before I reach California, I shudder to think."

"It’s bound to improve," suggested Mary, with the easy optimism of one who
was leaving it. "It couldn’t be any worse than this, could it?"

The neuter pronoun, it might be well to state, signified the prairie; its
melancholy personality having penetrated the very marrow of their train
existence, they had come to refer to it by the monosyllable, as in certain
nether circles the head of the house receives his superlative distinction
in "He."

Again the locomotive shrieked, again the girl mechanically clutched the
suit-case, as presenting the most difficult item in the problem of
transportation, and this time the shriek was not an idle formality. The
train slowed down; the uneasy sleepers behind the green-striped curtains
stirred restlessly with the lessening motion of their uncouth cradle. The
porter came to help her, with the chastened mien of one whose hopes of
largess are small, the lady with the barnacles called after her redundant
farewells, and a moment later Miss Carmichael was standing on the station
platform looking helplessly after the train that toiled and puffed, yet
seemed, in that crystalline atmosphere, still within arm’s-reach. She
watched it till its floating pennant of smoke was nothing but a gray
feather blowing farther and farther out of sight on the flat prairie.

The town—it would be unkind to mention its name—had made merry the night
before at the comprehensive invitation of a sheepman who had just disposed
of his wool-clip, and who said, by way of general summons, "What’s the use
of temptin’ the bank?" "Town," therefore, when Mary Carmichael first made
its acquaintance, was still sleeping the sleep of the unjust. Those among
last night’s roisterers who had had to make an early start for their camps