THE GIRL FROM MONTANA by GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 1922 * * * * * Books By GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL April Gold Happiness Hill The Beloved Stranger The Honor Girl Bright Arrows Kerry Christmas Bride Marigold Crimson Roses Miranda Duskin The Mystery of Mary Found Treasure Partners A Girl to Come Home To Rainbow Cottage The Red Signal White Orchids Silver Wings The Tryst The Strange Proposal Through These Fires The Street of the City All Through the Night The Gold Shoe Astra Homing Blue Ruin Job's Niece Challengers The Man of the Desert Coming Through the Rye More Than Conqueror Daphne Deane A New Name The Enchanted Barn The Patch of Blue Girl from Montana The Ransom Rose Galbraith The Witness Sound of the Trumpet Sunrise Tomorrow About This Time Amorelle Head of the House Ariel Custer In Tune with Wedding Bells Chance of a Lifetime Maris Crimson Mountain Out of the Storm Exit Betty Mystery Flowers The Prodigal Girl Girl of the Woods Re-Creations The White Flower Matched Pearls Time of the Singing of Birds Ladybird The Substitute Guest Beauty for Ashes Stranger Within the Gate The Best Man Spice Box By Way of the Silverthorns The Seventh Hour Dawn of the Morning The Search Brentwood Cloudy Jewel The Voice in the Wilderness Books By RUTH LIVINGSTON HILL Mary Arden (_with Grace Livingston Hill_) Morning Is for Joy John Nielson Had a Daughter Bright Conquest Dedicated to MISS VIRGINIA COWAN OF COWAN, MONTANA, WHOSE BRIGHT, BREEZY LETTERS AIDED ME IN WRITING OF ELIZABETH'S EXPERIENCES IN THE WEST CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL II. THE FLIGHT III. THE PURSUIT IV. THE TWO FUGITIVES V. A NIGHT RIDE VI. A CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS VII. BAD NEWS VIII. THE PARTING IX. IN A TRAP X. PHILADELPHIA AT LAST XI. IN FLIGHT AGAIN XII. ELIZABETH'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE XIII. ANOTHER GRANDMOTHER XIV. IN A NEW WORLD XV. AN EVENTFUL PICNIC XVI. ALONE AGAIN XVII. A FINAL FLIGHT AND PURSUIT CHAPTER I THE GIRL, AND A GREAT PERIL The late afternoon sun was streaming in across the cabin floor as the girl stole around the corner and looked cautiously in at the door. There was a kind of tremulous courage in her face. She had a duty to perform, and she was resolved to do it without delay. She shaded her eyes with her hand from the glare of the sun, set a firm foot upon the threshold, and, with one wild glance around to see whether all was as she had left it, entered her home and stood for a moment shuddering in the middle of the floor. A long procession of funerals seemed to come out of the past and meet her eye as she looked about upon the signs of the primitive, unhallowed one which had just gone out from there a little while before. The girl closed her eyes, and pressed their hot, dry lids hard with her cold fingers; but the vision was clearer even than with her eyes open.