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A
Writer’s
Reference
Ninth Edition

Diana Hacker
Nancy Sommers
Harvard University

Contributing ESL Specialist

Kimberli Huster
Robert Morris University

8
For Bedford/St. Martin’s
Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill
Senior Program Director for English: Leasa Burton
Senior Program Manager: Stacey Purviance
Director of Content Development: Jane Knetzger
Executive Editor: Michelle M. Clark
Senior Editor: Mara Weible
Senior Media Editor: Barbara G. Flanagan
Associate Editors: Cara Kaufman, Stephanie Thomas
Assistant Editor: Julia Domenicucci
Senior Content Project Managers: Kendra LeFleur, Rosemary Jaffe
Executive Marketing Manager: Joy Fisher Williams
Marketing Manager: Vivian Garcia
Workflow Supervisor: Joe Ford
Production Supervisor: Robin Besofsky
Senior Media Producer: Allison Hart
Copy Editor: Arthur Johnson
Indexer: Ellen Kuhl Repetto
Photo Editor: Martha Friedman
Permissions Editor: Kalina Ingham
Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik
Text Design: Claire Seng-Niemoeller
Cover Design: John Callahan
Composition: Cenveo Publisher Services

Copyright © 2018, 2015, 2011, 2007 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in
writing by the Publisher.
2 1 0 9 8 7

f e d c b a
For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116

ISBN 978-1-319-27056-8(mobi)

Acknowledgments
Gould, Stephen Jay, excerpt from “Were Dinosaurs Dumb?,” from Natural History, vol. 87,
no. 5, May 1978, pp. 9–16. Copyright © 1978 by Stephen Jay Gould. Reproduced with
permission of Turbo, Inc.
Rudloe, Jack and Anne Rudloe, excerpt from “Electric Warfare: The Fish That Kill with
Thunderbolts,” from Smithsonian, vol. 24, no. 5, August 1993, p. 94. Copyright © 1993
by Jack and Anne Rudloe. Reproduced with permission of the authors.
Taylor, Betsy, excerpt from “Big Box Stores Are Bad for Main Street,” by David Masci, from
CQ Researcher, vol. 9, no. 44, November 1999. Copyright © 1999 by CQ Press.
Reproduced with permission of CQ Press, an imprint of of Sage Publications, Inc.
Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they
cover; these acknowledgments and copyrights constitute an extension of the copyright page.

9
It is a violation of the law to reproduce these selections by any means whatsoever without the
written permission of the copyright holder.

10
Preface for instructors

Dear Colleagues:
Welcome to the ninth edition of A Writer’s Reference. When you
assign A Writer’s Reference, you send an important message to your
students: Writing is worth studying and practicing. And you make it easy
for students to find answers to their writing questions quickly and
efficiently. The more comfortable students become using their handbook,
the more confident and successful they become as college writers.
As I developed the ninth edition, I kept one central question in mind:
What is the value of owning a handbook? We know that 79 percent of
students surveyed by Bedford/St. Martin’s say that using a handbook
makes them feel more confident as academic writers. Yet we know, too,
that students can access free online materials about writing. How does
owning a handbook help students succeed as college writers?
A Writer’s Reference is designed so that students can feel confident in
their investment; they find what they need and understand what they find.
In the handbook, they receive straightforward, trusted answers to their
questions about every aspect of college writing, from drafting a thesis
statement to formatting a paper. And in LaunchPad, the companion media,
students have plenty of opportunities to practice and strengthen their skills.
On the open Web, students might search for help and receive millions of
results, including outdated and questionable information that is more
confusing than illuminating. And free Web sites offer no practice tools that
include feedback, scoring, and tracking.
A Writer’s Reference is designed for teachers, too, so that students in
their classes are all on the same page, with access to the same trusted
advice and to answers to common questions and solutions to specific
writing problems. The value of the handbook, as I learn from fellow
teachers, is that it provides a common vocabulary, both within the
classroom and across a writing program, to meet a college’s learning

11
outcomes.
A Writer’s Reference helps students succeed because it breaks down
complex tasks and challenging concepts, providing step-by-step
instruction, one lesson at a time. Take research, for example, one of the
most challenging assignments for first-year writers. The ninth edition uses
a “how to” approach — both in the handbook and in LaunchPad — to
bring students into the research process, showing them how to ask a
research question, enter a research conversation, go beyond a Google
search, read and evaluate sources, avoid plagiarism, annotate bibliography
entries, and more. The instruction and guidance students need to compose
successful academic essays is all in one place, so when they’re writing
their papers at 2 a.m., they have a trusted source to consult. And in that
moment, when a student takes ownership of the writing experience, the
handbook becomes My Writer’s Reference.
On the first day of class I tell my students, Everything you need to
become a successful writer in any college course is in A Writer’s
Reference; buy it, become friends with it. With the ninth edition, students
have the valuable combination of a print resource and a comprehensive
online resource to build their success and confidence as college writers and
as writers in the world beyond. I am eager to share the new edition with
you, confident that you and your students will find value in A Writer’s
Reference.

Nancy Sommers with student writer Michelle Nguyen. (Photo by Mara Weible)

12
 nancy_sommers@harvard.edu

What’s new in this edition?

When students take ownership of their college writing experience, and

when they have the tools that enable them to do so, they gain confidence
— and that confidence brings success, not only in the writing course but in
the writing students do for other courses as well. A Writer’s Reference,
Ninth Edition, and LaunchPad for A Writer’s Reference together offer
college writers a learning tool that builds confidence. What’s most exciting
about the ninth edition is our emphasis on help that is personal, practical,
and digital. A Writer’s Reference is reimagined as a system that helps
students target their needs and see their successes; that offers innovative
practice with writing, reading, thinking, and research; and that lives in a
familiar, accessible environment.

New in the handbook

New ways to navigate bring students to key content quickly.

