Page:Ralph Connor - The Sky Pilot.djvu/117

Rh ?" I asked, for I confess I was not much taken with the picture The Duke had drawn.

"Her father simply follows behind her and adores, as do all things that come near her, down, or up, perhaps, to her two dogs—Wolf and Loo—for either of which she would readily die if need be. Still," he added, after a pause, "it is a shame, as you say. She ought to know something of the refinements of civilization, to which, after all, she belongs, and from which none of us can hope to escape." The Duke was silent for a few moments, and then added, with some hesitation: "Then, too, she is quite a pagan; never saw a prayer-book, you know." And so it came about, chiefly through The Duke's influence, I imagine, that I was engaged by the Old Timer to go up to his ranch every week and teach his daughter something of the elementaries of a lady's education.

My introduction was ominous of the many things I was to suffer of that same young maiden before I had finished my course with her. The Old Timer had given careful directions as to the trail that would lead me to the canyon where he was to meet me. Up the Swan went the trail, winding ever downward into deeper and narrower