A Girl of the Plains Country

								


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A GIRL OF THE PLAINS COUNTRY
by
ALICE MACGOWAN
Author of “Judith of the Cumberlands,” etc.

New York
Frederick A. Stokes Company
MCMXXIV
Copyright, 1924, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

                                CONTENTS



                    I The Arrival

                   II An Affair of the Heart

                  III The Firing Squad

                   IV The Doll

                    V Poor Charley

                   VI A Child’s World

                  VII The Norther

                 VIII A Christmas Valentine

                   IX Stockings and Shoes

                    X The Carriage

                   XI The Roping Match

                  XII The Fugitive

                 XIII The-Boy-on-the-Train

                  XIV Some One Rides Away

                   XV No Questions Asked

                  XVI “Twen-ty-Sev-en-Hun-dred-Cat-tle!”

                 XVII With the Trail-Herd

                XVIII Sunday Comes Back

                  XIX Hilda and the Flying M’s

                   XX Hilda and the Blue Roan

                  XXI Another Chance

                 XXII Young Wings

                XXIII At the Alamositas

                 XXIV “Invitation to the Dance”

                  XXV The Dance at Grainger’s

                 XXVI As Maybelle Saw It

                XXVII Old Man Hipp’s Steer

               XXVIII The Closing of a Door

                 XXIX The Resurrection Plant

                  XXX The Return

                 XXXI A Telegram

                XXXII An Arrival

                    A GIRL OF THE PLAINS COUNTRY

                             CHAPTER I



                            THE ARRIVAL

The little girl on the back seat of the stage clung to one of the
uprights of the vehicle as though she feared that when it stopped
she would, in her enthusiasm, hurl herself bodily from it, and into
this strange, interesting, dusty life of the plains country.
Hank Pearsall, manager of the Three Sorrows Ranch, who had driven
the sixty miles in to Mesquite to meet the new owners coming all the
way from New York, looked at her small face with its pointed chin,
great black eyes under the thatch of dark curls, the repressed
vitality with which she sat there giving more of an impression of
urgency than most people could have given by running and jumping,
and thought to himself that here was one who would all her life be a
little happier, or a little more miserable, than the average.
The child returned his gaze with an eager, welcoming sort of look,