The weekly examiner., 1901-05-11
COMMEND4BLE
 BETRAYAL $
By c. M. Stevans.
 Copyright, 1901, by Authors syndicate)

n HILLIE LOWE grew like a solitary
 wild flower in a wilderness. Her father was a Black Hills gold seeker, and failing in that began to raise horses in the edge of the Dakota Bad Lands. When the soldiers of Fort Meade had made the place compara- lively safe, he sent for his wife and four sons to join him. billie was then too young to know much of events, and when she was 16 there had been little for her to remember but horses, herders and Lieut.. James. And yet she was far from being unac- complished. She could lasso and GU. horses out of the herd equal to the best of them, and she read all the most popular magazines, although they were two or three months old before Lieut.. James could get them to her. /,<
 billie was past IS when the interest of Lieut.. James in her plainly passed beyond furnishing a pretty girl with magazines and books. The immediate cause that brought this interest to the surface was the shock produced on Lieut.. James when he arrived one day with bundle of magazines and books tied to his saddle and found billie at the lower end of the sand draw eating buffalo berries with How Grimes. The lieutenant was hand some young man whose fine military bearing added greatly to his appear ance, but How Grimes was a rollick ing westerner, born to the ways of 1,x, T f<> n rry-f, a half dozen ranches, each Of them with horses enough to make him aTr acceptable suitor for any of the belles of the plains.
 billie began to introduce the two young men when she saw look in the lieutenant's face that froze the words on her lips.
 ''We have met before," he said, stiff 1y. Perhaps MT. Grimes will remem- Der the affair-at Red Gap"
 ''Very well," replied How Grimes with as polite and expressive a move ment of the head and hand as the free and easy manners of the plains man possessed. "Old dog Tray near 1y got his death that day for being in bad company. have always wished
 
 you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. Those horsethieves did me sorry trick and I would like nothing better than to pay them back in their own coin. Did you ever find the own CT of the horse they traded me?''
 70, yes,'' replied the lieutenant: ''he caught up with us about an hour after you so cleverly departed and I imagine it would have gone rather hard with you if he had been able to find you.''
 Lieut.. James turned his horse ab- ruptly' and went on to the house. When billie came in he was about to leave for the fort, although it would be nearly midnight before he could arrive there, and it had always been his custom to stay over night. Plain S1y something was very much wrong and billie had good cry over her first real sorrow. Her mother said she must expect such displays of Jealousy in men, and that the good standing of How Grimes was too. we'll verified for her or her daughter to feel any doubts about him, besides she was not sure that it was a good thing for a girl to marry soldier. who was liable to be shot almost any day.
 After that How Grimes came fre- quent1y, considering that it was near 1y hundred miles to his nearest ranch, and the lieutenant came more often, although his duties at the fort were very exacting.
 Dil1je was quite distracted, and at the end of a year when How Grimes asked her to be his wife, she was al- most beside herself trying to know her own mind. Fortunately, the two young men had not met each other at her house since the first day. and neither had ever mentioned the other.
 How Grimes was coming on the 1st of May for his answer, and the moro she thought and wept over what she should say the more fixed became the belief that she. did not and could not love him enough to be his wife. Her father and mother were both furious that she should let such good chance for husband go by. They argued that chances did not grow as thick as sand grass.
 But the eventful day had come and billie heard the rollicking laugh of How Grimes as he passed the plains mans badinage with her father at the stable just over the hill. Some,