Common student questions about writing, written in plain language,
appear on each tab and help students find answers to questions such
as How do I separate a source’s ideas from my own? and What can I
do if my writing is too wordy? Chapter previews, featured in the
writing and research sections, direct students to specific help within
the chapter.
A new how-to approach offers step-by-step instruction that will
help students apply writing advice in practical ways and transfer
skills to many different kinds of writing assignments. Fifteen new
boxes offer the straightforward help that instructors and students
want.
New Writer’s Choice boxes on grammar and style offer
opportunities for students to practice critical thinking at the sentence
level. A new rhetorical approach to grammar coverage
emphasizes decision making based on purpose and audience. This

13
approach makes grammar content more teachable by giving
instructors flexibility — a way to individualize instruction for
students who may need more than a conventional explanation of the
rules.
New emphasis on peer review supports students as they practice
the skills they need to collaborate in college writing environments
and beyond. Thoroughly revised content in section C3 illustrates
best practices for peer review.
More attention to research helps students meet important
academic requirements. MLA’s 2016 guidelines inform the research
coverage so that students have up-to-date advice and models as well
as instruction for conducting responsible research. A new APA-style
review of the literature paper shows proper formatting and effective
writing.
ForeWords for English is custom content made simple.
Developed especially for writing courses, our ForeWords for
English program contains a library of the most popular requested
content in easy-to-use modules (12–16 pages each) to help you build
the best possible text. Choose from modules on time management,
CSE style, business writing, sentence templates for academic
writing, writing proposals, and more. Of course you can still include
original department- or school-specific material as well. Visit
macmillanlearning.com/forewords/composition or see the
information about custom publishing on pages IE5–IE8 in the
Instructor’s Edition.
A handbook tailored to the way you teach the course is a more
useful tool. With trademark Hacker/Sommers flexibility, the print
book is available in three versions:
A Writer’s Reference (Classic), Ninth Edition
ISBN 978-1-319-05744-2

14
 A Writer’s Reference with Exercises, Ninth Edition
ISBN 978-1-319-10696-6

A Writer’s Reference with Writing about Literature, Ninth Edition

ISBN 978-1-319-13305-4

Note that A Canadian Writer’s Reference, Seventh Edition, will be

available in Fall 2018. ISBN 978-1-319-05741-1

Student questions serve as navigational aids on the book’s tab dividers.

The Writer’s Choice box on choosing a point of view appears in S4.

NEW HOW TO BOXES

How to solve five common problems with thesis statements

How to write helpful peer review comments

15
How to improve your writing with an editing log

How to read like a writer

How to draft an analytical thesis statement

How to write a summary of a multimodal text

How to draft a thesis statement for an argument

How to deliver a speech or presentation

How to enter a research conversation

How to go beyond a Google search

How to avoid plagiarizing from the Web

How to write an annotated bibliography

How to be a responsible research writer

How to answer the basic question “Who is the author?”

How to cite a source reposted from another source

16
The following Hacker handbook content is available for custom editions:
Writing in the Disciplines; Resources for Multilingual Writers and ESL;
Understanding and Composing Multimodal Projects; and Strategies for
Online Learners. And for programs or instructors who prefer a digital-only
handbook, LaunchPad for A Writer’s Reference includes a full e-book.
Contact your publisher’s representative for more information.

Now in LaunchPad
As an instructor, you may be looking for new ways to get the most out of
your handbook. LaunchPad for A Writer’s Reference combines a full e-
book, engaging tutorial content, and innovative practice and assessment
tools in a fully customizable course space. LaunchPad allows you to mix
our resources with yours, assign easily, and save yourself time. For
students, LaunchPad is the space in which they will learn and practice key
skills.

A complete, integrated e-book, which matches the content of the

print book, provides easy access for students as they work through
activities and allows students to personalize the content with
annotation tools. Assigning from the e-book is simple.
Diagnostic tests, easily accessible from the LaunchPad table of
contents, give teachers a window into their students’ strengths and
needs from Day One.
24 new video tutorials give students more support than ever before
for major writing assignments (argument, analysis, and
research/annotated bibliography) and for citing sources in MLA and
APA styles. This highly engaging content, developed by author
Nancy Sommers, combines video tutorials with practice activities.
LearningCurve, exercises, and writing activities, all of them
assignable and most of them autoscored, provide opportunities for
students to practice reading, writing, grammar, and research skills.
LaunchPad for A Writer’s Reference features 33 LearningCurve
activities, more than 350 exercises, and 50 writing prompts.

17
 Feedback in the exercises and in the adaptive LearningCurve
activities makes the engagement a learning experience. The
gradebook in LaunchPad, which can integrate with your LMS,
allows you to view, track, and report students’ progress.
Video tools make it easy to integrate open-source content (videos
from YouTube and other sources) into your LaunchPad course and
allow you to build scorable, trackable response assignments around
that content. The video tools allow your class to engage in online
discussions about the material, fostering a social environment.

What hasn’t changed?

The handbook covers a lot of ground. Neither Google nor an OWL can
give students the confidence that comes with a coherent reference that
covers all the topics they need in a writing course. A Writer’s Reference
supports students as they compose for different purposes and audiences
and in a variety of genres and as they collaborate, revise deeply, conduct
research, document sources, format their writing, and edit for clarity.
It’s easy to use and easy to understand. The handbook’s
explanations are brief, accessible, and illustrated by examples, most
by student writers. The book’s many boxes, charts, checklists, and
menus are designed to help users find what they need quickly.
It provides authoritative, trustworthy instruction. Most writing
resources on the Web offer information, but they don’t offer
instruction. With the ninth edition of A Writer’s Reference, students

18
 have reference content that has been class-tested by hundreds of
thousands of students and instructors. Users who loved the new
Writing Guides in the eighth edition will be pleased to know they are
still here in the ninth.
It is available in affordable e-book formats from partner vendors
that offer mobile-friendly, accessible e-books that match the content
of our print books and that provide students with the ability to read,
highlight, take notes, and search. Both offline and download options
are available. Visit macmillanlearning.com/ebooks for more
information.
It comes with the service and support you have come to expect from
Bedford/St. Martin’s. We have been in the field of composition with
you for more than thirty-five years. We provide professional
resources, professional development workshops, training for digital
tools, and quick, personal service when you need it.

And, as always, you get more with Bedford/St. Martin’s

At Bedford/St. Martin’s, providing support to teachers and their students

who use our books and digital tools is our top priority. The dynamic
Bedford/St. Martin’s English Community is now our home for
professional resources, including Bedford Bits, our popular blog with new
ideas for the composition classroom. To connect with our authors and your
colleagues, join us at community.macmillan.com, where you can
download titles from our professional resource series, review projects in
the pipeline, sign up for webinars, or start a discussion.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the expertise, enthusiasm, and classroom experience that

so many individuals brought to the ninth edition.

