Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/61

 dragged to the doorway the blue glazed zinc trunk containing the Bible, the family album and her doll and sat down on the doorstep to investigate. She chose the doorway, flooded in sunshine and with the stupendous panorama of the tumbling divides and the Broken Horns unrolled to infinite distances, because somehow the gnawing pain of lonesomeness was less sensible away from the dark corners of the house. Out from the trunk came a square tin box which she had never dared open before; it had been a Bluebeard's cache, exclusively the prerogative of her father to explore. Almost a thrill of expectation attending turning the key and lifting of the lid.

Nothing within to justify thrills. Just a sheaf of papers, a yellow-bound bank book, a portentous document with the arms of the United States graven in the midst of a frilled and curlicued border,—and a photograph. Hilma snatched at the latter the instant she spied it and let the hot sunshine fall on its dimmed surface while she gazed at it many minutes without movement. A woman—a very young woman—gazed back at her from the glossed surface. She stood, in wedding dress and veil, one hand stiffly holding a