Late one afternoon during the following week Livingston drove up to Harris' ranch and helped from his buggy a small, fair-haired girl who looked with wonderment at the squalid log buildings, the squealing, scurrying pigs and children, and the usual group of roughly dressed men waiting for their supper. The pain in her eyes deepened, and she clasped Livingston's arm like a frightened child.

"O, mein Freund, I fear!" she cried, drawing back.

"Come," he urged gently. "There is nothing to fear. You must trust me, for I am indeed your friend, little girl. We will find the one who is expecting you—who will love you and be a sister to you."

A look of trustful obedience came into her sweet blue eyes, now disfigured by much weeping, and without hesitation she walked beside him past the group of rough-looking men, dirty, barefooted children, scurrying pigs and dogs, to the kitchen door.

An Indian woman with a baby in her arms stood in the shadow of the room and motioned them to enter.

"Is Miss Hathaway here?" inquired Livingston.

At the sound of his voice the door of an inner room opened and Hope, her slender form gowned as he had first seen her, came quickly across the untidy room toward them.

"I am Hope," she said to the girl, taking both of her soft little hands in her own and looking in wonder at the childish face with its setting of wavy gold hair. Suddenly the broken-hearted girl was in her arms sobbing out her grief upon her shoulder. Hope led her to a seat, removed her hat and coat, and uttered words of endearment to her, soothing her as she would have done a child.

Could this impulsive, loving girl be Hope, wondered Livingston, who still stood in the doorway. She smoothed back the bright hair from the pretty, childish face, exclaiming:

"How beautiful you are! And what a little thing to have such a grief! Oh, it is cruel, cruel! Cry, dear, cry all you want to—it will do you good, and the pain will sooner be gone."

"O, Gott im Himmel," sobbed the German girl, "gieb mir Muth es zu ertragen!"

"But you are, oh, so much braver than I. Look at me, see what a great, big strong thing I am, and I moaned and cried because the world wasn't made to my liking! Oh, it makes me ashamed now, when I see such a little, frail thing as you suffer such a real sorrow! But I am your friend—your sister, if you will have me."

"How goot you are, meine liebe Freundin!" sobbed the girl.

"May you never have reason to change your opinion," replied Hope slowly, in German.

"She speaks my language!" exclaimed the German girl, with something like hopefulness in her voice.

"But very poorly," apologized Hope, looking for the first time at the man standing quietly in the doorway.

"It will comfort her that you speak it at all," he replied. "But without any language you would still be a comfort to her. I will leave her in your hands, Miss Hathaway. She has had a long journey and—must be very tired." He bowed and turned to go, but, recollecting something, came back into the room. "I am going now," he said to the German girl, "but I will come to see you often. You need have no fear when you are with—Hope."

Hope turned to him impulsively.

"You will do as you say," she begged. "You will come often to see her." Then added, "You know she'll be terribly lonely at first!"

"It will give me great pleasure, if I may," he replied.

She held out her hand to him.

"If you may! Are you not master of your own actions? Good-by!"

She took her hand from his firm clasp with something like a jerk, and found herself blushing furiously as she turned to the little German girl.

As far as anyone could be made comfortable in the Harris home Hope made her little charge so. She shared her room, her bed with her, took her to school each day and kept her constantly at her side.

She was a simple, trusting German girl, bright, and extremely pretty, and her name was Louisa Schulte. From the first she had loved Hope with an affection that was as touching as it was beautiful, and as she came to know her better, day by day her love and admiration grew akin to worship. She believed her to be the most wonderful girl that ever lived, in some respects fairly superhuman. She marveled at the skill with which she could ride and shoot, and her wisdom in Western lore. And behind every accomplishment, every word and act, Louisa read her heart, which no one before had ever known.

So finding in the bereaved girl, who had so strangely come into her life, the sympathy and love for which she had vainly searched in one of her own sex, Hope gave her in return the true wealth of a sister's heart.

For some time after Louisa's arrival Hope was with her almost constantly, but the inactive life began to tell upon her. Her eyes would light up with an involuntary longing at the sight of the breed boys racing over the hills upon their ponies.

"Why don't you go?" asked the German girl, one morning, reading her friend with observant eyes as the boys started out for a holiday.

It was a beautiful warm Saturday morning. The two girls were sitting on a pile of logs by the side of the road sunning themselves, far enough away from the Harris house and its surroundings to enjoy the beauty of a perfect day.

"I would rather stay here with you," replied Hope, arranging a waving lock which the wind had displaced from Louisa's golden tresses. "When the horse comes that I have sent for, and you have learned to ride better, we will go all over these mountains together. I will show you Sydney's camp and take you to old Peter's cabin, and let you see where we found the den of coyotes. We will go everywhere then, and have such a good time!"

Louisa looked at her tenderly, but her eyes were filled with the pain of a great sorrow.

"O, FrÄulein, you are goot, so goot to me! If I may ask, not too much, I wish to see where lies mein lieber Fritz. I vill weep no more—then. Ven I sleep the dreams come so much. If I could see once the place it would be better, nicht wahr?"

"Yes," replied Hope, "it is a lovely spot and you shall see it. Mr. Livingston could not have found a more beautiful place. Just now it is all a mass of flowers and green grass as far as you can see, and behind it is a great high jagged wall of stone. It is beautiful!"

"Mr. Livingston is a good, true man," mused Louisa, lapsing into German, which Hope followed with some difficulty. "He was very kind to my poor Fritz, who loved him dearly. His letters were filled with his praises. It was of him, of the beautiful country, and our love of which he always wrote. He was a good boy, FrÄulein."

"Tell me about him," said Hope, adding hastily, "if you feel like it. I would love to hear."

