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There was no doubt of that; neither was there any doubt that the big, frowzy, red-headed, red-faced, over-fat woman sitting near the door-way, smoking a pipe quite comfortably, was very much alive. She rocked idly back and forth amid her surroundings of squalid disorder, and paid no attention whatever to the piercing wails proceeding from a cradle in the middle of the room.

We took refuge from the hardest of it in a lonely chalet high up on the hillside, where a roughly dressed, frowzy Swiss, who spoke bad German, and said he was a schoolmaster, gave us a bench in the shed of his schoolroom. He had only two pupils in attendance, and I did not get a very favorable impression of this high school.

The open forest road, with the murmur of the stream below, was delightfully exhilarating, and as we rose the prospect opened, the lovely valley below, Bald Mountains behind us, and the Butt Mountains rising as we came over the ridge. Nobody on the way, none of the frowzy women or unintelligent men, knew anything of the route, or could give us any information of the country beyond.

What had become of the row of white beds, with Dearwyn's rosy face on the next pillow? And she herself why was she lying on the outside of the covers, with all her clothes on, a cramped aching heap? Rising on her elbow, she gazed wonderingly at the frowzy woman stretched near her on a pallet.

The road can be described as awful, steep, stony, the horses unable to make two miles an hour on it. Now and then we encountered a rude log cabin without barns or outhouses, and a little patch of feeble corn. The women who regarded the passers from their cabin doors were frowzy and looked tired.

There is a harmony between the breakfast and the frowzy Gaelic cook we saw "sozzling" about in the kitchen. There is a harmony between the appearance of the house and the appearance of the buxom young housekeeper who comes upon the scene later, her hair saturated with the fatty matter of the bear. The traveler will experience a pleasure in paying his bill and departing.

You can see them lying behind those boulders with their leathern cheeks pressed close to their rifle-stocks, their narrowed eyes peering along the lined sights; and then, as time went on, crouching behind the bodies of their slain horses. And you can picture the turbaned Apaches with their frowzy hair and the ugly smears of paint across their grinning faces.

The lady kind uv started like she wuz frightened, 'nd then she looked up at Bill 'nd looked him right square in the countenance. She saw a tall, ganglin', awkward man, with long yaller hair 'nd frowzy beard, 'nd she saw that he wuz tremblin' 'nd hed tears in his eyes.

The frowzy girl disappeared into this retired spot, and in about the space of time that would be occupied by an enterprising woman in rolling down her sleeves, taking off her apron, and washing her hands, the door opened, and Mrs. Seymour presented herself.

It was not a shabby, dingy cart, but a smart little house upon wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red. Neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated horse, for a pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from the shafts, and grazing upon the frowzy grass.