Reviewers
Elizabeth Acosta, El Paso Community College; Brian Adler, Pasadena
City College; Lisa Busonic Avendano, Lincoln Land Community College;
Eberly Barnes, University of California, San Diego; Michelle Bean, Rio
Hondo College; Jason Beardsley, Santa Monica College; Matt
Birkenhauer, Northern Kentucky University; Brett Bodily, North Lake

19
College; Scott Boltwood, Emory & Henry College; Michael Brokos, Johns
Hopkins Carey Business School; Merissa Brown, Leeward Community
College; Christopher Cain, Towson University; Bryonie Carter, St. Charles
Community College; Cheryl Clark, Miami Dade College; Virginia Crisco,
California State University, Fresno; Jim Crooks, Shasta College; Amy
Peterson Cyr, University of Maine at Augusta; Ann Dean, University of
Massachusetts, Lowell; Tom Deans, University of Connecticut; Regina
Dilgen, Palm Beach State College; Bonnie Dowd, Montclair State
University; Patricia Keefe Durso, Fairleigh Dickinson University; Heather
Elko, Eastern Florida State College; Laura Ellis-Lai, Texas State
University; David Estrada, Rio Hondo College; Carol-Ann Farkas,
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; Karen Forgette,
University of Mississippi; Tikenya Foster-Singletary, Spelman College;
Elizabeth Fourzan, El Paso Community College; Amy Fugazzi, Northern
Kentucky University; Monica Fuglei, Arapahoe Community College;
Karen Gocsik, University of California, San Diego; Angela Green,
University of Mississippi; Gary Hall, Victoria College; Anna Hall-Zieger,
Blinn College; Kathryn Harrington, Community College of Denver; Lynn
Hawkins, Daytona State College; Andrea Holliger, Lone Star College;
Nancy Kennedy, Edmonds Community College; Amanda Knight, Andrew
College; Richard Kraskin, Daytona State College; Elizabeth Kreydatus,
Virginia Commonwealth University; Jane Kuenz, University of Southern
Maine; Tamara Kuzmenkov, Tacoma Community College; Jessica Labbe,
Guilford Technical Community College; Jennifer Laufenberg, Bossier
Parish Community College; Bill Leach, Florida Institute of Technology;
Can Li, Red River College; Bronwen Llewellyn, Daytona State College;
Walter Lowe, Green River Community College; Jennifer Lutman, Colgate
University; Marta Magellan, Miami Dade Virtual College; Andrea Mason,
Arapahoe Community College; Carola Mattord, Kennesaw State
University; John McKinnis, Buffalo State College; Terrence McNulty,
Middlesex Community College; Zia Miric, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign; Tiffany Mitchell, University of Tennessee at
Chattanooga; Dawn Montgomery, University of Alaska Southeast,
Ketchikan; Alice Myatt, University of Mississippi; Robin Jean Gray
Nicks, University of Tennessee; Barbra Nightingale, Broward College;
Michele Ninacs, Buffalo State College; Vicki Pallo, Virginia
Commonwealth University; Nancy Pederson, University of Minnesota,
Morris; Margaret Price, The Ohio State University; Jeff Pruchnic, Wayne
State University; Kristin Redfield, Forsyth Technical Community College;
Kristin Reed, Virginia Commonwealth University; Jennifer Rios, Fresno

20
City College; Megan Salter, Middle Georgia State University; Jean
Sorensen, Grayson County College; Kathleen Spada, Northern Kentucky
University; Lucas A. Street, Augustana College; Jamey Temple,
University of the Cumberlands; Kate Tirabassi, Keene State College;
Marlea Trevino, Grayson College; Leah Van Vaerenewyck, Lesley
University; Heather Blain Vorhies, University of North Carolina at
Charlotte; Jennifer Holly Wells, Montclair State University; Richard
Williamson, Blinn College; Nancy Wilson, Texas State University; Greg
Winston, Husson University; Virginia Wright-Peterson, University of
Minnesota at Rochester; Diane Yerka, University of Minnesota at Morris.

Editorial advisers
I was thrilled to have the help of the following individuals, fellow teachers
of writing, in shaping a new edition that responds to students’ needs, saves
teachers time, includes digital options, and reflects current pedagogy and
practices:
Heidi Ajrami, Victoria College
C. J. Baker-Schverak, Eastern Florida State College
Elizabeth Haddox, El Paso Community College
Jessica Kidd, University of Alabama
Guy Krueger, University of Mississippi
Tracy Michaels, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
C. Cole Osborne, Guilford Technical Community College
Mauricio Rodríguez, El Paso Community College

Student reviewers
It is always instructive and rewarding to involve students in the
development of new content. I thank the following students for reviewing
early-stage writing and citation videos: Abigail Dellinger from Forsyth
Technical Community College; Angel Carboni, Pal Patel, and Shandice
Rowe from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; Ron
Butts, Katie Hazelwood, and Shaneqia Johnson from Middle Georgia State
University; Fernando Alvidrez, Andrea Esparza, Christian Melgarejo,
Lorena Pedroza, and Jacob Perez from Rio Hondo College; Seungah Kim,
Henry Medelius, Kyle Seifert, and Justine Stoberl from SUNY Buffalo;
Elizabeth Johnson from University of South Carolina; and Grant Hovey
from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

21
Contributors
I thank the following fellow teachers of writing for their smart revisions of
important content: Kimberli Huster, ESL specialist at Robert Morris
University and Duquesne University, updated the advice for multilingual
writers, and Sara McCurry, instructor of English at Shasta College,
improved Teaching with Hacker Handbooks. I also thank Robert Koch,
director of the Center for Writing Excellence at University of North
Alabama, for a series of new Writer’s Choice boxes. For helping me to
think about new content on pronouns and gender, I am deeply grateful to
Margaret Price, associate professor of English at The Ohio State
University.

Student contributors
Including sample student writing in each edition of the handbook and its
media makes the resources more useful for you and your students. I would
like to thank these students for letting us adapt their work as models: Ned
Bishop, Sophie Harba, Sam Jacobs, Michelle Nguyen, Emilia Sanchez,
April Bo Wang, Matt Watson, and Ren Yoshida.

Bedford/St. Martin’s
A comprehensive handbook is a collaborative writing project, and it is my
pleasure to acknowledge and thank the enormously talented Bedford/St.
Martin’s editorial team, whose focus on students informs each new feature
of A Writer’s Reference. Edwin Hill, vice president for humanities
editorial, and Leasa Burton, senior program director for English, offer their
commitment to and deep knowledge of the field of composition and the
ways in which it is changing. Stacey Purviance, senior program manager,
brings her creative energy and thoughtful contributions to the handbook.
She has brilliantly and generously inspired us to envision new ways to pair
print and digital content. Doug Silver, product manager for English, helps
us reimagine writers’ and teachers’ opportunities with digital tools.
Michelle Clark, executive editor, is the editor every author dreams of
having — a treasured friend and colleague and an endless source of
creativity and clarity. Michelle combines wisdom with patience,
imagination with practicality, and hard work with good cheer. For this
edition, I am especially grateful for her work in developing exciting new
video content and in reframing the MLA coverage. Barbara Flanagan,
senior media editor, brings unrivaled expertise in documentation —

