She found her way easily enough to the town, for she was wise in the tracks of a wild country, and John’s trail townwards, though so rarely used, was to her eyes plain enough; and very coolly she walked into the hotel, past the group of loungers around the stove, and asked at the desk, where Mrs. Upper sat, if she could get a job. Mrs. Upper and the loungers stared, for there were few women in this frontier country and those few were well known. This great, strong girl, heavily graceful in her heavily awkward clothes, bareheaded, shod like a man, her face and throat purely classic, her eyes gray and wide and as secret in expression as an untamed beast’s—no one had ever seen the like of her before.
“What’s yer name?” asked Mrs. Upper suspiciously. It was Mormon Day in the town; there were celebrations and her house was full; she needed extra hands, but where this wild creature was concerned she was doubtful.
“Joan. I’m John Carver’s daughter,” answered the girl.
At once comprehension dawned; heads were nodded, then craned for a better look. Yes, the town, the whole country even, had heard of John Carver’s imprisoned daughter. Sober and drunk, he had boasted of her and of how there was to be “no man” in her life. It was like dangling ripe fruit above the mouths of hungry boys to make such a boast in such a land. But they were lazy. It was a country of lazy, slow-thinking, slow-moving, and slow-talking adventurers—you will notice this ponderous, inevitable quality of rolling stones—and though men talked with humor not too fine of “travelin’ up Lone River for John’s gel,” not a man had got there. Perhaps the men knew John Carver for a coward, that most dangerous animal to meet in his own lair.
Now here stood the “gel,” the mysterious secret goal of desire, a splendid creature, virginal, savage, as certainly designed for man as Eve. The men’s eyes fastened upon her, moved and dropped.
“Your father sent you down here fer a job?” asked Mrs. Upper incredulously.
“No. I come.” Joan’s grave gaze was unchanging. “I’m tired of it up there. I ain’t a-goin’ back. I’m most eighteen now an’ I kinder want a change.”
She had not meant to be funny, but a gust of laughter rattled the room. She shrank back. It was more terrifying to her than any cruelty she had fancied meeting her in the town. These were the men her father had forbidden, these loud-laughing, crinkled faces. She had turned to brave them, a great surge of color in her brows.
“Don’t mind the boys, dear,” spoke Mrs. Upper. “They will laff, joke or none. We ain’t none of us blamin’ you. It’s a wonder you ain’t run off long afore now. I can give you a job an’ welcome, but you’ll be green an’ unhandy. Well, sir, we kin learn ye. You kin turn yer hand to chamber-work an’ mebbe help at the table. Maud will show you. But, Joan, what will dad do to you? He’ll be takin’ after you hot-foot, I reckon, an’ be fer gettin’ you back home as soon as he can.”
Joan did not change her look.