CHAPTER IX
GWEN
It was not many days after my arrival in the Foothill country that I began to hear of Gwen. They all had stories of her. The details were not many, but the impression was vivid. She lived remote from that centre of civilization known as Swan Creek in the postal guide, but locally as Old Latour's, far up among the hills near the Devil's Lake, and from her father's ranch she never ventured. But some of the men had had glimpses of her and had come to definite opinions regarding her.
"What is she like?" I asked Bill one day, trying to pin him down to something like a descriptive account of her.
"Like! She's a terrer," he said, with slow emphasis, "a holy terrer."
"But what is she like? What does she look like?" I asked impatiently.
"Look like?" He considered a moment, looked
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