22
mastering the 2016 MLA update — and manages content development for
LaunchPad for A Writer’s Reference. Mara Weible, senior editor, brings to
the ninth edition her teacher’s sensibility; I thank her for working with
student writer April Wang on a new APA-style research essay and for
developing the multimodal supplement. Thanks to Stephanie Thomas,
associate editor, for expertly managing the review and permissions
processes, for updating Teaching with Hacker Handbooks, and for
developing other key supplements. Thanks also to Cara Kaufman,
associate editor, for developing the ESL supplement and helping us create
online writing tutorials, and to Julia Domenicucci, assistant editor, who
played a key role with LaunchPad and the citation tutorials. And many
thanks to the media production team — Michelle Camisa and Allison Hart
— for delivering engaging handbook tools for students in the digital age.
Practical advice from Bedford colleagues Joy Fisher Williams and
Vivian Garcia, who, like me, spend many, many hours on the road and in
faculty offices, is always treasured. Many thanks to Kendra LeFleur and
Rosemary Jaffe, senior content project managers, who have produced
quality content in many versions and on schedule — and who expertly
managed a redesign of the print book. And thanks to Arthur Johnson, copy
editor, for his thoroughness and attention to detail; to Claire Seng-
Niemoeller, text designer, who crafted a clean and more accessible ninth
edition; and to John Callahan, designer, who has introduced a striking new
cover.
Last, but never least, I offer thanks to my own students who, over
many years, have shaped my teaching and helped me understand their
challenges in becoming college writers. Thanks to my friends and
colleagues Jenny Doggett, Joan Feinberg, Suzanne Lane, Maxine Rodburg,
Laura Saltz, and Kerry Walk for sustaining conversations about the
teaching of writing. And thanks to my family: to Joshua Alper, an attentive
reader of life and literature, for his steadfastness across the drafts; to my
parents, Walter and Louise Sommers, who encouraged me to write and set
me forth on a career of writing and teaching; to my extended family, Ron,
Charles Mary, Alexander, Demian, Devin, Liz, Kate, Sam, Terry, Steve,
and Yuval, for their good humor and good cheer; and to Rachel and
Curran, Alexandra and Brian, witty and wise beyond measure, always
generous with their instruction and inspiration in all things that matter.
And to Lailah Dragonfly, my granddaughter, thanks for the joy and
sweetness you bring to life.

Nancy Sommers

23
 C
Composing and Revising

C1 Planning

a Assessing the writing situation

b Exploring your subject
c Drafting and revising a working thesis statement
How to solve five common problems with thesis statements

d Drafting a plan

24
C2 Drafting

a Drafting an introduction
b Drafting the body
c Drafting a conclusion
C3 Reviewing, revising, and editing

a Seeing revision as a social process

b Using peer review: Revise with comments
c Using peer review: Give constructive comments
How to write helpful peer review comments
Strategies for revising with comments

d Highlights of one student’s peer review process

e Approaching global revision in cycles
f Revising and editing sentences
How to improve your writing with an editing log

g Proofreading the final manuscript

h Sample student revision: Literacy narrative
Writing guide: How to write a literacy narrative

i Formatting the final manuscript

C4 Preparing a portfolio; reflecting on your writing

a Understanding the benefits of reflection

b Student writing: Reflective letter for a portfolio
Writing guide: How to write a reflective letter

C5 Writing paragraphs

a Focusing on a main point

b Developing the main point
c Choosing a suitable pattern of organization

25
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
there was scant breath for speech in the long climb; and for this
Brant was thankful. The scene in Gaynard’s was yet fresh in mind
and heart, and not even to the friend of his youth could he trust
himself to speak freely.
The moon was rising when they reached the summit of the pass, and
Hobart pointed down the farther slope to a dark mass hugging the
steep mountain side.
“That is the Hoopoee shaft house,” he said. “The railroad is just
below it. Got matches and cigars?”
“Yes, both.”
“Then I’ll go back from here. Good-bye, old fellow, and God bless
you! Tie your courage in a hard knot, and let me hear from you.”
Brant grasped his friend’s hand and wrung it in silence. He tried to
speak, but the words tripped each other.
“Never mind,” Hobart broke in. “I know what you want to say, and
can’t. It is nothing more than you would have done if the saddle had
been on the other horse. And about your—the woman: I’ll do
whatever you could do, if you stayed. Now, then, down you go, or
you’ll miss your train. Good-bye.”
 CHAPTER II
THE VINTAGE OF ABI-EZER

