for the first time I noticed a man who sat on the high gate of
the corral, looking on. For he now climbed down with the
undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy, as if his muscles flowed
beneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope,
some of them even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or
move. He appeared to hold the rope down low, by his leg. But like
a sudden snake I saw the noose go out its length and fall true;
and the thing was done. As the captured pony walked in with a
sweet, church-door expression, our train moved slowly on to the
station, and a passenger remarked, "That man knows his business."

But the passenger's dissertation upon roping I was obliged to
lose, for Medicine Bow was my station. I bade my
fellow-travellers good-by, and descended, a stranger, into the
great cattle land. And here in less than ten minutes I learned
news which made me feel a stranger indeed.

My baggage was lost; it had not come on my train; it was adrift
somewhere back in the two thousand miles that lay behind me. And
by way of comfort, the baggage-man remarked that passengers often
got astray from their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them
after a while. Having offered me this encouragement, he turned
whistling to his affairs and left me planted in the baggage-room
at Medicine Bow. I stood deserted among crates and boxes, blankly
holding my check, hungry and forlorn. I stared out through the
door at the sky and the plains; but I did not see the antelope
shining among the sage-brush, nor the great sunset light of
Wyoming. Annoyance blinded my eyes to all things save my
grievance: I saw only a lost trunk. And I was muttering
half-aloud, "What a forsaken hole this is!" when suddenly from