Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-09-17

measurements faltered not an inch from
the modern standard of perfection Her
glossy black hair was arranged in the lat
est fashion shown in the most recently ar
rived ladies' magazine in Lava Canyon.
Hex features We're clear cut and regular;
she had the eyes of Melpomene and the
heart OF the ancient British queen whose
name she bore.
Miss Boadicea Reed also had a secret.
Being woman, her dearest friends had
often heard it divulged. But as it was d
secret there needs must be those to whom
it was not impaired. That portion of hui
manity was the one denominated by Miss
Reed as the gentlemen This awful Sc
cret was that she had never, no, never, felt
the slightest sensation of fear or abash-
ment at any person or thing since she
could remember. Miss Boadicea despised
and condemned all the little feminine weak
nesses and terrors of her sex with all the
prejudice of one who did not understand
them. Had she been born with time and
circumstances in her favor she would have
led the overturning of a dynasty or two
captured by force the crown of some So
cial Queerdom, or at least have gone up in
balloon as the special female representa-
tive of one of the several greatest news
papers on earth. Snakes, dogs, spiders
gossip, lightning men-the partial list of
the things regarded by Miss Reed with a
serenity approaching contumely, will af-
ford slight conception of her intrepidity
OF spirit In the presence of man. the lord
OF creation, she felt no awe. Living in a
frontier mining town and possessing the
attractions she did, offers of marriage had
come years before, but her suitors had
never awakened in her a feeling softer
than comradcship. She had laughed at
most OF them, pitched one out the window
and Informed them all that they made
her tired In fact, there was nothing in
all creation, with or without life, that had
ever caused her a qualm a tremor. She
regarded robbers as vulgar persons be-
meath notice, serpents, horned toads mice
ara ella monsters as uninteresting and IN
terrifying Vermin too insignificant to dread.
Her secret ambition, cherished in good faith
until she was eighteen. had been to dress
in mans clothes and travel around the
word selling soap, or diamonds, patent
quartz crushers-anything would do. Since
she was twenty her ideas had toned down
to hrm resolve to be prima donna of
an opera troupe. and the gulch had for
many months echoed daily warnings that
1or clearness and volume, if not melodious-
ness, surpassed easily any voice in Lava
Canyon. The form within the crinkling
white muslin was a storage battery of i'm
petuous life and force that needed contin-
ualIy some object upon which to exhaust
its energy.
AS Boadicea swung in the grapevine. some
800 yards up the gulch from the house, she
turned her gaze idly toward thick clump
OF boshes, ana saw an eye with a good
deai OF req in the normally white portion
OF IL looking at her between the leaves
She sat bolt upright on the vine, and, as
II appeared TO be a mans eye, her hand
without any special volition of her brain
went to the knot of hair at the back of her
mead, smoothed 1t little. and thrust In the
pins more securely.
Come out of there" she said
Red-faced and heavy-eyed from drink
Arizona Dan, hitching up his revolverless
belt, shuttied his huge form through the
hexlIe branches of the bushes into the path
Sh-Sh-sh! he said, his heavy face fold
ing into dull smile intended to be reas-
surfing, L amt a-goin' to hurt you, miss :"
hurt met said Miss Reed, contemptu-
ousiy. i should think not. What are you
doing here?'
Just a-laytn low, miss, and waitin' for
night. Yer see, l was on what you might
call sort OF spree and broke a glass or
TWO Maybe somebody was hurt, too. The
whisky done it. A good-lookin' young lady