It is not always given to prescience, friendly or other, to reap where

it has sown; or to the worthiest intention to see of the travail of its
soul and be satisfied. But if the time, place, and manner of Brant’s
sequestration had been foreordained from the beginning, the
conditions could scarcely have been more favourable for bulwark
building between an evil past and some hopeful future of better
promise.
The new mining district to which Hobart’s suggestion sent him was a
sky-land wilderness unpeopled as yet, save by a few pioneer
prospectors; his fellow-measurer of mining claims was a zealot of his
profession, who was well content to take his friend’s friend at his
friend’s valuation, asking no questions; and the work itself was such
a fierce struggle with Nature in her ruggedest aspect as to afford a
very opiate of antidotes to reflection, reminiscent or forecasting.
So it came about that the heart-hardening past with its remorseful
reminders withdrew more and more into the dimnesses of willing
forgetfulness, and the bulwark between that which had been and that
which might be grew with the uncalendared days and nights till it
bade fair in time to shut out some of the remorseful vistas.
The claim-measuring came to an end one flawless day in August,
when the aspens were yellow on the high-pitched slopes and the
streams ran low and summer clear in the gulches. Brant helped in
the preparations for the retreat from the sky land of forgetfulness
with a distinct sense of regret, which grew with every added mile of
the day-long tramp toward Aspen, the railway, and civilization, until it
became no less than a foreboding. Davenport, well satisfied with an
assistant whose capacity for hard work was commensurate with his
apparent love for it, had made him a proposal pointing to a
partnership survey in a still more remote field, but Brant had refused.
He knew well enough that his battle of reinstatement was yet to be
fought, and that it must be fought in the field of the wider world. And
toward that field he set his face, though not without misgivings—the
misgivings of one who, having given no quarter, need expect none.
“So you have made up your mind to go to Denver, have you?” said
Davenport, when they were smoking the pipe of leave-taking in the
lobby of the Aspen hotel.
“Yes. I have made arrangements to go down on the night train.”
Davenport looked at his watch. “It is about time you were moving,”
he said. “I’ll walk over to the station with you if you don’t mind.”
Brant did not mind. On the contrary, he was rather sorry to part from
the man who had been the first to help raise the bulwark of
forgetfulness. But their walk to the station was wordless, as much of
their companionship had been.
They found the train ready to leave, and at the steps of the Pullman
a party of four, an elderly man and three women. One of the women
was young and pretty, and she was cloaked and hatted for a journey.
So much Brant saw, and then he came alive to the fact that
Davenport was introducing him. Of the four names he caught but
one—that of the young woman who, it appeared, was to be his
travelling companion.
“Well, now, that is lucky all around,” the elderly man was saying. “We
have been hoping that some one would turn up at the last minute.
Dorothy would go, whether or— Hello, there!”
The wheels were beginning to turn, and whatever poor excuse for a
launching the acquaintance might have had in a few minutes of
general conversation was denied it. Brant had no more than time to
hand his charge up the steps of the Pullman, to stand for a moment
beside her while she waved a farewell to the group on the platform,
and his responsibility, such as it was, was upon him full fledged.
He did not make the most of it, as a better man might. So far from it,
he erred painstakingly on the side of formality, leading the way with
the young woman’s belongings to her section, asking her rather
stiffly if he could be of any further service to her, and vanishing
promptly to the solitude of the smoking compartment when her
negation set him free.
But once alone in the stuffy luxury of the smoking den it was
inevitable that the tale of the weeks of voluntary exile should roll
itself up like a scroll and vanish, and that the heart-hardening past,
and chiefly the tragic valedictory of it, should demand the hearing
postponed by the toil-filled interlude in the wilderness. He was well
used to scenes of violence, and there was a strain of atavistic
savagery in him that came to the surface now and then and bade
him look on open-eyed when stronger men blenched and turned
away. But now the memory of the tragedy in Gaynard’s kennel laid
hold of him and shook him in the very stronghold of ruthlessness. He
could not pretend to be deeply grieved, for the woman had been little
better than an evil genius to him; and yet he would willingly have
thrust his own life between her and the destroyer. Instead, she had
done that for him, though he did not harrow himself needlessly with
the thought that she had intentionally given her life for his. He knew
her well enough to be sure that she was only trying to save herself.
None the less, when all was said, it was a tragedy of the kind to
leave scars deep and abiding, and the remembrance of it might well
threaten to be the dregs in any cup of hope.
For his swift retaliation on the slayer he took no remorseful thought,
and for this environment was responsible. In the frontier mining
camps, where law is not, men defend their lives and redress their
wrongs with the strong hand, and one needs not to be an aggressive
brawler to learn to strike fierce blows and shrewd. So in the matter of
retaliation Brant was sorry only that, for all his good will, he had not
slain the ruffian outright.
That the heart-hardening past with its grim pictures should thus
obtrude itself upon his return to civilization seemed natural enough,
and Brant suffered it as a part of the penalty he must pay. Not in any
moment of the long evening did he remotely connect the sorry
memories with the young woman in Section Six, who was at most no
more than a name to him. Nevertheless, though he knew it not, it
was the young woman who was chiefly responsible. If a good man’s
introduction had not made him accountable for the welfare of a good
woman, Brant might have smoked a cigar and gone to bed without
this first reckoning with the past.
As it was, he smoked many cigars and was driven forth of the
smoking-room only when the porter, avid of sleep himself, had
suggested for the third time that the gentleman’s berth was ready.
Even then sleep was not to be had for the wooing, and the gray
dawn light sifting through the chinks around the window shades
found him still wakeful.
The sun of a new day was half-meridian high when the porter parted
the curtains of the berth and shook his single man passenger.
“Time to get up, sah; twenty minutes to de breakfas’ station.”
Brant yawned sleepily and looked at his watch.
“Breakfast? Why, it’s ten o’clock, and we ought to have been in
Denver an hour ago.”
“Yes, sah. Been laid out all night, mostly, sah; fust wid a freight
wreck, and den wid a hot box.”
Brant remembered vaguely that there had been stoppages many
and long, but with the memory mill agrind he had not remarked them.
In the lavatory he found the porter ostentatiously putting towels in the
racks for his single man passenger.
“Light car this morning, John?” he asked.
The negro grinned. “Yes, sah; you’ right about dat, sholy, sah. You-all
come mighty close to hab’n a special cyar last night, sah.”
“So?”
“Yes, sah. De young lady and you-all had de Hesp’rus all to you’ own
selves. Po’ portah ain’t gwine get rich out o’ dis trip, sholy.”
“No, I should say not.” Brant was sluicing his face in the dodging
basin at the moment, but a little later, when he had a dry pocket
hand, he gave the porter a coin of price.
“Take good care of the lady, John; they don’t remember about these
little things, you know.”
“No, sah—t’ank you kin’ly, sah—dat dey don’t. But I’s take mighty
good keer o’ dat young lady now, sah. Is—is you-all ’quaintin’ wid