Hope could not have suggested a wiser course, for to speak of a grief or trouble wears off its sharp edges.

"He was a good boy," replied Louisa. "I cannot see why God has taken him from this beautiful place, and from me. It has been a year, now, since I last saw him. He left in a hurry. He had never spoken of love until that day, nor until he told me of it did I know that it was real love I had so long felt for him. We grew up together. He was my cousin. I had other cousins, but he was ever my best companion—my first thought. He came to me that day and said: 'Louisa, I am going far away from here to the free America. It breaks my heart to leave you. Will you promise to some day join me there and be my wife?' I promised him, and then cried much because he was going so far. It was even worse than the army, I thought, and somehow it held a strange dread for me. But Fritz would not think of the army. His eldest brother returned, and as head of the family all the money went to him. My aunt married again. Her husband is a wholesale merchant of wines. He gave Fritz a position in his warehouse, but very soon they quarreled. He seemed not to like Fritz. Then there was nothing for the poor boy but the army, or far America. I could not blame him when he chose freedom. The lot of the youngest son is not always a happy one. A friend who had been here told all about this great country and the good opportunities, so he came. His letters were so beautiful! I used to read them over and over until the paper was worn and would break in pieces. For a whole year I waited, and planned, and lived on the letters and my dreams, then filled with happiness I started to him. To think that I have come to the end of this long, strange journey to a foreign land to see but his grave! Oh, God in heaven, help me be brave!"

"There is no death," said Hope, rising abruptly from the log upon which she had been sitting and standing erect before Louisa, her dark commanding eyes forcing the attention of the grief-stricken girl. "I know there is no death. I feel it with every throb of my pulse—in every atom of my being! I and my body!—I and my body!" she continued impressively. "How distinct the two! Can the death of this lump of clay change the I that is really myself? Can anything exterminate the living me? Every throb of my whole being tells me that I am more than this perishable flesh—that I am more than time or place or condition or death! I believe, like the Indians, that when we are freed from this husk of death—this perishing flesh, that the we, as we truly are, is like a prisoner turned loose—that then, only do we realize what life really means."

Louisa's innocent eyes were intent upon her as she strove to grasp the full meaning of the English words.

"Ich weiss; es ist wahr," she replied softly, "aber wenn der Kummer so frisch ist, dann ist es unmÖglich in dem Gedanken Trost zu finden."

"I should have said nothing," said Hope in contrition, seating herself upon the log pile again.

"Nein, my dear, dear friend! I have now dis misery, but I belief you. Somedimes your vords vill help—vat you calls 'em—vill soothe, und I vill be better."

"Then it's all right," said Hope, jumping from the logs and giving her hand to Louisa to assist her down. "Let's walk a little."

They went slowly up the road toward the school-house, and had not proceeded far when they met Livingston driving toward them in an open buggy.

Hope waved her hand to him and hastened forward, while Louisa smiled upon him the faintest of dimpled greetings, then drew back to the side of the road while the girl of the prairies stepped up to the side of his buggy.

"You haven't kept your word very well," she said. "We have seen you only twice, and Louisa has wondered many times what has been keeping you. Isn't that so, Louisa?" she nodded at the girl. "I am glad you have come this morning, because I want to ask you a favor."

"I am at your service," he replied.

"You know Louisa hasn't learned to ride yet, and Harris' have no other way of conveyance, so I wanted to ask you to take her in your buggy—to see Fritz's grave." The last few words were added below her breath.

"I came this morning to ask you if she did not wish to see it," he replied. "It might be good for her."

"Of course you should be the first one to think of it!" she said quickly, shading her eyes with her hand to look down the long, crooked stretch of road. "I didn't think of it at all myself. She has just asked me if she might see it. All the virtues are yours by right," she continued, showing, as she again faced him, a flash of her strong white teeth. "And the funny part of it is, I think I am getting jealous of the very virtues you possess!"

"You should see with my eyes awhile," he replied, "and you would have no cause for jealousy."

"I do not know jealousy in the ordinary sense of the word—that was entirely left out of my make-up, but for once I covet the attributes of thoughtfulness that should be ingrained in every woman's nature."

When she had spoken he seemed struggling for an instant with some strong emotion. Without replying he stepped from his buggy and walked to the heads of his horses, presumably to arrange some part of the harness.

Livingston struggled to keep back the words which sprang to his lips. He loved the girl with all the strength of his nature. Her whole attitude toward him artlessly invited him to speak, but his manhood forbade it.

He was a puzzle, she thought, impatiently. Why did he not make a little effort to woo her, after having declared his love in no uncertain manner? She was not sure that she wanted to receive his advances if he should make any, but why did he not make them? She knew that she was interested in him, and she knew, also, that she was piqued by his apparent indifference. She knew he was like a smoldering volcano, and she had all a girl's curiosity to see it burst forth; but with the thought came a regret that their acquaintance would then be at an end.

"I can take you both up there now, if you wish," he said, coming around to the side of the buggy. "The seat is wide and I do not think you will be uncomfortable."

Hope had turned her eyes once more down the narrow, winding stretch of gray toward the Harris ranch.

"I think I will not go," she replied, still peering ahead from under the shade of her hand. "Yes, I am sure now that's Sydney. See, just going into the corral. Jim was to have brought me an extra saddle horse to-day, but Sydney has come instead, so I'll go back. Louisa can go alone with you." She motioned to the girl. "Come, Louisa, Mr. Livingston wants to take you for a little drive. I will be down there at the house when you come back."

The girl understood enough of their conversation to know where she was expected to go. Obediently, trustfully, with one loving glance at Hope, she climbed into the buggy beside Livingston and was soon riding rapidly up the mountain road to the grave of her sweetheart.