Well Won; Or, From The Plains To "The Point"
by
CHAPTER I.
RALPH MCCREA.
The sun was going down, and a little girl with big, dark eyes who was sitting in the waiting-room of the railway station was beginning to look very tired. Ever since the train came in at one o’clock she had been perched there between the iron arms of the seat, and now it was after six o’clock of the long June day, and high time that some one came for her.
A bonny little mite she was, with a wealth of brown hair tumbling down her shoulders and overhanging her heavy eyebrows. She was prettily dressed, and her tiny feet, cased in stout little buttoned boots, stuck straight out before her most of the time, as she sat well back on the broad bench.
She was a silent little body, and for over two hours had hardly opened her lips to any one,–even to the doll that now lay neglected on the seat beside her. Earlier in the afternoon she had been much engrossed with that blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and overdressed beauty; but, little by little, her interest flagged, and when a six-year-old girlie loses interest in a brand-new doll something serious must be the matter.
Something decidedly serious was the matter now. The train that came up from Denver had brought this little maiden and her father,–a handsome, sturdy-looking ranchman of about thirty years of age,–and they had been welcomed with jubilant cordiality by two or three stalwart men in broad-brimmed slouch hats and frontier garb. They had picked her up in their brawny arms and carried her to the waiting-room, and seated her there in state and fed her with fruit and dainties, and made much of her. Then her father had come in and placed in her arms this wonderful new doll, and while she was still hugging it in her delight, he laid a heavy satchel on the seat beside her and said,–
“And now, baby, papa has to go up-town a ways. He has lots of things to get to take home with us, and some new horses to try. He may be gone a whole hour, but will you stay right here–you and dolly–and take good care of the satchel?”
She looked up a little wistfully. She did not quite like to be left behind, but she felt sure papa could not well take her,–he was always so loving and kind,–and then, there was dolly; and there were other children with their mothers in the room. So she nodded, and put up her little face for his kiss. He took her in his arms a minute and hugged her tight.
“That’s my own little Jessie!” he said. “She’s as brave as her mother was, fellows, and it’s saying a heap.”
With that he set her down upon the bench, and they put dolly in her arms again and a package of apples within her reach; and then the jolly party started off.
They waved their hands to her through the window and she smiled shyly at them, and one of them called to a baggage-man and told him to have an eye on little Jessie in there. “She is Farron’s kid.”
For a while matters did not go so very badly. Other children, who came to look at that marvellous doll and to make timid advances, kept her interested. But presently the east-bound train was signalled and they were all whisked away.
Then came a space of over an hour, during which little Jessie sat there all alone in the big, bare room, playing contentedly with her new toy and chattering in low-toned, murmurous “baby talk” to her, and pointing out the wonderful sunbeams that came slanting in through the dust of the western windows. She had had plenty to eat and a big glass of milk before papa went away, and was neither hungry nor thirsty; but all the same, it seemed as if that hour were getting very, very long; and every time the tramp of footsteps was heard on the platform outside she looked up eagerly.