her, sah?”
“I haven’t so much as seen her face,” said Brant, which was near
enough the literal truth to stand uncorrected. And a few minutes later
he went back into the body of the car to repair the omission.
What he saw stirred that part of him which had long lain dormant.
She was sitting in lonely state in the otherwise unoccupied car, and
his first impression, at half-car-length range, was that she was a
sweet incarnation of goodness of the protectable sort. Whereupon
he shut the door upon the past and betook himself to her section
with a kindly offer of service.
“Good morning, Miss Langford,” he began. “I hope you rested well.
We are coming to the breakfast station, and there will doubtless be
the usual scramble. May I have the pleasure of looking after your
wants?”
Her smile was of answering good will, and he had time to observe
that the honest gray eyes were deep wells of innocent frankness;
and when she made answer, there was something in her speech to
tell him that she was neither of the outspoken West nor of the self-
contained East.
“It was kind of you to think of me,” she said. “But I think I needn’t
trouble you.”
“Don’t call it trouble—it will be a pleasure,” he insisted; and when she
had made room for him on the opposite seat he sat down.
“We are very late, are we not?” she asked.
“So late that we are not likely to get in before night, I’m afraid. A
freight wreck and a hot box, the porter says.”
“I thought something was the matter. The train has been stopping all
through the night, and I could hear them working at the car every
time I awoke.”
“I heard them, too,” said Brant, though his memory of the stoppages
was of the vaguest. “It didn’t impress me at the time, but it does now.
I’m hungry.”
She laughed at this, and confessed a fellow-feeling.
“So am I; and I was just hoping for two things: a good breakfast, and
time enough to enjoy it.”
“We are pretty sure of the first, because the Van Noy people always
set a good table; but as to the time, our being so late will probably
cut it short. If you please, we’ll go out to the front platform and so be
ready to get in ahead of the rush.”
She went with him willingly enough, and a little later they were
partakers of the swift down-grade rush of the train in the open air. It
was before the day of vestibuled platforms on the mountain lines,
and when the lurching and swaying of the car made the footing
precarious he slipped his arm through hers for safety’s sake.
And she permitted it, does some one gasp? Yea, verily; and, since
she was much too clean-hearted to be constantly on the watch for
unworthy motives in others, thought no harm of it. Moreover, Brant’s
conclusion that she was neither of the East nor the West was well
founded in fact, and this had something to do with her frank trust in
him. She was Tennessee born and bred, and to a Southern girl all
men are gentlemen until they prove themselves otherwise.
And as for Brant, if she had been an angel of light, preaching
repentance and a better mind to the hardened sinner of the mining
camps, nothing she could have said or done would have touched
him so nearly as this tacit acceptance of his protection. But also it
gave him a soul-harrowing glimpse of the bottomless chasm
separating the chivalrous gentleman of her maidenly imaginings from
one George Brant, late of Silverette and Gaynard’s faro bank. How
this clean-hearted young woman would shrink from him if she could
but dimly imagine the manner of man he was! There was honest
shame and humiliation in the thought; and in so far as these may
give a moral uplift, Brant was the better man for the experience.
None the less, he was glad when the train slowed into the breakfast
station and the demands of the present once more shut the door
upon the past and its disquieting reminders.
Having a clear field for the run across the station platform, Brant and
his charge were the first to reach the dining room, and they had
chosen their table and given their order before the other seats were
taken. As a matter of course, Brant’s order was filled first, and
thereat his vis à vis, a hard-featured man in a linen duster and a
close-fitting skullcap, broke forth in remonstrance.
“That is the curse of the tip system!” he growled, looking pointedly at
Brant and addressing no one in particular. “I object to it on principle,
and every self-respecting traveller ought to help put it down.”
Brant’s eyelids narrowed and the steel-gray eyes behind them shot
back a look that aforetime had quelled more than one wild beast of
the gaming tables. But he held his peace, and here the matter might
have rested if the irascible fault-finder had not seen the look and
accepted it as a challenge.
“Yes, sir, I referred to you!” he exploded, hurling the explanation at
Brant’s head. “I submit it to the entire company if it is fair for you to
monopolize the attention of the servants while the rest of us go
hungry?”
Now Brant was by nature a very madman of impulse, but the one
good thing he had brought out of the hard school of lawlessness was
the ability to be fiercely wrathful without showing it. So he said,
placably enough: “I am sure you will excuse me if I decline to discuss
the question with you. We were the first comers, and my order was
given before you sat down.”
Here again the matter might have rested, but the hard-featured critic
must needs have the last word:
“What I said, sir, had no reference to the matter of precedence. What
I particularly object to is the shameless subsidizing of the servants.”
Whereupon Brant, who was as yet innocent of the implied charge,
took occasion to call the waiter who had served him and to fee him
openly in sight of all and sundry. The man in the linen duster scowled
his disapproval, but, inasmuch as his own breakfast was served,
said nothing. There was a lull in the threatened storm, and Brant was
still congratulating himself on his own magnanimity, when hostilities
broke out afresh. His charge had finished her breakfast, and he had
prevailed upon her to take a second cup of coffee. When it came, the
man across the table, who had given a similar order, claimed it for
his own. Brant expostulated, still in set terms exuding the very honey
of forbearance. The tyrant of breakfast tables fell into the trap,
mistook his man completely, and in a sharp volley of incivilities
proved that a soft answer may not always deflect the course of
righteous indignation. In the midst of the volley Miss Langford rose to
leave the table.
That was the final straw, and it broke the back of Brant’s self-control.
Rising quickly, he leaned across the table and smote the offender
out of his chair; one open-handed blow it asked for, and it was given
with red wrath to speed it. That done, he took the arm of his
companion and stalked out of the dining room before the smitten one
could gather breath for an explosion.
Brant marched his charge straight to the Pullman, drawing deep
warrior breaths of defiance world-inclusive; but by the time they were
halfway across the platform he came to his senses sufficiently to be
heartily ashamed of himself; nay, more, to be ready to welcome
anything which might come by way of reproach. But whatever Miss
Langford thought of it, she was self-contained enough to keep her
own counsel, and they boarded the train in silence. In the seclusion
of the deserted sleeping car Brant laid fast hold of his courage and
said what he might by way of apology.
“I can’t ask your forgiveness, Miss Langford,” he began; “I know I
have put myself beyond that. But I beg you to let me say just one
word in my own defence. For years I have been roughing it in these
mountains, eating at tables where that man’s insolence would cost
him his life before he could measure words with the mildest man in
the camp. And so I forgot myself for the moment—forgot what was
due you. Now I’ll make the only reparation I can, and keep out of
your sight for the rest of the day.”
And straightway he vanished without giving her a chance to reply.
 CHAPTER III
“THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS”

