"They're laconic in this country," Edgar remarked.

"Ever since I arrived in it, I've felt as if I were a mere piece of
baggage, to be hustled along anyway without my wishes counting."

"You'll get used to it after a while," George consoled him.

Entering the dark bar, Edgar refreshed himself with several ice-cooled
drinks, served in what he thought were unusually small glasses. He
felt somewhat astonished when he paid for them.

"Thirst's expensive on the prairie," he commented.

"Pump outside," drawled the attendant. "It's rather mean water."

They went upstairs to a very scantily furnished, doubled-bedded room.
George, warned by previous experience, glanced around.

"There's soap and a towel, anyway; but I don't see any water," he
remarked. "I'll take the jar; they'll have a rain-tank somewhere
about."

Edgar did not answer him. He was looking out of the open window, and
now that there was little to obstruct his view, the prospect interested
him. It had been a wet spring, and round the vast half-circle he
commanded the prairie ran back to the horizon, brightly green, until
its strong coloring gave place in the distance to soft neutral tones.
It was blotched with crimson flowers; in the marshy spots there were
streaks of purple; broad squares of darker wheat checkered the sweep of