Page:From the West to the West.djvu/190

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improve my vocabulary. Read it, Hal; study its precepts; imitate its language; revere its antiquity; emulate the example of its good men; shun the sins of its Davids and Solomons; fill your mind with the wisdom of its Isaiahs and Deborahs; and, above all, obey its Ten Commandments and follow the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule."

"I'll see spooks to-night!" cried Jean..

As these chronicles will have no further dealings with the Mormon refugee, it is well to add, in closing the incident, that twenty years after the episode had passed and was almost forgotten, some of the members of the long disbanded Ranger train, who were passing through eastern Oregon, on their way to the mines of northern Idaho, found her keeping a "Travellers' Rest "in the bunchgrass country, where, as cook, chambermaid, waiter, and general scullion, she was supporting her repentant consort, who dutifully received the cash given by her guests in exchange for such food for man and beast as her unique hostelry afforded.

XXV

JEAN LOSES HER WAY

A STANCH but frail-looking ferry-boat waited to carry the Ranger train across Green River. Jean, who, after her mother's death, had developed a strong propensity for daily hours of solitude, looked longingly at the desolate scenery while her father's train was awaiting its turn at the ferry, and, noting the great table-rock that still overlooks the river, climbed unaided to its top, where she became so deeply absorbed in contemplating the wild, weird character of the sce