The Rim of the Desert

by Ada Woodruff Anderson

"We have been delayed by an accident," Tisdale explained briefly, "and I want you to take this lady in for the night. Make her comfortable as possible, and I will see it is worth your while."

"This ain't much of a road-house." The woman held the lamp higher to scrutinize the lady's face. "We only got one room, an' the best I can do is to double up with the kids an' give you my bed."

"That will do very well," answered Tisdale quickly. "I can take care of myself. Of course there's a stable somewhere out here in the dark, and a bale or two of hay."

"No, we got a shed up, but we're short on feed. We're short on 'bout everything: flour, potatoes, bacon, beans. We've just took up this here claim, an' things ain't growed. But my man's gone down to Wenatchee to fetch a load." Then, seeing this fact was hardly one to solace her transient guests, she laughed shortly and went into the cabin to set the lamp on a table and bring a lantern that hung on the farther wall.

Tisdale turned to help Miss Armitage down. "We may be able to find better accommodations towards the Columbia, when the moon rises," he said, "but I can't be as sure of another—chaperon." Then, looking into her face, he added in his minor key: "I am sorry, but you will make the best of things, I know. And the night will pass. Come."

She slipped down beside him and stood holding her skirts out of the powdery soil, while her wide eyes searched that interior through the open door. Tisdale lifted the baggage from the buggy to the porch, then the woman returned with the lantern and, followed by the dogs, went to show him where he might stable the horses. After a moment Miss Armitage ventured up the low steps to the threshold. It was a portable cabin such as she had noticed from the train window at intervals where construction was incomplete along the new railroad. It was battered and weak, showing old earmarks of transportation, but it was furnished with a rusty cook-stove, some bench chairs, and two beds, which stood in the farther corners and nearly filled that half of the room. A few heavy dishes, the part of a loaf of bread, and several slices of indifferently fried bacon were on the table, between the lamp and a bucket containing a little water. Presently, still holding her skirts, she crossed the grimy floor and stood inspecting with a mingled fascination and dread those ancient beds. Both were destitute of linen, but one was supplied with a tumbled heap of coarse, brown blankets. In the other, beneath a frayed comforter, two small boys were sleeping. Their sun-baked faces were overhung with thatches of streaked blond hair, and one restless arm, throwing off the sodden cover, partly exposed the child's day attire, an unclean denim blouse tucked into overalls. She turned in sudden panic and hurried back to the porch.

In a little while she noticed her suitcase, opened it, and found her cologne; with this she drenched a fresh handkerchief and began to bathe her face and hands. Then she drew one of the bench chairs through the doorway and, seating herself with her back to the room, kept on dabbing her lips and her cheeks with the cool, delicately pungent perfume, and so gathered up the remnants of her scattered fortitude. Finally, when the lantern glimmered again, and she was able to distinguish the two returning figures, she had laid aside her hat and coat, and she was ready to smile, if not radiantly at least encouragingly, at Tisdale as he came up the steps.

The woman went in to shake out and spread the blankets with a pretence at making the bed, and he followed to the threshold, where he took a swift and closer inventory of the room. Its resources were even more meager than he had supposed. He swung around and looked up through the darkness towards that sheltered cleft they had left near the Pass. He did not say anything, but the girl watching him answered his thought. "I wish it had been possible. It would have been delightful—the ground was like a carpet, clean and soft and fragrant—under those pines."

"I wish we had even had the forethought to bring down an armful of those boughs. But, after all, it might have been worse. At least you need not go hungry, with that lunch of Lighter's and your apples, to say nothing of the sandwiches I asked the steward to make before I left the train. And to-morrow, when you are safe with your friends at Wenatchee, you are going to forget this miserable experience like an unpleasant dream."

"I am not ungrateful," she said quickly. "I enjoyed every moment of that drive. And besides the apples, I have tea. I always tuck a little in my suitcase when we are touring with Mrs. Feversham, because she uses a different blend."