Having set himself to expiate his fault, Brant wore out the day in the
smoking compartment in comfortless solitude, doing penance by
limiting himself to one cigar an hour. It was dull work, but not
altogether profitless. For one thing there was plenty of time to think;
and for another the expiatory mill had a chance to grind out a goodly
grist of conclusions. The first of these was that there were going to
be more obstacles in the way to amendment than those interposed
by an uncharitable world; that apart from the sharp fight on the firing
line, he was likely to have trouble with an insubordinate garrison.
Now a fine scorn of obstacles was another of the lessons learned in
the hard school of abandonment, and Brant set his teeth on a
doughty resolution to override them in the race for retrieval, as he
had overridden them in the mad gallop pitward. Self-respect, or
some comforting measure of it, should be regained though the devil
himself held the present reversion of it. There should yet come a
day, please God, when he would not be constrained in common
decency to put the length of a Pullman car between himself and a
good woman. Moreover, the past should henceforth be a dead past,
and woe betide the enemy, man or devil, who should have the
temerity to resurrect it.
The gage of battle thus thrown to the powers of darkness was
promptly taken up. After one of the many stops with the troublesome
axle the rear brakeman came into the smoking compartment and sat
down, as one weary. To begin at once the shedding of the churl shell
of the master gambler, Brant nodded pleasantly; whereupon the
brakeman passed the time of day and immediately began,
railwaywise, to abuse his calling and to ease his mind in respect of
the hot box.
“She never has made a run yet without keeping everybody on the
keen jump,” he declared. “By gum! I’ve been chasing up and down
with the dope kettle ever since one o’clock this morning.”
“She?” said Brant, to whom railway speech was an unknown tongue.
“Yes; this here car—the Hesp’rus. Last time we had her it was the
back box on this end; now it’s the for’ard one under the drawing-
room—blazing away like a blooming track torch more’n half the
time.”
“Keeps you busy, does it?”
“You’re mighty right it does. And when I have a job like this, I like to
have some blame’ fool pilgrim come up and begin to jaw about the
soft snap a brakeman has now they have the air brakes.”
“Did somebody do that?”
“Sure; first thing this morning. Big chap in a linen duster and smoking
cap; same one that—” The brakeman stopped short, as one who
suddenly finds himself treading upon what may prove to be
dangerous ground.
“Go on,” said Brant encouragingly.
“Well, I mean the fellow you had the scrap with. Great Moses! but he
was hot!”
“Was he? So was I.”
“You’d better believe he was. Came out of that dining room rearin’
like a buckin’ bronco; said he was going to have the law on you, and
wanted the old man to wire ahead for a policeman to meet the train.”
“What old man—the conductor?”
“Yes; and Harker told him he couldn’t do it, because the row didn’t
happen on the train; said he didn’t know who you was, anyway. Then
I chipped in, and told ’em you was Plucky George, the man that
cleaned out the six toughs when they tried to run the bank up at
Silverette. Holy Smoke! but you ought to’ve seen old linen duster fall
apart when I said that!” The brakeman laughed joyously, but Brant
groaned in spirit at this ominous hint that his reputation meant to
keep pace with him.
“You’d better believe he was rattled right!” the man went on. “He just
went yaller, and the last I saw of him he was up ahead, looking for
you so’t he could apologize. Ain’t that rich?”
“Very rich,” said Brant grimly. Then he saw his advantage and made
good use of it. “In fact, it is much too rich to spoil. Go find the fellow
and tell him I’m in a bad humour, but that he is safe as long as he
keeps away from me. Will you do that?”
“Sure,” assented the brakeman, getting upon his feet. “I’ll do better
than that: I’ll scare him till he won’t get a good breath this side o’ the
Missouri River.”
Brant’s eyes narrowed, and in the turning of a leaf the mantle of
humility slipped from him and he became Brant the man-queller.
“You will do nothing of the sort. You will tell him just what I say, and
no word more or less. Now go.”
The man of dope kettles and rear-end signals was no coward, but
neither was he minded to pick a quarrel with the hero of a dozen
savage battles. Brant let him get to the door and then called him
back:
“Where does your run end?”
“Voltamo; next stop but one.”
“Then you don’t go into Denver?”
“No.”
“But some time you may. In that case, it will be as well for you to
forget what little you may happen to know about me. Do you
understand?”
“You’d better believe I do. I can hold my jaw with anybody when I
have to; and I don’t have to be hit with a club neither.”
“Good. Have a cigar—and don’t forget what I say.”
The brakeman took the proffered cigar and vanished; and thereupon
Brant began to repent once more and to grope for the lost mantle of
humility. Here on the very heels of his good resolutions he had
balked at one of the smallest of the obstacles, bullying a man in his
displeasure and trading upon his reputation as a man-queller like
any desperado of the camps. It was humiliating, but it proved the
wisdom of the smoking-room exile. Truly, he was far enough from
being a fitting companion for the young woman in Section Six.
As he had predicted, the train lost time steadily throughout the day,
and an early supper was served at the regular dinner station. Brant
went to the dining room with the other passengers, and when Miss
Langford did not appear, he sent the porter to her with a luncheon
and a cup of tea.
“It is about what I had a right to expect,” he told himself when he was
once more back in the solitude of the smoke den. “She was afraid to
trust herself in the same dining room with me. Why the devil couldn’t
I have held my cursed temper just ten seconds longer? Here I’ve had
to sit all day and eat my heart out, when I might have been getting
miles away from the old life in her company. What a fool a man can
make of himself when he tries!”
“That is a fact,” said a voice from the opposite seat; and Brant, who
had been staring gloomily out of the window at the wall of blackness
slipping past the train, and so was unaware that he was not alone,
was unreasonable enough to be angry.
“What’s that you say?” he began wrathfully, turning upon his
commentator; but the pleasant face of the young man in the opposite
seat was of the kind which disarms wrath.
“It’s on me,” he laughed. “I beg your pardon. I spoke without thinking,
but what you said about the fool-making faculty calls for general
ratification. We all have it.”
Brant nodded, and the newcomer relighted his cigar, which had gone
out in the explanation. “Going in to Denver?” he asked, willing to let
interest atone for impudence.
“Yes.”
“Wish I were. I’ve been out a week now, and I’m beginning to long for
the fleshpots.”
“You have my sympathy if you have to stop overnight anywhere
between this and Denver,” said Brant, who knew the country.
“Luckily, I don’t have to. I am merely riding down to the meeting point
with Number Three to kill time. I have to go back to Voltamo to-
night.”
Brant laughed. “Do you find it cheaper to ride than to wait?”
“It is quite as cheap in my case; the railway company has to foot the
bills, anyway.”
“Oh—you are in the service, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Engineer corps?”
“No; operating department. I am chief clerk in the superintendent’s
office.”
They smoked companionably for a while, and then Brant said:
“Perhaps you can tell me some of the things I want to find out. Who
is your chief engineer now?”
“Colonel Bowran.”
“Good fellow?”
“Out of sight; gentleman of the old school, you know; West Point,
regular army, and all that. They say he won’t hire a chainman unless
he is a college graduate.”
“Is his office in Denver?”
“Yes; right next door to ours.”
“All of which is comforting,” said Brant. “I hope you will have me for a
neighbour. I am going to try for a billet on the C. E. & W.”
“Good!” exclaimed the chief clerk, rising at the sound of the
locomotive whistle. “My name’s Antrim, and you will find me in
Superintendent Craig’s office. Latchstring hangs on the outer wall.”
“And my name is Brant. Do you quit us here?”
“Got to do it—wish I hadn’t, now. Glad to have met you, I’m sure.
Don’t forget to hunt me up. Good night.”
They shook hands heartily at parting. It was Colorado, in the day
when strangers became friends—or enemies—on the spot; when
one unconsciously dropped the “Mr.” in an hour, and then slipped
easily around the surname to hobnob with Tom, Dick, or Harry in the
first interview.
For the exile the little chat with the chief clerk was heartening in its
way; and when the train was once more swaying and lurching along
its crooked course down the cañon he looked at his watch and
figured out the probable arriving time.
“Eleven hours late; that will make it ten o’clock in Denver. I wonder if
Miss Langford will find somebody to look after her when she gets in.
If she doesn’t——”
The interruption was the advent of the porter. The negro had been
trying to get speech with his patron for half an hour, but he was much
too discreet to deliver his message in Antrim’s presence.
“’Bout de supper, sah; de lady in lower Six say, T’ank you kin’ly, sah,
and would you-all be so kind and step back in de cyar a minute?”
“Certainly.” Brant rose to comply, but he was no sooner on his feet
than he was thrown violently all across the compartment.
“Golly Lawd! she’s on de ties!” gasped the negro, and the
exclamation ended in a yell of terror.
Brant kept his head, and thought only of the young woman alone in
the body of the car. With the floor heaving and bounding under him
like the deck of a storm-tossed ship, he darted out of the smoking-
room and flung himself against the swinging door in the narrow side
vestibule. It was jammed, but the glass of the upper panel fell in
fragments under his blow, and he was past the obstruction when the
end came. The heavy sleeper lurched first to the right, reeled
drunkenly for a critical instant on the brink of the embankment facing
the river, righted itself with a jerk when draw bars and safety chains
gave way, and then settled back to topple over against the cañon
wall, stopping with a crash that sent Brant to his knees just as he
was starting down the aisle.
The broken glass was still falling from the shattered deck lights when
he reached Section Six. The young woman was unhurt, but she was
very pale, and the gray eyes were full of terror.
“Don’t faint,” said Brant very gently, though he was wondering what
he should do in case she did. “It is all over now, I think.”
“But the others?” she faltered.
“Let us hope that the other cars have kept the track—that it is only
the ‘wreck of the Hesperus.’”
She smiled at the conceit, and asked what they should do.
“If you will promise not to faint while I am gone, I’ll go and find out.
There is no danger now.”
“I’m not going to faint; but please don’t be gone long.”
He was back in a moment, gathering up her belongings.
“There is nothing smashed but our car,” he explained. “They will
leave flagmen with it, and go on to Denver with the remainder of the
train. Will you take my arm?”
The wrecked sleeper was already surrounded by a throng of curious
passengers and anxious trainmen, and ready hands were extended
to help them down from the uptilted platform. But Brant put them all
aside, and lifted his companion to the ground as if the right were his
alone.
“It is all right, Mr. Harker,” he said, singling out the conductor. “I
mean, we are all out. There was no one else in the car except the
porter, and he isn’t hurt.”
They made their way through the throng of curious ones, and so on
down the track to the train. Brant found a seat in the day coach,
disposed his charge comfortably therein, and then, once more laying
hold of his courage, sat down beside her.
“I am not going to leave you again until I see you safe in Denver,” he
asserted; “that is, unless you send me away.”
“I didn’t send you away this morning,” she rejoined, with a smile that
went far toward making him forget for the moment who and what he
was.
“I know you didn’t; but you had a right to. And after what I had done,
there was nothing for it but to take myself off.”
She did not speak until the train was once more lurching on its way.
Then she said: “I thought at the time you were very patient; and—
and I think so still.”
“Do you, really? That is very good of you; but I think I don’t deserve
it. My first thought should have been for you, and I might have kept
my temper for another half minute.”
Now this young woman could rejoice in an excellent upbringing, as
will presently appear, and she knew perfectly well that Brant was
right. But where is the woman, old or young, who does not secretly
glory in a vigorous championship of her rights, even at the expense
of the proprieties?
So she spoke him fair, telling him that she was sending for him at the
moment of the accident to thank him and to pay him for her supper.
Nay, more: she made the next two hours so pleasant for him that
they were as but a watch in the night, and their flitting seemed to
push his life in the camps into a comfortably remote past.
And so they chatted amicably until the outlying lights of Denver
began to flash past the windows; and then Brant bethought him of
her further well-being.
“Will there be some one at the train to meet you?” he inquired.
“No; but my street-car line is only a block from the depot, and the car
takes me almost to our door.”
“I will put you on the car,” he said; and this he did some few minutes
later, bidding her “Good night,” and standing in the street to catch a
last glimpse of her as the car droned away to the northward. Then he
turned away to seek a hotel, and was well uptown before he
remembered that he had not thought to ask her address, or to ask if
he might call upon her.
“But that is all right,” he mused. “Denver isn’t London, and if I can
ever pull myself up into the ranks of the well-behaved, I shall find
her.”
 CHAPTER IV
THE MIGRANTS

