THE FIRST THROW OF THE ROPE 

 AND WHY 



"Sh! — She's asleep!" The tallest, roughest appear- 

 ing of five big, hard-boiled looking men raised a quiet 

 but warning finger to a newcomer and pointed farther 

 down the car. The train was a little freight with a 

 passenger annex that runs over the dust-swept plains 

 and through some little jerkwater towns of central 

 Washington. 



Pretty Miss Virginia had heard the call of the West 

 and came. Fatigued by a year of teaching and repres- 

 sion in a tight, little sectarian college she was now 

 speeding toward freedom and the great outdoors to a 

 Western uncle's ranch. 



The newcomer now made the seventh passenger — 

 six were men — she was the seventh. Her eyes had 

 wearied of the miles of fascinating, desert-looking 

 country with no signs of life, except little, timid, crawl- 

 ing things that scurried or slunk along through the 

 sage brush. But the one thing she had desired the last 

 month of her busy year more than anything was sleep 

 — so she curled up and — slept. 



When she awoke, the well-worn coat of one of the 

 five was spread over her, another rolled up, had been 

 tucked gently under her head. No one was talking or 

 making the slightest sound. At noon the conductor 



