train and congratulate the heroes. Thurston alighted almost shamefacedly into the midst of the loud-voiced commotion. Whi

Say, yuh got quite a bunch uh local color for a story, didn't yuh? You'll be writing blood-and-thunder for a month on the

n. Thurston colored guiltily, but Hank Graves lifted his hat and called her Mona, and asked her if she wasn't scared stiff, and if she were h

n atmosphere. He's a story-writer. I used to whack bulls all over the country with his father. Bud, this is Mona Stevens; she ranges down close to the Lazy Eight,

ding that she heard her brother calling her, which she did not. Her brother was loudly explaining what would hav

il, next time I leave the place for a week-yes, or overnight-I'll lock yuh up

" Park retor

going to turn yuh over to him and let him wise yuh up. Say, you young bucks ought to get along together pretty smooth. Y

ne coyote which harped upon the subject of his wrongs away on a distant hillside, and to the subdued snoring of Hank Graves in the room beyond.

without taking the trouble to find out whether or not he liked it. And what puzzled Thurston and put him all at sea was the consc

man unto death, had calmly dismissed the subject with the regret that his aim had not been better, so that he could have saved the county the expense of trying and hanging the fellow. Thurston was amazed to find that, dow

not attract him at all. She had called him a coward-and why? simply because he, straight from the trammels of civilization, had not been prepared to meet the situation thrust upon him-which she had