CHAPTER XXVII—SEVERAL CONCLUSIONS
Nell Blossom had not gone back to sing at Colorado Brown’s place. It was some time before Hunt found this out, and he wondered why she had broken her agreement with Colorado, for he knew she had entirely recovered from the effects of her adventure in the storm.
Had the parson asked his sister, Betty might have illuminated his mind not a little regarding this and other mysteries about Nell; but he was chary of ever speaking of the singer in other than a general way before Betty.
To tell the truth, he shrank from any argument regarding the Blossom of Canyon Pass. He had learned just how sweet and innocent Nell Blossom was. But he did not know how far Betty might approve of the younger girl, especially if he showed any personal interest in the latter.
He was firm in his conviction that Nell Blossom was a being set apart as his mate from the beginning! Strange as it might seem at first view, Hunt was positive that he and the half-tamed mining-camp girl held much in common. He had found opportunity to talk with her of late—both at Mother Tubbs’ and elsewhere—and he knew her tastes and aspirations far better than before. She had confided to him, although with much timidity, some of her girlish desires and her conclusions upon topics which she had thought seriously about.
She was, too, of the very stuff these Canyon Pass people were made—one of themselves. If he got Nell Blossom for a wife she would be of greater aid to him in his work here than any other one person possibly could be. With Nell Blossom for his very own, the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt would indeed have won the Heart of Canyon Pass.
Hunt kept all this a secret and said little to Betty about the cabaret singer. Nothing indeed that gave her a chance to tell him that her eyes had seen already most of what he thought was hidden from her, and seen it in a single glance.
As her brother sat beside the bed the day of the ice-storm and held Nell Blossom’s hand, Betty saw how it was with the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt. The only matter that puzzled her at all was Nell’s possible attitude. Unsophisticated as the mining-camp girl was, Betty could not know for sure what Nell’s feeling for the parson was.
But Betty might have given Hunt a pretty correct explanation of why Nell did not go back to sing at Colorado Brown’s place. The girls were together almost every day after their adventure in the storm.
Betty did not go to Mother Tubbs’. She scarcely left the hotel at all in the day time, though going out on the first Sunday following their perilous adventure to attend church service.