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Page 42
There was a sting of bitterness and self-pity in the taunt at the end of
the words. Elizabeth felt it, as she seized her pistol from her belt, and
pointed it at the astonished group. They were not accustomed to girls with
pistols. "Open that door, or I will shoot you all!" she cried.
Then, as she heard some one descending the stairs, she rushed again into
the room where she remembered the windows were open. They were guarded by
wire screens; but she caught up a chair, and dashed it through one,
plunging out into the street in spite of detaining hands that reached for
her, hands much hindered by the gleam of the pistol and the fear that it
might go off in their midst.
It took but an instant to wrench the bridle from its fastening and mount
her horse; then she rode forward through the city at a pace that only
millionaires and automobiles are allowed to take. She met and passed her
first automobile without a quiver. Her eyes were dilated, her lips set;
angry, frightened tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she urged her
poor horse forward until a policeman here and there thought it his duty to
make a feeble effort to detain her. But nothing impeded her way. She fled
through a maze of wagons, carriages, automobiles, and trolley-cars, until
she passed the whirl of the great city, and at last was free again and out
in the open country.
She came toward evening to a little cottage on the edge of a pretty
suburb. The cottage was covered with roses, and the front yard was full of
great old-fashioned flowers. On the porch sat a plain little old lady in a
rocking-chair, knitting. There was a little gate with a path leading up to
the door, and at the side another open gate with a road leading around to
the back of the cottage.
Elizabeth saw, and murmuring, "O 'our Father,' please hide me!" she dashed
into the driveway, and tore up to the side of the piazza at a full gallop.
She jumped from the horse; and, leaving him standing panting with his nose
to the fence, and a tempting strip of clover in front of him where he
could graze when he should get his breath, she ran up the steps, and flung
herself in a miserable little heap at the feet of the astonished old lady.
"O, please, please, won't you let me stay here a few minutes, and tell me
what to do? I am so tired, and I have had such a dreadful, awful time!"
"Why, dearie me!" said the old lady. "Of course I will. Poor child; sit
right down in this rocking-chair, and have a good cry. I'll get you a
glass of water and something to eat, and then you shall tell me all about
it."
She brought the water, and a tray with nice broad slices of brown bread
and butter, a generous piece of apple pie, some cheese, and a glass
pitcher of creamy milk.
Elizabeth drank the water, but before she could eat she told the terrible
tale of her last adventure. It seemed awful for her to believe, and she
felt she must have help somewhere. She had heard there were bad people in
the world. In fact, she had seen men who were bad, and once a woman had
passed their ranch whose character was said to be questionable. She wore a
hard face, and could drink and swear like the men. But that sin should be
in this form, with pretty girls and pleasant, wheedling women for agents,
she had never dreamed; and this in the great, civilized East! Almost
better would it have been to remain in the desert alone, and risk the
pursuit of that awful man, than to come all this way to find the world
gone wrong.
The old lady was horrified, too. She had heard more than the girl of
licensed evil; but she had read it in the paper as she had read about the
evils of the slave-traffic in Africa, and it had never really seemed true
to her. Now she lifted up her hands in horror, and looked at the beautiful
girl before her with something akin to awe that she had been in one of
those dens of iniquity and escaped. Over and over she made the girl tell
what was said, and how it looked, and how she pointed her pistol, and how
she got out; and then she exclaimed in wonder, and called her escape a
miracle.
They were both weary from excitement when the tale was told. Elizabeth ate
her lunch; then the old lady showed her where to put the horse, and made
her go to bed. It was only a wee little room with a cot-bed white as snow
where she put her; but the roses peeped in at the window, and the box
covered with an old white curtain contained a large pitcher of fresh
water and a bowl and soap and towels. The old lady brought her a clean
white nightgown, coarse and mended in many places, but smelling of rose
leaves; and in the morning she tapped at the door quite early before the
girl was up, and came in with an armful of clothes.
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