ILLUSTRATIONS

["We will go home to my home just like this, together." Frontispiece. See Page 311.]

["Casabianca, was it?" said Thryng, smiling. Page 17.]

["I take it back—back from God—the promise I gave you there by the fall." Page 171.]

[Cassandra stood silent, quivering like one of her own mountain creatures brought to bay. Page 286.]

THE MOUNTAIN GIRL

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH DAVID THRYNG ARRIVES AT CAREW'S CROSSING

The snow had ceased falling. No wind stirred among the trees that covered the hillsides, and every shrub, every leaf and twig, still bore its feathery, white load. Slowly the train labored upward, with two engines to take it the steepest part of the climb from the valley below. David Thryng gazed out into the quiet, white wilderness and was glad. He hoped Carew's Crossing was not beyond all this, where the ragged edge of civilization, out of which the toiling train had so lately lifted them, would begin again.

He glanced from time to time at the young woman near the door who sat as the bishop had left her, one slight hand grasping the handle of her basket, and with an expression on her face as placid and fraught with mystery as the scene without. The train began to crawl more heavily, and, looking down, Thryng saw that they were crossing a trestle over a deep gorge before skirting the mountain on the other side. Suddenly it occurred to him that he might be carried beyond his station. He stopped the smiling young brakeman who was passing with his flag.