Bruce of the Circle A

ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1918 By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED)
Ann Lytton was a stranger in that strange land. Impressions pelted in upon her—the silhouetted range against the cerise flush of western sky; the valley sweeping outward in all other directions to lose itself in the creeping blue-grays of night; droning voices of men from the station; a sense of her own physical inconsequence; her loneliness ... and, as a background, the insistent vastness of the place.
Then, out of the silence from somewhere not far off, came a flat, dead crash, the report of a firearm. The woman was acutely conscious that the voices in the station had broken short with an abruptness which alarmed her. The other sound—the shot—had touched fear in her, too, and the knowledge that it had nipped the attention of the talking men sent a cool thrill down her limbs.
A man emerged from the depot and his voice broke in,
Wonder where that—
He stopped short and the woman divined the reason. She strained to catch the thrum of running hoofs, knowing intuitively that the man, also, had ceased speaking to listen. She was conscious that she trembled.
Another man stepped into the open and spoke, hurriedly, but so low that Ann could not hear; the first replied in the same manner, giving a sense of stealth, of furtiveness that seemed to the woman portentous. She took a step forward, frightened at she knew not what, wanting to run to the men just because she was afraid and they were human beings. She checked herself, though, and forced reason.
This was nonsense! She laid it on her nerves. They were ragged after the suspense and the long journey, the dread and hopes. A shot, a galloping horse, a suspected anxiety in the talk of the two men had combined to play upon them in their overwrought condition.
Then, the first speaker's voice again, in normal tone,
Trunk here, but I didn't see anybody get off.