Laura had been born at Jansen before even it had a name. Next
to her father she was the oldest inhabitant, and she had a prestige which
was given to no one else.
Everything had conspired to make her a figure of moment and interest.
She was handsome in almost a mannish sort of way, being of such height
and straightness, and her brown eyes had a depth and fire in which more
than a few men had drowned themselves. Also, once she had saved a
settlement by riding ahead of a marauding Indian band to warn their
intended victims, and had averted another tragedy of pioneer life.
Pioneers proudly told strangers to Jansen of the girl of thirteen who
rode a hundred and twenty miles without food, and sank inside the
palisade of the Hudson's Bay Company's fort, as the gates closed upon the
settlers taking refuge, the victim of brain fever at last. Cerebrospinal
meningitis, the doctor from Winnipeg called it, and the memory of that
time when men and women would not sleep till her crisis was past, was
still fresh on the tongues of all.
Then she had married at seventeen, and, within a year, had lost both her
husband and her baby, a child bereaved of her Playmates--for her husband
had been but twenty years old and was younger far than she in everything.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43