Time was, and is no more, when invalids, hopeful and hopeless,

thronged the eastern foothills of the Rockies till there was no longer
houseroom for them in the cities, and a new word “lunger” was
grafted upon the exuberant stock of Western folk speech to
distinguish them. Unlike the pioneers of a still earlier day, who
crossed the plains with their worldly possessions snugly sheltered
beneath the canvas tilt of a single prairie schooner, these migrants
for health’s sake were chiefly of the class which neither toils nor
spins, and to the foothill cities they presently added suburbs
architecturally characteristic each after its kind. In these suburbs the
trim-built town house of New England is the commonest type, but the
more florid style of the middle West is not lacking, and now and then,
in the roomier city fringe, there are replicas done in red brick of the
low-storied, wide-verandaed country house of the South.
Such was the home of the Langfords in the Highlands of North
Denver. Driven from the ancestral acres in the blue-grass region of
Tennessee in the late afternoon of his life, the judge had determined
to make the new home in the life-giving altitudes as nearly like the
old as money and the materials at hand would compass, and he had
succeeded passing well. He had bought acres where others bought
lots, and the great roomy house, with its low-pitched roof and wide
verandas on three sides, stood in the midst of whatsoever
Tennessee greenery would stand transplantation from the blue-grass
region to the less genial climate of the clear-skied altitudes.
On pleasant Sunday afternoons, when Dorothy was at her mission
school and the judge slept peacefully in his own particular chair,
when Mrs. Langford followed her husband’s example in the privacy
of her room, and Will was no one ever knew just where, the
hammock slung at the corner of the veranda which commanded a
view of the mountains was Isabel’s especial convenience. For one
reason, there was the view; for another, the hammock swung
opposite that portion of the low railing which was Harry Antrim’s
favourite perch during the hour or two which measured his
customary Sunday afternoon visit.
Being very much in love with Isabel, Antrim was quite willing to turn
his back upon the scenery for the sake of looking at her. And as
between a winsome young woman swinging in a hammock—a
young woman with laughing brown eyes and a profusion of glory-
tinted hair framing a face to which piquancy and youthful beauty lent
equal charms—who but a scenery-mad pilgrim of the excursion
trains would think of making a comparison?
In these Sunday afternoon talks Isabel could be abstract or concrete
as occasion demanded. What time the young man dwelt overmuch
on railway matters, she found it convenient to be able to look over
his shoulder at the mighty panorama unrolled and unrolling itself in
endless transformation scenes against the western horizon. And
when Antrim, finding himself ignored, would come back from things
practical to things personal, she had but to close her eyes to the
scenic background and to open them again upon the personality of
her companion.
Conceding nothing to what he was pleased to call her artistic fad,
Antrim was willing to condone Isabel’s indifference to railway affairs.
His business was a part, the greater part, of his life, but he could
understand why Judge Langford’s daughter, as such, might easily
weary of railway shop talk. True, there had been more or less of it all
along in the old days in Tennessee, when the judge was counsel for
the railway company of which Antrim’s father was the
superintendent; but that was because the Langfords and Antrims
dwelt side by side and were friends as well as neighbours. Here in
Colorado it was different. The judge was an invalid—a migrant for
health’s sake, with gear sufficient to make him independent of
railway counsellorships, and with little left of his former connection
save a pocketful of annual passes and a warm affection for the son
of his old friend the superintendent.